ROTORUA AS IT IS.

Evening Star, Issue 7652, 30 June 1888, Page 4

ROTORUA AS IT IS.

A gentleman who has just returned from a tour through the Northern lake district) and has visited that part of the country affected by the recent eruption of Tarawera, has supplied the ‘ Evening Post ’ with the following interesting notes ; I returned from my trip to the Hot Lakes about a fortnight ago. The place has so changed since I was last there that I failed to recognise it. The Government sanatorium, which was once a dense mass of ti-tree, seven feet high, is now a magnificent place—a regular fairy land—whilst all round just outside the fence is as nature left it. The Government have concreted all the springs, giving them most fantastic shapes—some round, some oblong, others again the shape of the “ little shamrock of Ireland.” How they managed to concrete round all that hot, treacherous ground beats me. My firm belief is that Rotorua will sink in some of these days. The ground underneath is quite hollow. I will give you an instance. The telegraph people were putting up a pole, and in sinking a hole had got down Bft, when all of a sudden the apade of one of the men disappeared from his hand and went down into the vasty deep. He jumped out of the hole and said he was not going to sink any more holes in Rotorua, and immediately filled the place up. When they are chopping wood outside the Telegraph Office it shakes the place like an earthquake, I went to Wairoa to see what change was there, and it is simply awful. Imagine to yourself that it had been snowing very heavily, and the snow had reached up to the chimney pots, and then left off—only for snow substitute volcanic dust, which has set so hard that it has formed a concrete, and I could not break it with the heel of my boot—then you will be able to form an idea of the dreadful destruction that Tarawera caused. You can just see the tops of some willows, poplars, and a few fruit trees sticking above the ground, and in some places the ridge and part of the roof of

a house or a ivhare. A few cattle are wandering about, the only food they can find being tree-tops. The place, too, is swarming with black mice. All the once beautiful blue lakes are now a dirty clay color. The roads are just simply cut out, and look like the banks and bed of a dry river; the banks are from 10ft to 15ft deep in some places. You can just see eight inches of the top rails of bridges, the creeks either having been filled up or else have taken another course some miles away. I saw the spot where poor Bainbridge was found, and also the remnants of the bedroom in which I slept when I was there twelve years ago. All that is left of it is the front of the house and the windows—everyone is broken. Desolation reigns supreme.