THE AUCKLAND LAKE-SEASON, 1859. No. 6.

New Zealander, Volume XV, Issue 1359, 27 April 1859, Page 3

THE AUCKLAND LAKE-SEASON, 1859. No. 6.

Fkom RoTonu.iTo Tarawera afd Roto maiiana. Continued. Bm'ORE striking our tents and starting for Lake Tarawera, we may remark I hat, at the time Professor Smith wrote, the Rev. Mr. Spencer estimated the population of Ohinemotu at about 300, and the entire population of the shores of Lake Rotorua at about 1000. The population of Ohinemotu probably keeps up to this estimate, but in the entire population surrounding the Lake it is more than probable that there has been the average per centage decrease, arising from the same combination of causes which are almost everywhere gradually but sensibly tending to the dying-out of the aboriginal stock, and for the arrest of which no effectual means have as yet been discovered. The morning broke gloomily on the day when our tourists — their, traps all packed up and hoisted on to the backs of their lusty natives— bade adieu to Ohinemotu, that village winch, as Dr. Smith says, " is full ol boiling springs, and of blubbering sputtering hollows of black mud," and whose " people, m fact, live in an atmosphere of steam, with hot-water privileges unbounded." The route was now for Lake Tarawera. The road first skirted the sulphurously sandy West shore of Rotorua, and the morning being still damp and close, the ngawhas ''exhibited" their sulphurous vapours in full force to the travellers." After leaving the lake, however, the road gradually ascends—the last of the Rotorua hotsprings is left behind —and you enter a fine valley hounded by ranges of low hills which, like the valley have an abundance of natural grass. After three or four mi!es' pleasant, walking a halfdeserted native cultivation is reached, and the few peach-trees are eagerly rifled of their remaining crop; then a small bush, where (he soil is good, affords a grateful shelter from the sun, which in the summer season makes this valley very warm ; then you pass through some very tall-fi-rn-land ; and soon reach the first of two smaller hut picturesque lakes surrounded by lofty hills partly wooded and partly covered with fern. At the head of the second and more pleasing lake, a fine brook has to be crossed, and a few minutes'walk brings you on to the road recently formed from the native settlement to this lake, to facilitate the conveyance of corn to the Tarawera mill, and of produce, to and fro, between the natives inhabiting this series of lakes. As you approach the lake, you pass the jointstook corn-mill erected for the natives, and managed for them by Mr. Bennett, who is also building a sort, of Council-chamber for the natives to assemble in and discuss their affairs. The millrace is fed from the stream discharging from the lake just passed. The lohafcs here are not very numerous, but are generally neat in appearance. A few minutes more, and you arrive at the comfortable house of the Rev. Mr. Spencer, which is situated on a lofty eminence of the western end of Lake Tarawera. The reception the Lake-tourists of 1050 met with from Mr. and Mrs. Spencer was distinguished by that genuine courtesy and kindness which they invariably manifest to the inquiring traveller. This season the calls upon their hospitality must have been very numerous. No tourists can have made the acquaintance of their considerate hosts without feeling that Tarawera and its picturesque shores will always be associated in their minds with reminiscenses of the pleasant Missionary home at the head of the Lake, with its bold background of hill and forest, its carefully-cultivated orchard and garden, the. host, hostess, and their children, the agreeable evening conversazione about the position and prospects of the natives and the desirability of bringing an intelligent white population among them, and the morning and evening song of praise, accompanied by a full-toned chamber-organ, touched with a musical hand. It would be well lor Auckland were the United estates to t*"uru us a few more such guttlers j

