THE WATERING PLACE OF THE FUTURE.

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Volume 4, Issue 176, 15 April 1896, Page 3

THE WATERING PLACE OF THE FUTURE.

A RA3IBLE Dv"' "• w ONDEELAND." Hy D. J. Quixx. ©tOME time ago I found myself with «s* a three weeks' holiday on hand and was somewhat perplexed to know what to do with it. A friend helped me out of the difficulty. " Why not take a trip to New Zealand?" he said, •' Auckland is only five days from Sydney, and you will have a clear week in which to run up to Ivotorua and see something of the sights of the " Won* derland." I had read a good deal nbout the remarkable phenomena to 1)9 seen in the Hoi Lakes district, and very readily fell in with a suggestion which would enable me, in the words of Johnson, to regulate the imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things might be to see them as they are. The necessity for such a " regulation " became apparent on my arrival at llotorua. I found that the picture my imagination had created of the " Wonderland " was quite different to that presented to my view. There were the rugged hills, the forest-clad heights, the scattered little township, and the magnificent blue lake with the island in the middle of it, but nowhere could 1 see the steaming .geysers, the boiling springs, the volcanic cones of which I had read, and which I had been looking forward to with so much impatience and curiosity. " Oft expectation fails, and most oft there ■\Yhere most it promises." Instead of the fearful and awe-inspir-ing region my imagination had pictured, I seemed to stand in some enchanted valley with nothing more uncanny than the solemn silence of the place, and an atmosphere impregnated with su phuretted hydrogou. Such was my first impression of the " Wondei-land" as seen from the railway-station shortly after the hour of sunset. Hut just as distance lends enchantment to the view, so a nearer approach to the hills and tlie lakeshore served to dispel the illusion. There was no need then to ask where were the boiling springs, the steaming geysers, and the other phenomena for which the district is remarkable. They abounded every where hot springs, steaming sulphurous jets, boiling mud holes—and formed in places such a net-work that to leave the beaten track would bo to expose oneself to the danger of sinking through the treacherous earth and never more being heard of. This was especially the case at Sulphur Point, at Ohinemutu, and at the more distant places of Whakarewarewa and Tikitere. THE CELEBRATED SPIUNGB. At Sulphur Point is situated the Government Sanatorium. It is enclosed in a beautiful plantation with nicely cultivated grounds, in which fountains and artificially formed geysers are constantly playing. Here, too, are the celebraled curative springs which have earned for Potorua its wide reputation as a health resort. The most valuable is the Priest's (so called on account of the cure which it effected on an old rheumatic father) whose clear, pale green, sulphurous water varies in temperature from 9S to 10G degrees. It is far from being a pleasant bath to stnnd near, much less to bathe in. The sulphuretted hydrogen which it gives off is trying in the extreme, and the neurotic, rheumatic, and paralytic patients who brave its foul odours are desei ving of all the relief its waters afford them- ' Hie noxious gas even permeates a man's pockets and discolors anything in the way of silver he may have about him. To pass from the unpleasant odours of the Priest' 3 to the alkaline siliceous waters of the Madame Bachel, was to leave Avernus for Castnlia, the sacred fountain of the Muses. Here the average healthy person may safely take a dip, and be made for ever beautiful. A more delightful hath could not well be imagined—a more sensuous was never dreamt of by Nero. So exquisitely soft to the touch are its waters, and so delicious is the sense of luxury they puoduce, one were feign they should lap his body for ever. Many othsr springs of different mineralisations are scattered over tie neighbourhood, but it is upon the Priest's and Madam Pachel that the fame of hotorua chiefly rests. The township is yet in its infancy, but it is steadily growing, and the day is not far distant when it will rival Wiesbaden as " a city of lodging-houses." Here, as Froude puts it, will be the chief sanitary station of the future for the south sea English. And here, too, the historian ventures to predict, it I will he that in some sanitarian salon Macaulay's New Zealander, returning from his travels, will exhibit his •sketch of the ruins of St. Paul's to groups of admiring young ladies. A GLIMPSE OE MAORI LIFE Half a mile from [Sulphur point lies the old village of Ohinemutu, with the pa, or native settlement, nestling on the slope of a narrow tongue of land running cut into the lake. One might well be pardoned if, like Oilando, lie imagined ' that all things had been savage hero." Narrow lanes lead here and there pmong rude whares, or huts, while all around a thousand his*wzj sputtering jets, boiling springs, and Beethii send up dense volumes of Meani vapour which hang in clouds over the settlement. The spot is one of exceptional interest, for here we seethe Maori as nature and utilisation have combined to make him. In the eontre of the pa stands 'lie meeting house, Tama-te-kapua, which, as a specimen of mitive art, is «aid to be one . f the finest in Maorid'Jia. It is elaborately carved and

