OUR LITERARY CORNER.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 14281, 17 February 1912, Page 7

OUR LITERARY CORNER.

A VALLEY OF ENCHANTMENT. (AH Hights Rt-scrved.) ' t 'f (Bt B. E. n.vrcHAN.) '«' (seSCtiUAT WBITTEN- FOR "THE TRESS."). f;'' As wo walk up the littlo green gully '"■ between tho low green hills, everything " • i»" very peaceful, almost monotonous. i The tenth is of a uniform grey-green, ■ and has a sparse, slender effect, for it is '-. ' all manuka, with the exception, here and thero, of a little dark, glossy tutu. Tho.suti shines, a cricket chirps, thero is a gentle murmur from tho hidden rreek below. Nothing in the way of valleys could well be more ordinary. Only—what is happening in tho green depth, a little way beyond us? Clouds k, keep continually burstiug up out of it — '■ '?' great white clouds, very clean ahd :, bright and shining. Now, for a ""' ■ moment, thero is none; now, suddenly, a snow-whito column begins to curl up :'< into tho blue; up and up, till it appears to mingle and make one with tho !■;■ little while clouds of the sky, miles 4r aloft. Now another breaks < out from V . another ; point—now another. You is might think thoro was a railway sta- *:- tion down there, but that all is so V: noiseless;. or some factory with furnaces ff. ever newly stcked, but that tho smoke T'■is so extraordinarily clean. We ap- {*.-*. preach;'and now a faint, queer, smell, *' not unpleasant, but suggestive, some--0 how, of'a laboratory, begins to mingle " with tne perfume of tho manuka-, and ■'". a low rumolo, perhaps, strikes one's oar, liko that of a distant coach travelling. Wo descend; the columns of briglic w_it«( aro now conjoined into a bright . white wall, rolling, rolling up, beyond us and abovo, into tho clear sky. You can see the manuka trees, taller down f here, j detached darkly upon it. But A now* tho sky is veiled, tho branches ( - vanish-and emerge; opalescent vapours ,cor_e and go; we are in tho valley and among tho clouds. " It, is a lovely iittlo bit of woodland. The" manuka bouglis, like great soft plumes, wave everywhere overhead; tho running creek sparkles in its depth; and everywhere about the creek are ', .heaped, in glorious profusion, mosses in great cushions of a green extraordinarily sweet and vivid, and ferns unusually delicate, luxuriant and bright. - Tlio wealth of their colour is . almost tropical, no ordinary bush gully '' . can compare with this." But what is all .this noise of many waters? Waters /ailing, flowing, soothing, churning, ;. now and again, too, crashing, as thougn . somo great wave had broken. And ' - what are these strange puffs of warm f air, laden with queer scents? and these, ', mealing, noiseless vapours, now conr i coaling, now revealing boughs aud sky 'f i!" Walk on, and we shall see. Here is a. * large greenish-coloured pool, the creek - runs into it, soft manuka surrounds it. *-■, Ahf what was that, just under our, V ' feetP" What knocked? Nothing, only, ir somebody soems to he splitting wood n \. 'Bttiij'-way r 6ft. No," but'there it. is ■fr' knock, as of some giant ■•'- -* x deep down' under our .'* t "fflet s& ,we stand by the,'ppbl. Listen;; ■■ .-/tnat ••was'it, 1 but further ofty but did--1 not ..the- CtQnnd tro'mbleP How un.cannyj. ""There again—the Bame •Treat. - blow.