For a radius from where we stood of over 100 miles the whole country was mapped out and clearly defined beneath us. In the north, towering to the skies, we could discern the familiar forms of Pirongia, Karioi, Maungatautari, Te Aroha, Ngongotaha, Hapurangi, and flat-topped Horohoro, with Tarawera, Putauaki, and Tauhara standing further to the east. The forms of Titiraupenga, Rangitoto, Haurakia, Tapirimoko, and Haurungatahi rose above the forests of the King Country; the pointed summit of Hikurangi shot upward from the East Coast, and snow-clad Taranaki stood like a sentinel in the west, while Pihanga and Tongariro rose majestically from the plains below--all grand, isolated peaks, standing alone, and whose united altitudes, together with that of the giant mountain on which we stood, would exceed twice the height of Himalayas above the sea. All the intervening space was covered with mountain, valley, river, plain, and lake, and was so clearly defined, that we could trace all the grand features of the country as if delineated upon a plan. In the centre of all shone the broad waters of Taupo as they stretched away like an inland sea--the winding form of Lake Rotoaira shone like a mirror in the plain below--and the miniature lakes on Tongariro looked like big turquoise set in a circle of adamant. Indeed, every feature of this wide expanse of country was both varied and beautiful. The broad, rolling expanse of plain which we had beheld during the night, with its coating of frost, was now radiant in its vivid mantle of green, which was relieved here and there by the winding rivers and rushing streams which burst from the sides of the great mountain and sped onward to join the Waikato as it wound along the base of the Kaimanawa Mountains, which rose like a series of undulating terraces, clothed with dark forests, above which their serrated peaks stood out in bold relief against the sky. Beyond the far-reaching mountains stupendous heights arose in the direction of the south-east, range after range, rolling away as far as the eye could reach to the distant Ruahine Mountains, whose stupendous outline bound the horizon in that direction.
[Illustration: THE ICE CROWN, POINT VICTORIA.]