We came down the Terrace, step by step, lingering and turning back at every point to look under the overhanging lip, at some still more curious formation of stalactite, some new beauty hidden away in a quiet corner.
Still wading through the water, we came down the left side of the Terrace, and saw what I thought was almost the most beautiful part, a succession of little cups, formed as regularly as the cells in a large honeycomb, each containing its little pool of cerulean water. After leaving the Terrace we went through a glen, in which the manuka scrub grew high above our heads, and the carpet of bright green moss was hot to touch. One of the charms of Rotomahana and its Terraces is the bright luxuriant vegetation, in the midst of a tremendous volcanic action; where you would expect to see lava scoria, you find a tropical growth of ferns and parasites.
Climbing up to the top of a hill, we looked down into the crater of "Ngahapu," a geyser which spouts up furiously every few minutes. We gasped as we looked down into the black boiling water which ceaselessly gathers itself into a swirling mass, and throws up a jet of water, and then recoiling rushes on to the sides. We skirted round another, which was still more active, and which we had to be careful to get to leeward of, to avoid being sprinkled with boiling spray. Above, to a fissure in the rock we traced the ceaseless throbbing noise of the "Steamer." It sounds as if inside here the waterworks of the geyser were being pumped up. The manuka all round was encrusted with orange from the sulphur fumes, and the ground was inlaid with different bits of brilliant colouring, in the red and green clay of mineral deposits.
We found luncheon spread out for us by two natives near the lake. It was rather a "hot" corner to have chosen, for in front of us there was a boiling mud-hole—and behind and all round bubbling pools of hot water, with steam issuing from the ground. We sat on some rocks coloured pale yellow from the action of sulphur and ate the most delicious baked potatoes and kouras, the native shell fish, that had been cooked in a few minutes by the easy process of holding them in nets in one of the hot pools. I think we all thoroughly enjoyed that luncheon.
Then the gentlemen were taken across the lake in the canoe to have their bath in the pool at the top, before the ladies arrived. We waited under the care of "Sophia" for the return of the canoe.
Sophia was a most attractive half-caste Maori, speaking English very prettily. Dressed in a red and black check skirt, with a blue jacket bordered by red; her black wavy hair flowing loosely from under a Tyrolese hat, she presented a most picturesque reminder of "Meg Merrilees." Her lips, like those of all the Maori women, were tattooed; but hers were only done in straight lines, as they had become too sore to continue with the down strokes, which usually reach to the dimple of the chin. She described to us the process of tattooing. Small holes are tapped into the skin with a sharp-pointed instrument, and then filled with the prepared juice of the Kauri gum, boiled down to a dark blue substance. The mouth is fearfully sore for several days, causing even death sometimes from gangrene and mortification, The girls always go down to a town to have the operation carefully performed, and then make it a ceremonious holiday.
Sophia wore a beautiful piece of greenstone called Tiki, roughly carved, that had been, she said, in her family for 400 years; she also wore suspended round her neck by a black ribbon a "Maori button," made of a piece of circular bone, bored through the centre, and about the size of a crown piece.
We saw the canoe returning across the lake, and dreaded the idea of getting in. It was a native canoe formed out of the hollow trunk of a totara-tree, and shaped at both ends. A rough wooden paddle was used by the old Maori for working it along. We had to get in cautiously one by one, and lie down in the bracken at the bottom, and when we were all in, we were certainly not more than three inches from the water. Every motion in this frail bark was felt; if any one moved hand or arm, there was an exclamation of alarm, and when some one sneezed, we felt as if the convulsive moment must capsize us. On the reeds in the middle of the lake we saw many wild ducks, and the pretty Pukeko, with its dark blue plumage and red bill. The steam rising as we approached the shore alone indicated the marvellous wonder that greeted us as we suddenly rounded the sharp corner that brought us into the cove where the water was boiling and bubbling brightly—and the glories of the Pink Terrace were unfolded before us.
The truth must be told, and our first view of them was somewhat marred by the outline of figures that were creeping along the horizon after their bath!
It is very beautiful. Terrace after terrace shelving down to the water's edge; with the same delicate and curious formation, the same tender blue in the pools, but not the same dazzling whiteness; for these are coloured with a most delicate shade of pink, streaked in places with carmine. It is caused by the water previously running over red clay, which, becoming diluted, leaves a pink deposit of silica on the Terrace. I thought the Pink Terrace or Otukapurangi Maori, quite as beautiful and more curious than the white, but most people prefer the latter, and undoubtedly it has the finest silica formation.