[CHAPTER V.]
HOT-SPRING LIFE.
Ohinemutu and Lake Rotorua—Te Ruapeka—The old pa—Native baths—Delightful bathing—A curious graveyard—Pigs—Area of thermal action—Character of the springs—Chemical constituents—Noted springs—Whakarewarewa—Te Koutu Kahotawa—"Tenakoe, pakeha"—Hot and cold.
The township of Ohinemutu occupies one of the grandest situations in the whole of the Lake district. It is built on a slight eminence called Pukeroa, which rises with a gradual slope from the shores of Lake Rotorua, whose bright blue waters add a romantic charm to the surrounding country.
In front the broad surface of the lake spreads itself out in a circle of nearly twenty-five miles in circumference, and along the bright, sandy shore of this beautiful sheet of water small bays, fringed with trees, and jutting points, clothed with the greenest vegetation, add variety to the attractive scene; beyond these again, wide, fern-clad flats roll away to the base of the distant hills, which, rising in the form of a complete semicircle around, seemed to have formed at some period or another the area of an immense lake-basin, until the waters, bursting into the rugged gorges, swept into the valleys of the country beyond. Some of the hills fall with a gentle slope to the very brink of the water, others send out their rock-bound spurs, while some, again, mounting high above the rest, have their tall summits clothed with dense forests; while deep ravines, thick with a marvellous growth of vegetation, send down their crystal streams to mingle with the fierce waters of the boiling springs, which skirt the lake and send forth their jets and clouds of steam for miles around.
The native settlement, Te Ruapeka, is situated on a long peninsula, about 100 yards wide at its broadest part, narrowing gradually towards its end, where it terminates in a sharp point, as it runs flatly out almost on a level with the waters of the lake.
Every part of this strip of land, from one end to the other, is dotted about and riddled with thermal springs, some of which shoot out of the ground from small apertures, while others assume the form of large, steaming pools. They are of all degrees of temperature, from tepid heat to boiling-point; and while you may cook your food in one, you may take a delicious bath in another, and get scalded to death in a third.
In former times a pa stood at the further end of the peninsula, but one stormy night a rumbling noise was heard, then a sound of hissing steam, the trembling earth opened, and the pa with all its people sank bodily into the depths of the lake.
All the whares of the settlement are built, after the native fashion, of raupo, with large recesses in front of the doorways, the woodwork of which is curiously carved, and forms a very good specimen of the Maori order of architecture. The whares are clustered promiscuously about the springs, and it is no unfrequent occurrence to see a stalwart savage, a buxom woman with a baby in her arms, a sprightly youth, or a dark-eyed damsel come out from the carved portals of a hut in the primitive costume of our first parents, and jump into one of the many square stone baths dotted about, and with no other regard for their neighbours who may be standing or squatting around than if they were so many carved images.
