The Hot Lakes and the Pink Terrace.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5549, 22 February 1886, Page 3

The Hot Lakes and the Pink Terrace.

♦ BY GEOEGE AUGUSTUS SALA. We found a well-known photographer of Auckland, Mr Josiah Martin, camping out on the shore of Eotomahana, opposite the White Terrace — an address, it struck me, at once genteel and romantic. At Eome, how often have I envied the occupants — whosoever they may be — of " Number Five Appian Way," and "Number Nineteen Forum of Trajan.-" But now that I have seen the marvels of hot-water land I really think that the most picturesque address that one could give would be, *' The Tent opposite the White Terrace, Lake Eotomahana, New Zealand." Palace Gardens or Camberwell road, S.W., sounds quite plebeian in comparison. Mr Martin had just concluded an exhaustive series of measurements of the dimensions of the Terraces, and waa now busy with his camera and dry plates, photographing right and left. He had to pay the Maoris for the privilege of peeping. These astute savages are lords paramount of the f soil of the Hot Lakes district and the j waters thereof. They make no charge to tourists visiting the Terraces, for the reason that sufficient profit can be made in other ways out of the travelling "pakehas." The whaleboata and canoes belong to Maori owners, and are manned by Maori crews ; and the Natives, who are continually loafing about j the terraces, and who are mainly very old people and children, make a remarkably good thing out of tourists' baksheesh, and out of the crumbs which fall from tourists' luncheon-baskets. But photography — that is quite ianother thing. And the disciples of Daguerre and Fox Talbot are forbidden to exercise their magic art unlesß they pay tithe and toll to the Maoriß. Just fancy the manner in which Americans, or in which Frenchmen, would act, if the Indians in a western " reserve," or the Arabs in Algeria, insisted on the payment of bo many dollars or so many franca before a photographer could be suffered to do his apiriting. Short work would be made of the demands and the demanders, it may * be opined. But Mr Martin had paid the | Maoriß __5 without murmuring for an artistic monopoly of Eotomahana. It had been very charming hither and thither, under the guidance of Sophia about the Terrace ; to explore the marblelike platform at the summit, and gaze away down into the crater, to-day quiescent. The orifice seema a half circle. Its walls are at first vertical, but soon open into the I bubbling cauldron with a diameter of some 40ft, and the depth of which no man can gauge. It ia, of course, the silicious water flowing over the edges of this crater and \ depositing silicia in its evaporation which ' has in process of time produced the Ter- j races, to say nothing of the wondrous in- ! crustationa which lie scattered around — j twigs of manuka scrub, dead birds, dragon ; flies, feathers, and ferna. Bathing may be i enjoyed, too, on the White Terrace, where ' there is a splendid " blue " bath called ! Te Tetarata ; but the most favourite ther- j mal resort is on the Pink Terrace. The in- \ tending bather,Jhowever, equally with the fern collector and the admirer of the pictu- \ rosquo in a general way, are generally unani- ; inous on one point, namely, that aboutnoontide the most charming thing connected with a pleasure excursion is lunch. To lunch therefore, we gaily repaired by a winding path through the scrub, passing two sui'i- : ciently noisy hot water spouts, Ngahutu and Ngahapu. They are nearly alwaji unquiet, and their gurglings and rumblings

[are extremely "oglescmej" when especially ill-conditioned Ngahapu and Ngabutu i rise to geyser height, and spout furious invective at each other, like two diabolical sisters quarrelling. The name of the . luncheon place, which iB close to the lava s shore, and to reach which you have to ascend and descend hillock after hillock at j the imminent risk, as you sometimes think, < of tumbling into a boiling water-hole, is |Te Tekapo. Tho natives had formerly a settlement here. They excavated some very commodious baths on the shore, feedl ing them from the springs which rise in every direction, and the remains are visible of a stone platform laid over a hot spring, and used for drying of "karaka" and "tawa." For a long time, however, the tourist " pakeha" has appropriated Te Tekapo as a place for pie-Dies. The native "whar&i" have disappeared ; still it must not be supposed that the Nativeß have ceased to favour Te Tekapo with their presence. They are, indeed, during the Bummer season, constant patrons of the spot, finding it both pleasant and convenient to squat on their haunches within an amicably respectful distance of the pakehas, and help them to finish their ' luncheons. They have wonderfully good [ appetites. The Native children, too, who have been scrambling