With Hochstetter Through the North Island.

In 1859, Dr. Hochstetter having been commissioned by the Government in Auckland, with the consent of the Austrian Government, to carry out a geological examination of the interior of the province, the two new friends, with a large party, set out up the page 18 Waikato River by Maori canoe. From the Waipa they travelled through the region that afterwards became the King Country, to Lake Taupo, then to Rotorua and back to Auckland.

The late Mr. L. M. Grace, the Taupo missionary's son, told me that one Sunday morning the family were at prayers in the mission home at Pukawa, at the south end of Lake Taupo, when he saw as he looked up a line of men with packs on their backs approaching the house. The strangers halted when they heard the voice of the missionary, the Rev. Thomas Samuel Grace, and stood there in silence near the porch until the devotions were over.

Then they introduced themselves—Hochstetter and Haast and their party. The scientists were most hospitably received and made free of Pukawa while they remained; educated Europeans were too seldom seen in that remote part of the country.

The geologists examined the country and particularly the thermal springs region extending to Rotomahana and Rotorua. Dr. Hochstetter's description in his large book on New Zealand is of special interest in this section for purposes of comparison with present conditions in the Geyserland country.

The Maori War in Taranaki and the looming war in Waikato checked for a time European immigration to the colony. Haast had sent reports to the leading German periodicals on his explorations. Dr. Hochstetter returned to Europe, taking with him as guests of the Austrian Government two Waikato Maori chiefs, who returned with many gifts, and then cheerfully took up gun and tomahawk with their tribesfolk in the Waikato War. By the time of their return Haast was established in the South as Canterbury Provincial Geologist.