Marlen.
But there was no illusion here. The bells were chiefly musket barrels,
and they hung in actual raupo chapels built by Maori hands!

On leaving the river the expedition had before them a week's march to
Taupo. For three days this meant climbing steep mountains and sliding
down precipices, creeping along the trunks of fallen trees, or worming a
way underneath them. On the fourth morning the travellers emerged into
the open country at the foot of Mt. Ruapehu, and took their way across
the pumice plateau. Their food was now nearly exhausted, and it was in a
"tight-belted" condition that, on the last day but one of the old year,
they saw the great lake glittering before them. Villages clustered round
its shores, and in most of them there stood a chapel erected at the
instance of Chapman and his Rotorua teachers. Williams enjoyed the
feeling of being once more on the track of other missionaries; nor did
he despise the evidences of their care which met him from time to time
on his way--tea and sugar in one place and a horse in another--until he
at last reached Rotorua in a somewhat exhausted condition, and was
thankful to rest once more on the island, in Morgan's quiet abode.

A still more pleasant surprise awaited the dauntless traveller on his
further journey to Tauranga. While pushing his way through wet bush, he
suddenly met Mr. William Williams, who in the midst of his migration to
the east coast had been blown into Tauranga by contrary winds. On
entering the village the brothers held a meeting, at which it was
resolved to send a missionary to Whanganui without delay, both for the
sake of the earnest enquirers in that district, and to afford some
companionship to Hadfield in his lonely post at Otaki. The man chosen
for this duty was the Rev. J. Mason, who had lately arrived in the
country. Henry Williams arrived at his home on Jan. 18th, 1840, in time
to negotiate the Treaty of Waitangi, which will fall to be considered in
a different connection.

Twenty-five years had elapsed since Marsden had brought the tidings of
Christianity to New Zealand, and his settlers had begun in fear and
trembling to lay the foundation stones of the Church in this new land.
Now, there was hardly a district of the North Island into which the
knowledge of the truth had not penetrated. We have watched its progress
in north and east and south-west and centre. The Wesleyan missionaries
were working down the west coast. Only the south-ea