all the forenoon | about the Terraces, and making believe to ; assist timorous or unsteady-footed ladies ; and gentlemen, never fail to put in an appearance at lunch time, and fare grandly on the scraps. I remember in particular one pot-bellied little urchin— he could not have been more than six — who so voraciously devoured the miscellaneous artices of food offered him that, as in the case of the lady who drank bo many cups of tea at the temperance association meeting, immortalised in "Pickwick," he seemed to be swelling visibly before our eyes. The quantities of ham, tongue, cold lamb, crayfish, plum cake, potatoes, and jam put away by that small dusky brat i with the rotund abdomen were equally phenomenal and alarming, while his absorption of solid food was admiringly watched by a select circle of adult Maoris— presumably his relatives and near friends. One old lady in particular, a hideous harridan who might have been his greatgrandmother, encouraged the gluttonous little imp to further exertion by clapping I her hands in measured cadence, with interj vening grunts of approval. We met thia ! young cormorant later on, on the opposite Bhore of the lake, and I rejoice to record that he had not yet burst. Otherwise, it was a most enjoyable repast. There was delicious shade overhead, and through the rifts in the greenery glimpses as delicious of the lake beyond. There was a Bound of the Bplashing of water, and the scent of the manuka and the white moBB fell sweet on the sense. Pommery and Greno and Heidseck's Dry Monopole bubbled and beaded in their crystal craters ; there was cold bitter beer for those whose taste lay in the direction of Bass or Alsopp ; and there was soda and lemonade for the totally abstaining. Nature'B green threepile velvet carpet before us was soon gracefully adorned with the scattered scarlet bouquets of crayfish emptied from a basket which seemed inexhaustible. The clatter of knives and forks made pleasant music _ and gracefully reclining a la Turgwewaß Sophia, munching a very large potato with the air of an empresß. Around, a dark circle of squatting Maoris gravely " wolfing" the remnants of the banquet. They were not eager for drink ; they were not, indeed, eager about anything. They took things easily, and, having cleared off everything of an edible nature remaining on the premises, they silently withdrew. Whence they came I had not the slightest idea; but it might with tolerable confidence be predicted that, if the weather were fine, they would turn up at Te Tekapo about luncheon time on the morrow. Ia life worth living P Yes, inquisitive young sir, it is. Manfred told the old man that it waa not so difficult to die. The Maori loaf era at Rotomahana certainly afford one among ten thousand proofs that it is easy enough to live if you have firmly made up your mind that other people shall keep you. There were other wonders to be explored ere we crossed the lake to the Pink Terrace ; but I own that the continuous sight of craters, gullies, and crevices ejecting boiling water or boiling mud was growing Blightly monotonous, and that I was glad to have some of the sightseeing on this side of the lake done by deputy. There is the small valley of Rotokanapanapa, a mud flat dotted with mud cones and pitted with boiling mud holes. The mud is, as a rule, ashy grey in colour, although it occasionally assumes other hues. Pink mud and blue mud sometimes occur. It has an unpleasant habit vhile boiling, of spluttering forth mud flakes, perilous to the integrity of the bystander's flesh. From one fissure came such volumes of Bteam, and such demoniacal roaring, that the place has been called the Devil's Hole; and from this horrible abyss you come to a pool of water of a vivid green colour called Rotopounamou. Then there is Te Haka, or the Porridge Pot, a compact vat of mud always on the boil. This mud, they say, is readily eaten by the Maories. It ia tasteless, and not unlike freshly moistened starch, and it has an unctuous smoothness which highly recommends it to the Maori palate. What effect it may have on the Maori stomach I know not. There is the Koingo or Fretting Geyser ; Te Whatapohu, or Stomach Ache ; and the small cave, Ngawhanga, once used as a " whare," and in which eight generations of chiefs are said to have been born. If Ngawhanga was as hot then as it is now j the eight generations of chiefs must have first seen the light in a kind of oven. Finally, there is the boiling spring Raakiwi, which is associated with a very sad story of a Maori girl, who waa cooking, with her baby, according to the custom of Maori mothers, at her baok. The infant fell ! accidentally into the boiling fount. The j despairing mother leapt in after her offspring, and both perished. It is to be wondered at that many more accidents have not occurred, and do not occur, in this region of boiling pits and