TE TARATA, OR THE WHITE TERRACE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XX, Issue 144, 18 June 1886, Page 1

TE TARATA, OR THE WHITE TERRACE.

The following glowing description of the exquisite White Terrace, which has been destroyed by the eruption is from Alfred Domett's poem "Ranolf and Amohia," and will give some idea of the surpassing loveliness of tho scene as it was only ten days ago :— On the right Another cataract comes in sight ; Another broader, grander flight Of steps — all stainless, snowy-bright ! They land — their curious way they track Near thickets made by contrast black ; And then that wonder seems to be A cataract carved in Parian stone, Or any purer substance knownAgate or milk-chalcedony I Its showering snow-cascades appear Long ranges bright of stalactite. And sparry frets and fringes white. Thick-falling, plenteous, tier o'er tier; Its crowding stairs, in bold ascent Piled up that silvery-glimmering height, Are layers, they know, — accretions slow Of hard silicious sediment. For as they gain a rugged road, And cautious climb the solid rime, Each step becomes a terrace broad — Each terrace a wide basin brimmed With water, brilliant yet in hue The tendcrest delicate harebell-blue Deepening to violet Slowly climb Tlie twain, and turn from time to time To mark the hundred baths in view — Crystalline azure, snowy-rimmed — Tho marge of every beauteous pond Curve after curve — each lower beyond The higher — outsweeping white and wide, Like snowy lines of foam that glide O'er level sea-sands lightly skimmed By thin sheets of the glistening tide, They climb those milk-white flats incrusted And netted o'er with wavy ropes Of wrinkled silica. At last — Each basin's heat increasing fast — The topmost step the pair surmount.

And 10, the cause of all 1 Around, Half-circling cliffs a crater bound ; Cliffs damp with dark-green moss — their slopes All crimson - stained with blots and streaks — White-mottled and vermilion-rusted, And in the midst, beneath a cloud That ever upward rolls and reeks And hides the sky with its dim shroud, Look whore upshoots a fuming fount — Up through a blue and boiling pool Perennial — a great sapphire steaming, In that coralline crater gleaming. TJpwclling ever, amethystal, Ebullient comes the bubbling crystal ! Still growing coooler and more cool As down the porcelain stairway slips The fluid flint, and slowly drips And hangs each basin's curling lips With crusted fringe each year increases, Thicker than shear-forgotten fleeces; More close and regular than rows, Long bows of snowy trumpet-flowers Some day to hang in garden-bowers, When strangers shall these wilds enclose.