but it is to be hoped that not many more will be as long cut off from all but ■O’ery occasional intercourse with civilized society for themselves and their children as Mr. and Mrs. Spencer, from the position of their station, have necessarily been, and still are. Though they must then meet with a curious variety of guests, the Lake Season must be a god-send to them, by bringing them for the time once more into the world of their adopted home. Mr. Spencer being prevented by his duties from accompanying the tourists to Roto-mahana, Mr. Bennett undertook to act as pilot to that most wonderful of all the Auckland Lakes. The day being favourable, it was resolved to proceed down Lake Tarawera and up the small river connecting the two lakes, in a small canoe. The descent from Tejiu —Mr. Spencer’s residence —to the place of embarkation is very precipitous, and in wet weather the ascent, in returning must be all hut impossible. There are not many canoes on this lake, and the one in question being as illconditioned as the sulky native (a sulky Maori, we believe, is very seldom met with) who was in charge of her, our tourists were glad to see a large and better canoe shoot out into the lake from the stream by which Roto-mahana empties itself, and to find in it some fellow-travellers who had gone ahead from Rotorua some three days before, end who had been enjoying a whole day and a second morning in examining the wonders of Roto-rnahana’s gigantic geyser-fountains and marvellously-beautiful natural baths and pools—to the bottom of some of which, crystal-clear as are their waters, it is impossible for the sight to reach. An amicable negotiation was immediately entered into, and soon concluded, that the party just leaving Tarawera should leave their trail bark and ship in the larger and more seaworthy

one chartered fox' the.party of tourists bound for Tarawera once more to test Mr. and Mrs. Spencer’s hospitality, and both parties go on to Koto-mahana. The other canoe was to follow with pik'ius and stores, after the natives had obtained some white-bait and other fish from natives inhabiting a pah on a headland at the entrance to the stream connecting the two lakes. No fresh dispute as to the proprietorship of Roto-mahana having occurred since the last peace was concluded, and it not being the season when tiie waters are tapu'd on account of the teal and wild ducks which abound here, and are as carefully preserved for the exclusive use of the strongest party as are pheasants and partridges by the greatest sticklers for the Norman Game Laws in all their rigour,—the canoe was enabled to go right up the stream. Each shore has numerous traditions or legends—some fantastic, some horrible ; all no doubt in some way connected with—or embodying some mystic allusion to—actual events which have occurred in times beyond the memory of the “ oldest inhabitant ’ of the territory, even as the Knights of the Round Table and their wondrous deeds are by some critics asserted to have foundation in fact in the institution by King Arthur of a body of Commissioners of Inquiry, armed with plenipotentiary powers for the rooting out of all petty tyrants and robbers in the districts to which they were appointed. Under a rock in one bend of the stream an evil spirit formerly lay in wait for the unwary traveller, going to or returning from the lake, robbed him of all he had, and then made a morning’s meal of his body. Similar stories are said to belong to rtgatchas lining the hanks of the stream but the tourists could gain no definite account of them from their natives—who were too completely of the “ Young Maori school” to care much for anything hut the money they can gain from the pakcha. mercifully leaving him, however, with a sound bodj r , though it may be a ruffled temper, after an hour or two spent in bargaining with them for their services. The rapids in this stream soon become so strong, that if the party in a cauoe is numerous, some must land and walk up the valley to allow of the cauoe being poled or hauled up the stream. Lake Roto-mahana is entered round a low point of sulphur-encrusted land and through beds of rushes, among which the teal and duck are seeking their food. At first you are somewhat disappointed by the comparative smallness of the lake and the hare sides or tops of the surrounding hills. But this very absence of picturesqueness brings out in still bolder relief the numerous geysers which throw up their columns of boiling water on so many sides, —and others which, not so engaged, fume and fret and blow off steam enough for a whole “park” of monster locomotives arrived at the end of their day’s jour-