-yet nothing to show for it. What is it? It is called the Steam-Hammer; asj'td whatsit i% .nobody for .certain, Jnjoni. Tho Maoris say that it is the doorkeeper of the taniwha who lives below; there, giving warning to his master of tho approach of trespassers. Another explanation postulates the exist«Jnco of an underground goyser, or vent-hole.. Tako your choice, or start a theory of yonr own —there is nothing to Trerent —the field of conjecture is i wide here, and open. As wo leavft the Steam-Hammer. and ' cross, the crook, do yon notice thattho - latter is smoking? Feel it; how many hush cullies hnva warm-water creeks? . - Now lip this littlo side-path, carefully avoWinVr, any short cuts" among tho . Welv ferns and mosses-, for do yon see hew, here and thero steam rises, nay, btthblt-s oven break, from the plnshy jrroiind between them P And what, ir tM<= ? ; T A staiiraso of pink coral, with little podb .of water *on each step, and a. siaWav staircase of rjreen .roalachitn, somewhat slimy certainly, but affording a" charming contrast of colour. • Let' ns follow no. tho little path at tW-aido. but not. too far, for] ont a '-, kmo 1 bf rink gullet in the hillside, at " % , of the'pink staircase, broinons -'»nip! 9 afo i issuing, deep guttural gurgles, and also a little steam. Ah, -. we;camo, just at the right moment, for'rtnis pink coral geyser plays oni.v ', . every two or three hours, and here "t -Js now, just beginning; first a Tittle crystal shower is flung tip ont of tho gullet,'then more, snravs and gnshe3 of water ; nono very hi eh, and a great, ascension of vapour, blue-white. # But .* ' • tho part of tho show is the » rasc-dinti; of the ejected water down the 'pink stairway, in sndden rionlos and" glances •of light. Ahd close to the ; foot is another lovely sight—a : large pool of shining, pale-blnish. perfectly pellucid water in a setting if tho tendert>st, % greenest, moss and ferns, and lippinc a margin of brignfc white and pink and red, beneath a xlay. cliff of deep brown passing into rose-red. How cool it all looks, but * the water steams, now and then; too, it suddenly boils np, and all is veiled for a moment in vapour. This is the Artist's Pool, and a prettier one would * take -some finding. There are ' wore strange things to see in its neighbourhood, but we must get on up the valley, so back with us to tho. , cr «*!,and tho cliff that leans .abovo^. it, stained curiously with pink and pnee. Is that a skull beside it—an .immense fractured skull, blocking."np the entrance to that chasm in the rear? Legend says so—either the skull or some other part of the '-inapt. „? 7 /V 011 - 0 demi-god who fell here v 'SHm.™.J* eavcn and was killed; othw Mjuihorities pronounce it to bo but a '**£?* P w °- f P^ trifi ed wood; in either 5 , ls na PPening behind ,it? ' plumes, ten to twelve feet high .-'«««« wat< ?_ -««!», *os»»nt_ no incesI - ™»li m i r h ?,- boihn S*Pool that it / oonerab. and falling with tho crash >f ' SS!. 118 Wis Te Be *<> Reke ocw > sion a% he exerts himself -' * fnri-f 'J p - , tt splendid "shot" ? S£ tv - He-h-aa-aomein-- ' Gc_^?„ n ?L shbonr3 ' . t<M . the, Funnels. " donr^» y •i ,cy rcn) ?"} " q-ietly within r_lft.S^__ i 8 . in „ tho Pink-and-puco «W»i t + hen °? t of tn e other, a little •r__^H« r S B B et \ e^ns suddenly to ' - i f ffiLSl 'h^\£* Rln f *° smoke ' £i™£ +>. VY 1 *- b ?« h t water; suddenly, K%? tho & ol tho wk above over f , ■*««> lavs, and.&ll is done "' f™. f -rther on, and there .|comes a wide interruption the overt ■-"'' t*m& e Tff An°nifcom P f_: ' ' -C t g n ■' , o . r u incline, sloping £'^a^i*^«& o^;'-^l^^i^^<-^l<. , \ ■>■•: ... -