I decor/'ted both inside and out, the centre pole being embellished with I those curious distortions of the huI m:in figure so general in Maori carvj iugs. Every beam displays most deli, cute and intricate tracery, while every p-inol bears a counterfeit presentment of some goggle-eyed "ancestor." Standing out from the lake are a number of posts which, we wore told, were once the fortifications of an extensive pa. Tradition has it that the peninsula was formerly much larger than at piesont, and that it subsided in the course of a single night, carrying with it the whares sfcmding upon it. The story may well bo believed, for what now remains of/{he peninsuh is no more than a thjffi crust of earth covering a mass of of boiling water. Some morning the inhabit .nts of the pah will wiike up to find that this al 1 so as disappeared. It would seem, however, that familiarity with danger merely breeds contempt thereof in the breasts of the Maoris. This boiling, steaming piece of earth lias no terrors for them. They are as much at home as the Arabs in the desert. The land about, belongs to them, and they live on the rents which they receive from their white neighbours. Community of property does away with the necessity of individual effort. Everything they have, they hold in common ant l so long as the day is provided for, they Care not for the morrow. The hours are counted by no clocks, and in the absence of any recurrance of toil and duty they yield themselves up to voluntary occupation or fanciful idleness, according as the humor takes them. Some are immersed to the neck in a warm pool, talking in quiet guttural tones, and blowing clouds o" tobacco smoke into the steam vapour overhead. Others lounge about the "public places" or toast themsolves on the hot earth, watching copper-skin-ned urchins romping on the beach, or diving in the springs for the pakeha's ( white man's ) silver, which contributes to the gratifie .tion of their passion for cigarettes. He:e a couple of women are washing linen in a pool conversing vigorourly the while with others squatting round. There a wrinkled old Maori sits silent and grave in front of his whare, his face looking like a bit of the carved wood on Tame-te-kapua. and his one consolation in life seeming to be tobacco. A DECAYING RACE. Civilization would not appear to have done much for the Maoris. Once a brave, hardy, enduring people, they are brokeu in spirit and for the most part corrupted and enfeebled by the vices of society. It has been the lot of unfortunate aborigines the world over to be hardly treated by the white man. Uightly or wrongly, the Maoris were being unfairly dealt with by the New Zealand Government, and at a recent Parliament in Ohinemntti they decided in the event of the Natives Eights' Bill being rejected, to appeal to the Imperial Government for relief from "the many illegal acts of the Colonial Government." These acts relate 1 to "illegal and unjustifiable confiscation of extensive tracts of lands by force of arms, and by legislation on native matters which had been disastrous to the natives. - ' (That the M;oris have some faith in the Imperial Governwas shown in their recent offer to form a guerilla regiment for service in the Transvaal.) However this may be, the fact remains that the once sturdy race has degenerated and is gradually dying out. Consumption carries off great numbers of them. In a few year's the tribes that still linger about the North Island will go the way that their brethren have gone before them. Their fate will be that of the American IndiaLs. 'f I hey will vanish like a vapour from the Inee of the earth; their very history wilt be lost in forgetfulness, and the places that now know them will know them no more for ever."

SIDE LIGIITB ON COMMUNISM. I Much might be written concerning the customs of this interesting people but the limits of this article forbid it. It would seem, however, that ev 0 n Maori communism is not altoeether proof against the influence of the pakeha. A Maori was surprised one evening drowning a pig in the lake and, being asked why he adopted so unusual a course, he naively explain* d that if he "knifed" the pig in the ordininary way at the cooking spring its squealing would bring down upon him a score or more of his fellowcommunists for their piece of pork, and he wanted the pig himself ! Admirably as it generally works, th.\ community of property is not an unmixed blessing. One day there was an unusual commotion in the " public square" of the pah. The whole tribe had turned out in a ferment of agitation. Excited women brought gaudily coloured blankets and dress - stuffs, and threw them in a heap on the ground, while the men stood by, gesticulating wildly and indulging in languace correspondingly vigorous. The production of a horse and, finally, a roll of bank notes, settled the difficulty, which it transpired, was none other than the levying of "divorce damages" by the husband of a fickle spouse from an adjoining pah, on the hapu of the Lothario. The principle of recovering "damages" from the tribe in lieu of the individual has two obvious advantages. It makes them more certain of recoveiy and ei.sures a sharper eye being kept to the morals of the younger generation. [To BE CONTINDTD,]