th, from Helensville on to
Whangarei.]

CHAPTER IV.

IN THE KAIPARA.

The next morning after our arrival at Helensville, we go down to the
wharf, close behind the hotel, and embark on board the steamer _Lily_.
This vessel is the only regular means of communication, at present, with
the young settlements lying round the Kaipara. She is a much larger
craft than the _Gemini_, but she is of the same ancient and ruinous
character. One would have thought that, on these new waters, such craft
as there were must necessarily be new also.[4] Such does not appear to
be the case, however, for the steam service on the Waitemata and the
Kaipara is conducted by very second-hand old rattle-traps. Where they
were worn out I know not. Bad as they are, they are considered a local
improvement, for, until quite recently, settlers had to depend on small
sailing-boats, that plied very irregularly.

The Kaipara is a name applied rather indiscriminately to a river, a
harbour, and to a tract of country. The Kaipara river is that on which
Helensville stands. It waters an extensive valley, and, flowing
north-westerly, falls into the Kaipara Harbour, some miles below
Helensville. It is tidal to a short distance above the settlement.

The harbour is a vast inlet of the sea, almost land-locked, since its
entrance, the Heads, is only about three or four miles wide. Opening
from the harbour are sundry great estuaries, resembling the sea-lochs of
Western Scotland. They are the Kaipara, the Hoteo, the Oruawharo, the
Otamatea, the Wairau, the Arapaoa, and the Wairoa. Several of these have
branches. Thus the Pahi, to which we are going, branches out of the
Arapaoa. They are fed by creeks--that is to say, by freshwater rivers,
as one would call them at home. The tidal estuaries are here called
rivers; and the freshwater streams, of whatever size, creeks.

All these waters have the generic name of the Kaipara. The united
water-frontage is said to be over a thousand miles; and nearly two
million acres of land lying round are comprised within the so-called
Kaipara district. Ships of heavy tonnage can get up to Tokatoka on the
Wairoa, to Te Pahi and Te Otamatea, and within a short distance of
Helensville, these places being, respectively, from twenty-five to
thirty-five miles from the Heads. Smaller vessels can, of course, go
anywhere. The Wairoa creek is navigable for schooners and cutters for
more than eighty miles, as well as its tributaries,