cauldrons, gullies and crevices, cracks and craters, where the | ground is everywhere treacherous, and up- | heavals of boiling water or mud are con- | tinually imminent— of hot water every- ! where, and at any moment the risk of tumbling into a scalding bath. I was by this time becoming slightly weary, and was not sorry to come back to the Te Tekapo landing-place, to find the canoe in which we were to be paddled across Rotomahana to the Pink Terrace. The bottom of the canoe waa prettily strewn with flowera, among which we aeated ourselves, and away went the light but trusty bark, skimming over the bosom of the lakelet not much more than four miles in circumference. The shore is somewhat broken, and thickly skirted with sedges and rushes, the haunt of vast numbers of teal, duck, and other water-fowl, which are most jealously preserved by the Maoris. The water of Rotomahana is throughout warm, but not of an unpleasant degree of heat. The canoe shot into a little circular cove, and we were within full view of the Pink Terrace, the Maori name of which is Otukapuaranga, or Cloudy Heaven. The Pink Terrace is certainly not so imposing a piece of natural architecture as its white congener. It is much smaller ; ita slope is shallower, and its colour, for all its roseate name, is not, at the first blush, very inviting ; it iB less absolutely pink than a warm reddish buff stained in parts with browns and crimsons. The platforms are not corniced, as in the White Terrace, but are fringed in very beautiful stalactite forms. In a thousand minute details of ornamentation, j however, the Pink Terrace not unsuccessfully rivals, and iv a few instance*, posi- j tively surpasses, the White Terrace. The natural baths occur in the basins on the ledges on approaching the summit ; and experts iv bathing begin at the lowest range of basins, where the water 13 coolest, and work their way upwards till they can attain the parboiling, or even the boiling, stage of immersion. The origin of the Piok Terrace is identical with that of tlio white one. A geyser spouts fiom tho summit of a not very steep hill, ;_nd the stream of hot watei* ilowd down th._ lull to the hike shore, depositing hilica a.-; it go.*-. The gentle cataract stream- between clumps of manuka. The hue of tlio i'iuk Terrace may be in a measure due to tl •

' fe " u .^ noUB Particles in the maeeeß of reddish earth in the rear of the summit 1 cauldron, and which have been soaked by the unremitting action of steam. A gravel eminence divides the terrace from the Solfatara Te Whakataratara, a sulphur pool communicating with Lake Roto* mahana. The face of the Pink Terrace ia thickly covered with the names, addresses and dates of the visits of Jones, Brown' and Robinson, which Natnre, apparently not altogether displeased by this tribute to her prowess, has carefully preserved from obliteration by coating the inscriptions with a film of transparent silica — the water-gloss process with a vengeance. We re-embarked in our canoe, and, so far as one traveller was concerned, bidding a lasting farewell to the terrace which is white, aud the terrace which is pink, our bark bore us through Kaiwaka, or the Destroyer of Canoes, the stream connecting Rotomahana with Tarawera. The channel has gained its somewhat ominous name from the rapidity of its course, which has been found by long experience to tell seriously on the solidity of the skiffs which venture on its surface. Bnt no mischance befel ua that sunny, happy afternoon. The stream ia hot, exiguous and tortuous, and bordered by thick and high vegetation. Manuka, cypress, sedge and fern on either side. A dash of cold water is imparted to Kaiwaka from Rotomakire, the Cold Lake j and then along and along we glided. It i needed only someone with a sweet soprano, ! or someone else with a rich baritone voice, I to bring back to me Mr Luke Pilde's noble picture of " Pair Spirit and Sweet Rest." Yet were we not entirely without music. The Maori boatmen began to 6ing a wild chant with— what do you think seemed to me to be the burden of their lay ? Nothing less than " Hoticot, hotieot, hoticot, Te tairn, Tetaira! Tetaira!" They sang again when we reached the j mouth of the Kaiwaka, and were tran- | shipped to our friend of that morning — the whaleboat. Then the singers were increased in numbers, and their wailing chant waa swelled to a louder and at last ferocious paean. Beshrew their " hoticot !" and confound their "te taira !" We crossed Tarawera, landed at the boathouse, and ascending the hill leading to Wairoa, I had once more reason to remember that going down Avernua ia one thing, but that to go up again i 8 another. A most toilsome and painful climb. But we reached the top at laet, and made Mr M'Rae'a hoatelry, where the coach witb ita team ready harnessed awaited us. By 7in the evening we were once more at Mrs Graham's Lake Honse atOhinemutu.