[Illustration:  On A river—­“Papa” Country

Photo by A. Martin, Wanganui.]

Of forest rivers, the Wanganui is the longest and most famous, perhaps the most beautiful.  Near the sea it is simply a broad river, traversed by boats and small steamers, and with grassy banks dotted with weeping willows or clothed with flax and the palm-lily.  But as you ascend it the hills close in.  Their sides become tall cliffs, whose feet the water washes.  From the tops of these precipices the forest, growing denser and richer at every turn, rises on the flanks of the hills.  In places the cliffs are so steep and impracticable that the Maoris use ladders for descending on their villages above to their canoes in the rivers below.  Lovely indeed are these cliffs; first, because of the profusion of fern frond, leaf, and moss, growing from everything that can climb to, lay hold of, or root itself in crack, crevice, or ledge, and droop, glistening with spray-drops, or wave whispering in the wind; next, because of the striking form and colour of the cliffs themselves.  They are formed of what is called “Papa.”  This is a blue, calcareous clay often found with limestone, which it somewhat resembles.  The Maori word “papa” is applied to any broad, smooth, flattish surface, as a door, or to a slab of rock.  The smooth, slab-like, papa cliffs are often curiously marked—­tongued and grooved, as with a gouge, channelled and fluted.  Sometimes horizontal lines seem to divide them into strata.  Again, the lines may be winding and spiral, so that on looking at certain cliffs it might be thought possible that the Maoris had got from them some of their curious tattoo patterns.  Though pale and delicate, the tints of the rock are not their least beauty.  Grey, yellow, brown, fawn, terra-cotta, even pale orange are to be noted.  No photograph can give the charm of the drapery that clothes these cliffs.  Photographs give no light or colour, and New Zealand scenery without light and colour is Hamlet with Hamlet left out.  How could a photograph even hint at the dark, glossy green of the glistening karaka leaves, the feathery, waving foliage of the lace bark, or the white and purple bloom of the koromiko?  How could black-and-white suggest the play of shade and shine when, between flying clouds, the glint of sunlight falls upon the sword-bayonet blades of the flax, and the golden, tossing plumes of the toe-toe, the New Zealand cousin of the Pampas grass?  Add to this, that more often than the passenger can count as he goes along the river, either some little rill comes dripping over the cliff, scattering the sparkling drops on moss and foliage, or the cliffs are cleft and, as from a rent in the earth, some tributary stream gushes out of a dark, leafy tunnel of branches.  Sometimes, too, the cliffs are not cleft, but the stream rushes from their summit, a white waterfall veiling the mossy rocks.  Then there are the birds.  In mid-air is to be seen the little fan-tail, aptly