nev. The first of the monster geysers is on the left hand as you enter the lake. As nearly as could be estimated by an eye-survey, it covers an extent of surface of not much less than three acres. The head fountain from which the principal jets issue, rises (so to speak) from the shore of the lake in a series of irregular but most picturesque terraces of snow-white siliceous matter, down which the boiling water cascades in never-ceasing streams, from and by which the siliceous substance has been gradually deposited —who can say for how many centuries ?—until this gigantic mass has assumed its present dimensions. Here you may spend hours, heedless of the hot water in which you are standing picking-up specimens—which is hotter and hotter the nearer you approach the topmost cauldron ; your specimen-basket will long ere the end of your stay be crammed with specimens of encrustations in every variety of beautiful and grotesque formation; and alter a vain attempt (if you pretend to a sketch-book) to represent on paper either the exact configuration or appearance of the terraces and small pools formed and fed from the great cauldron, you leave the spot with reluctance to go to other quite as singular though smaller ngawhas on the same side of the lake—passing on your way over un-pleasantly-yielding ground, on each side of which are basin's filled with the same laziU -boiling black mud of which Dr. Smith speaks. To do anything like justice to this extraordinary Lake, with its wonderful geysers and sulphurlakes, would be impossible within the limits we have now at command; and we must reserve some of our notes on Roto-mahana for another chapter. But before concluding, and again to show that we are not singular in our estimate of the many attractions ottered to tourists by the Auckland Lake and Hot Springs District, we will quote what Dr. Smith writes home to his old Aberdonian friends concerning the marvels of Lake Rotomahana : From a summit of a knoll in the valley a most wonderful scene burst upon us The small lake, with its islands and undulating shores, was emitting clouds of steam, while the deposits from the boiling water formed mounds and terraces of what seemed to be pure white marble glittering in the sun. But to describe the strange and grand things among which we spent the rest of the day would be a vain attempt. Near to the largest of the boiling cauldrous we made tea and had dinner. We also bathed in one of the marble or coral-like basins, supplied with water from the main cauldron. I doubt if Solomon in all his glory had ever a bath like this! The boiling pool is fifty or sixtv feet above the level of the lake, and the water rushes down over successive terraces or ledges, some flat, but others hollowed out so as to form iargc basins The lower down they are the water becomes cooler so that a person wishing to bathe can select any temperature he chooses. They are deep enough and large enough to swim in comfortably. These terraces are formed of a siliceous substance deposited bv the water, generally white, but sometimes tinted with various colours—some, in fact, are almost black. The water in some of the pools, and especially in the uppermost one, has a delicate pale blue colour—very beautiful, and the clouds of steam that rise from the upper pool have the same beautiful blue tint when the sun shines on them, the colour being probably communicated by reflection from the blue water. I found the- temperature of the water, at the edge of the great cauldron, to be 195 deg., but the boiling jet was at the farther side, some 20 or 30 feet distant. For making tea, we had pure water from a cold spring in the neighbourhood; and, when this boi'ed, I found the temperature 209 deg., the difference between this and the ordinary boiling temperature (212 deg.) being owing to our elevation above the sea level. This difference of 3 deg. shows that the height above the sea is about 1600 feet* In one boiling pool the temperature was 205 deg., and in another it was 210 u V <r., being - therefore rather hotter than ordinary , boiling water, lu this pool? two children ouco lost

their lives, They were sent for a basket W'&fflPjft *T/ that were cooking in ihe spring—one of fell in, and the other also perished in attempting tc* save him.' 1 found it very difficult to get near enoughto these springs to try the temperature, on account off the volumes of scalding steam, and also from theviolence of the ebullition—cones of boiling water weresometimes forced to the height of sor 6 feet. Therewas an extraordinary variety of boiling jets and cauldrons, and steam blow-holes, and the noise ana heat and moisture were worthy a whole collection or steam engines. Besides the boiling water performances, there were sulphur sublimatories, and hollows off black seething mud. In some parts, where the ground is very hot, the natives have placed flat stones on which they dry or roast tawa berries. They have' also constructed enclosures of flat stones, which MrSpencer described as smoking rooms. The boiling water seems to deposit a great quantity of silica aa i« cools; and, not only the ground, but every sohdl substance within its reach gets crusted over. We picked up many beautiful forms of this deposit, and fine specimens of encrusted or petrified leaves and twigs of plants. Mr. Spencer has a native basket, winch has become a mass of white stone by being steeped a long time in one of the pools. (To be continued.)