REPORT FROM THE COMMISSIONER

6

Lying between the settlement of Eaglan and the "Waikato is an endowment estate of 10,000 acres for a Colonial University, and contiguous to it a grant in trust of 3,000 acres to the loyal chief Wiremu Nera, for the JSTgatimahanga tribe. As the main road from the Waikato to the West Coast would have to go in this direction, I was ordered by the Hon. the Native Minister, in February last, to report on the most suitable line for such road. I ex mined four different passes, and crossed the dividing range eight times, through a densely-wooded and mountainous country, and at length found a pass with easy gradients, and by which a road two miles and sixty chains shorter than the present mail track could be carried. The Natives, who are anxious to work-in the formation of this road, do not object to its being taken in part over their land. I have prepared a separate report and plan on the subjectof this road that will lie available for the information of the Assembly. CHARLES HEAPHY, Trustee of Native Reserves. Auckland, 19th July, 1871.