ue grouping of forms and tints. There are
emerald feathery fern-trees, copper-tinted "lancewoods," with their
hair-like tufts, the tropic strangeness of nikau palms, crested
cabbage-trees, red birch and white ti-tree, stately kauri, splendid
totara, bulky rimu, dark glossy koraka, spreading rata, and half the
arboreal catalogue of the country besides.

And, in their several seasons, the blossoms which all the evergreen
trees and shrubs put forth bloom more brightly here than elsewhere;
and, while creepers of strange and beautiful forms twine and suspend and
stretch from tree to tree, the woodland greenery is set with a rich
variety of scarlet cups and crimson tassels, of golden bells or
flesh-pink clusters, or the darker depths are lit up by showering masses
of star-like clematis.

Terrace above terrace, receding from the water's edge, the encircling
lines of bush rise upwards and away, until at last the leafy mantle
flows over the summit of the topmost range. Far back, and central, in
the wide sweep of the amphitheatre is a sudden dip in the outline. It is
the opening of a little gully, through which a hidden stream comes down
below the trees and babbles out across the shingle; and that opening
just reveals Mount Marahemo behind. His wooded crest has caught the
tinted radiance of the sunset, and stands out in glorious relief against
the purpling background of sky, framed in the glowing beauty of the
nearer Puke Tapu.

Such is our show-place, the "Sacred Soil," where sleep the departed
warriors of the Ngatewhatua. The bell-bird and the tui sing a requiem
over them by day, while the morepork and the kiwi wail for them at
night. And the wonderful loveliness of this spot, where they fought and
died, might well inspire a Tennyson to pen another "Locksley Hall."

"Jee--roosalem!" sighed Dandy Jack. "Only put _that_ on canvas, and hang
it in Burlington House, and what an advertisement it would be for us!"

Old Colonial goes on to tell the tale of Te Puke Tapu, in the intervals
of hauling up schnapper. He says--

"The boys call it 'The Burying Ground,' because of the bones and skulls
that are lying about or stuck up in the trees. That's rather misleading,
though, for it was never a wahi tapu, or native cemetery. This bay was
evidently the landing-place or port for Marahemo, and the subordinate
kaingas on the ranges yonder. You can see it was naturally that. As such
there would be constant traffic through it, even if ther