Waimangu Geyser.—Semiquiescent.
“Then, like the sculptor who has many models for one figure—one from which to copy the most perfect arm, one the hand, another the knee, and still another for the foot—so, she, selecting from the most perfect of all her former works, improved on each, and in her happiest mood she fashioned Zelania, and anchored it in these southern seas. Then she smiled, and—took a siesta.”
Waimangu Geyser playing to a height of 1500ft. The second wonder of the world.
“Geologically,” said Oseba, “Zelania is an ancient pile of dirt, but here all the games that frisky Nature played in her boisterous youth, before ‘Atlantus’ sank from the Ocean bosom, before the Mediterranean burst through the Pillars of Hercules, before the sun and winds drank the waters from the Sahara, and possibly before great Chimborazo was, she still keeps on the stage for the edification or the terror of gods and men.”
“At Rotorua, that trysting place of fairies and fiends, man may play with Nature as did the deities of old with the daughters of men; while at Waimangu, the mightiest geyser on the globe, one may safely stand within a few yards’ distance and behold a scene of thrilling awe that banishes all consciousness—save that of dread and power.
“To stand near the verge and behold this acre of dark world as it is hurled a thousand feet into the air, is worth a trip round this little globe. Language gives but a faint gleam of human passion, and every effort to describe this scene brings but a pathetic consciousness of human frailty. Beholding this mighty convulsion, even the thoughtless stand motionless and mute, and as Milton is dead, Waimangu will never be described in words.
“The countless mountain lakes, the wild fiords—from whose deep recesses one but rarely sees the sun—the shady solitudes, so painfully still that one shudders with a chilling sense of loneliness, and the easily-approached glaciers and waterfalls—many with a plunge of over a thousand feet, that amaze the Alpine traveller—thrill and fill the beholder with astonishment.