ORIGINAL AND SELECTED MATTER.

NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

B. E. BATJGHAX

i from it, hero and there—notably from a largo rooky basin on our right, out of which, every few minutes, showers of white writer .iro tossed up, with the occasional accompaniment of a noise exactly like that of a paddle-wheel. The patfi leads up to this basin, and v?e can stand and look down into-its dark bluewater, troubled, every four minutes or so, by a snow-white seething and ebullition on its further side, and, at longer intervals, by a similar disturbance jitst benoath our standing-place. The fact is, that within this onein two geysers I have their orifice —the Paddle-wheel and the Twin, once separated by a rocky wall that of late years has" vanished*. There is another singular, thing, too, about this basin. It contains, jutting out from one side of it, just bolow the surface of the water, a bit of rock, with'a red and white splash on it, and, every time just before the Twin begins to play, this rock, tho Dancing Rock, as it is called, appears violently to heave up and down, twice, tho water then breaking into such commotion that you can descry the rock no more. T>oes it really "dance"? or is its movement but an optical delusion? Opinions are divided, higher up the terrace, there is another, and very beautiful geyser, which plays in three nlunies, like tho Prince of Wales's feathers, after which it has been named ; and all along the top of the strange ■slope more pools boil and seethe —they aro becoming so common that one hardly notices them, and wo must, besides, press on, past the Devil's Punchbowl, out of which a hidden fiend appears to bo casting handfuls of boiling water at the traveller; past the Eagle's Nest geyser, throwing up-its beautiful fountains above a rounded incrustation that looks like in+erwovch white sticks; past the. Fairy Dell, down which n little warnwvator creek delicately winds its way among mosses liko wet emeralds for depth and vividness of hue; and so out upon a torrace-top of pinkbrown and rose-red earths, velyetod with mosses, and punctuated with innumcrablo little glittering jets of smoke. The view down the valley is worth seeing from here —the groen valley of I branches, the opal valley of vapours, now veiling, now nnveilmji—a waverinc world, unsubstantial. But the view below opposite is more enthralling yet. There is a groat chasm in the hillside just across tho creek here, a chasm filled, for the most part, with a thick, ascending white cloud. But, sometimes, the cloud lifts for a moment, and then one can - see tho great dark-blno pool, forty feet or so in diameter, that nils tho "chasm with perpetual commotion. This is the Champagne Cauldron— really a multiple geyser. r< ow the white heads of boiling water appear on this side of it, now on the other, veiled in steam, the likeness of a great white form seems rsirig. the water ripples snd fizzes towards the outer Ul? of tno cnnMmn. the white' cloud thickens and r thickens, -we can-see.no more. But the slope or terrace.■ reaching - from cauldron to creek is more constantly, thonch still inconstantly, /in sisrht. and that is a wonder in itself.. *.or its surface is of smooth white sinter, of the aspect of ivory or marble, and this, whiteness is ' broken hero and there' by pools like ~jewels--aquam-arines and opals—and enamelled with, wide washes of brilliant and astonishing .old-gold, rose-pink, old-rose, puce, ochre, and .bright malachite-green. ; Down the middle of it, too, there trips, through a, • aeries of - dee?, clear, aquamarine nobls, 'the cauldron's overflow—a pulsing rivulet whose bright face is oftenest veiled with its own..vapour- >- Uttsen ferns "crown the chasm: green boughs cnwall the.slope: incessantly tho sole -mists come and go, now eclipsing now enhancing the strange beauty of the thing. Is it real, or is it but a dream ? Tear yourseH away, more visions await you. Here, for example, ie a serene but steaming pool, like an oval turquoise twenty feet in length: there, a chain of boiling ,mud-pools. Mud? Hardly: somo are of the purest fuller's earth, others look like cream, and many a fair cheek would bo glad of the exquisite soft tone of more of these "Complexion Pots." ■'. "Flower-pots," too, some of them arc called; for the bubbles of liauid within them break open liko buds; and form florets of hollyhocks and roses done in plaster, before they finally disappear. Beyond them, a cliff, as of rose-pink coral, leads down towards the creek, and, from a fissure at its top, just immediately beneath the path, blue emoko issues, strange- breath,, anon glitterin diamond-sprays of water. This is the Dragon's Mouth, and, if you wish, during the.seven minutes or so of "the Dragon's taking breath, into his jaws you. may descend, and walk in safety through • ; them — a fumy and slippery, adventure, tits; showers of water, after cascading down the pink preciyiee- in a series of bright blue pools, pass, just before they reach the creek, another larger pool, of a deeper blue,- through whose exquisite transparency broad silver flashes keep continually darting up, and vanishing, in an outbreak of (bubbles, unon. the surface.' And opposite, across the! creek, the greenness of the -manuka ■ divides about a singular streak of bright tomato-red—the basin and stairway of yet.another geyser. In fact, there are several more scattered here along the stream—perhaps no one knows quito how, manyv- , - • - ■■■■■■■ •■■■■ -.-.■-•:■-■-■■■.■■■■■■

Leaving all the others, let us cross the creek, and visit the Greatest of them —the Great Wairakei. now quiescent, now/groaning and gurgling, now -leaping-and;soaring from his wide triangjilaV mouth set barely in its 'platform; of .tossed sinter. There aro still other marvels to be seen near by, but can you take in any more? I, for my part, feel my wits failing, and my. senses all' confused. What has "happened to the normal face of things? What do all these strange colours mean, these strange surfaces, and ebullitions and '"activities'? ■' 'Ouint not a creek to be cold, and should not mud stagnate, .and water rnn down hill? Above all, how ; in the name of Nature do the ferns and mosses and manuka countenance neighbours and performances so unnatural? And yet—-unnatural? Is not-Nature as surely at the back, then, of volcanic and thermal activity as of vegetable? Of course she is, and the true word is but "unusual ,, —ay, unnsnal, indeed. ' Yet how, upon* one's twentieth visit. ray, would the valley strike one? For it is a real valley, it is not'a-place;-, in. a' dream, or a figment of the fancy. All as strange as this T>alo description would present it, and far, ,fnr more wonderful, here it lies, , actually a wart of this earth and of this country;fifty miles from Rotbrna, the. Geyser-Valley of Wairnkei.