About half way along the southern shore of Lake Tarawera the lake shoots towards the south in a long narrow arm called Te: Ariki, and it is djwn this bay that the boat turns to make for Rotoraahaua; but whilst rowing in the main body of the lake this arm is concealed from view by a spnr which'slopes down'towards the water and, terminating in a sharp cape, forms the western head of the bay. On the left rises the remarkable Mount Tara wera, its three summits (Tarawera, Ruawahia, and Wahanga) rising to a height of nearly 2000ft. There is a strange fascination about this, curious truncated mountain. It looks bare and scarred, its steep walls rising up black and terrible as if blasted with lightning—the very sublimity of desolation. No wonder that the Maori imagination invests this spot with a sacred horror. It is to them a city of the dead, and may not lightly be approached; and when clouds gather round its summit and roll in heavy masses along its sides, driven by the fierce winds that play about the crest, it requires no active imagination to people it with weird and spiritual terrors. Opposite the mountain, ou the right side of the Te Ariki arm, is a remark able hill, readily recognised as the site of a former pah, a position of great strength when the tomahawk and the spear were the war weapons. This is Pukekiore (Rat Mountain), and as the name indicates, must have been the resort of the only mammal member of the New Zealand fauna—the Kiore, or native rat, long since exterminated by its Norwegian congener. Tu his work on ±he Geology of New Zealand Dr Taylor thus describe^ LAKE TARAWEIiA. Its shores are rugged and rocky and steep ; its waters deeply and darkly blue. The lake extends some seven or eight miles lengthwise, and is five or six miles in breadth. The three ■flat cones of Tarawera mountains loom loftily to the south-east 2000ft above the sea level, and eastward,-through a gap in the ranges, the towering peak'of .Mount Edgcumbe is plainly visible. Through that gap in the ranges runs Tarawera's outlet, Awa o te Atua (River of the Gods), past Edgcumbe, aud away on to the Bay of Plenty. At some distance from its source the river forms a magnificent waterfall. 