[32] Koura, a small cray-fish, common in the lakes, and much prized by the natives as an article of food.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
THE TERRACES.
Te Tarata—Beauty of the terrace—The formation—The crater—A sensational bath—Ngahapu—Waikanapanapa—A weird gorge—Te Aua Taipo—Kakariki—Te Whatapohu—Te Huka—Te Takapo—Lake Rotomahana—Te Whakataratara—Te Otukapurangi—The formation—The cauldron.
When we had walked about a mile through the scrub, guided by the stately strides of Sophia, we ascended the summit of a low hill which looked down upon Lake Rotomahana, whose green-tinted waters, surrounded by clouds of steam, shone with an emerald-like brightness in the sunlight, while immediately in front of us the White Terrace, or famed Te Tarata, burst upon the view like a glittering heap of frozen snow just fresh from heaven. We were still some hundreds of yards from it, with the Kaiwaka flowing below, and although at first glance fair Te Tarata looked chaste and beautiful enough beneath the golden light, it appeared as if her proportions were somewhat cramped and stunted, and I began mentally to question the wisdom of Nature in not placing the wondrous monument of her handiwork higher up on the slope of the mountain which decked the delicate outline of the terrace in a variegated fringe of green. To my eye, the crystallized structure of pure white silica as it fell in congealed waves, as it were, from the steaming cauldron above, appeared too flat, and required height to add more effect to its grandeur, while the rugged mountain, which formed its background, as it rose above a vapoury cloud of steam, looked dwarfed and insignificant in comparison with the giant form of Mount Tarawera, which frowned in silent majesty from beneath its spiked crown, as if eager to annihilate everything that failed to come up to its own idea of ponderous beauty. Presently we descended the hill on which we stood, and crossed Kaiwaka by the canoe which had brought up the ladies, and, after picking our way through a small scrub, we suddenly came into the open, when, as if by the magic touch of an enchanter's wand, the whole scene changed, and Te Tarata, gleaming still whiter in the sun, rose in grand, yet delicate proportions high above our heads. The white ethereal vapour wreathed its summit, like a graceful summer cloud, the rugged hill which held Te Tarata, as it were, in its arms, stood out in bold relief against the clear blue sky, and Nature, true to the inspired genius of her marvellous creative power, stood revealed in all her pristine loveliness.
I had seen the Himalayas and the Alps, the Blue Mountains of Tartary, the Rocky Mountains, and the Sierra Nevadas—all these were ponderously grand and awe-inspiring. I had sailed over the principal lakes of Europe and America, floated down the Nile, the Ganges, the Yangtze Kiang, the Missouri, and the Mississippi, through the thousand islands of the St. Lawrence, and up and down innumerable other rivers, all fair and beautiful. I had beheld the giant marvels of the Yosemite, and stood by the thrilling waters of Niagara; but for delicate, unique beauty, for chaste design, and sublime detail of construction never had I gazed upon so wonderful a sight as Te Tarata. It seemed as if Nature had created the wonders of the lakes and mountains of this fair region with all the marvels of fire and water after the most enchanting design of earthly beauty, and had then gone into the realms of fable and romance, and thrown in a piece of Fairyland to complete the picture; or as if the gods, when they called these sublime works into being, had fashioned Te Tarata as a throne to recline upon whilst they gazed in admiration upon the beauties of their wondrous creations.
As we looked upwards the whole outline of the terrace assumed a semicircular form, which spread out at its base in a graceful curve of many hundreds of feet, as it sloped gently down to the margin of the lake. Then broad, flat, rounded steps of pure white silica rose tier above tier, white and smooth as Parian marble, and above them terrace after terrace mounted upward, rounded and semicircular in form, as if designed by the hand of man, guided by the inspiration of the Divine Architect. All were formed out of a delicate tracery of silica which appeared like lacework congealed into alabaster of the purest hue. Each lamination, or fold, of this beautiful design was clearly and marvellously defined, and as the glittering warm water came rippling over them in a continuous flow, Te Tarata sparkled beneath the sun as if bedecked with diamonds and myriads of other precious gems. Crystal pools, shaped as if to resemble the form of shells and leaves, and filled to their brims with water, blue and shining as liquid turquoise, charmed the eye as we mounted to every step, while around the edges the bright crystals of silica had formed encrustations which made them appear as if set in a margin of miniature pearls. Every successive terrace seemed to spring up in grander proportions from the one immediately below it as we approached the summit, not in formal angular-shaped steps, but in flat-topped elevations, with rounded edges and sweeping curves, from which the wet, glittering silica hung in the shape of sparkling stalactites, which, interlacing themselves and mingling together, formed a delicate and almost transparent fringe which looked like a fantastic network of icicles, so exquisitely beautiful in appearance and so delicately formed as to appear as if fashioned by the magic touch of a fairy hand. Mounting upward and upward where it seemed sacrilege for the booted foot of man to tread, and where the snowy, crisp, silicious crystal formed a carpet-like covering beneath the feet, we reached the summit, and sat down upon a cluster of rocks which rose in fantastic shape upon the very margin of the cup-shaped crater.
I found the crater of Te Tarata to be formed by a milk-white circular basin, of 200 feet in diameter, filled to overflowing with boiling transparent water, in which the clear azure tints seemed to vie in splendour with the ethereal blue of the heavens. Here the hissing liquid, in a constant state of ebullition, bubbled and seethed in the form of a boiling fountain, from which a waving cloud of steam floated constantly upward, tinted with the golden rays from above, and the deep blue from beneath, while immediately behind the pool rose the steep sides of the adjacent mountain, shaped so as to form a semicircular wall, which rose from the opposite margin of the pool, striped by the action of fire and water in red and white rock, and steaming as if from the heat of the boiling fountain below. Around on every side a thick vegetation of variegated hues bordered the splendid terrace on every side; ferns, mosses, and wild flowers fringed every line and curve of its graceful outline, and the crystal white, the azure blue, the vivid green, and the golden light all mingling together, and reflecting their tints over fair Te Tarata and the lake below, produced one of the grandest and most charming scenes ever designed by the divine hand of the Creator.
When we had feasted our eyes upon the chaste marvels of Te Tarata, the ladies filed slowly away, as if spellbound, while we (the sterner sex) walked leisurely down the crystal steps to about the centre of the terrace, where lay an oval-shaped basin, about forty feet long by twenty feet broad, filled to the brim with water of the purest blue. In the midst of a small clump of manuka, which clustered on the very margin of the terrace, as if eager to participate in its beauty, we divested ourselves of our outward garb of civilization, and stood beneath the glowing rays of the sun in the primitive costume of man free and untrammelled, as when "wild in the woods the noble savage ran." It was now that I fully realized that soft, soothing, magical effect which one invariably experiences when devoid of all restraint, one is about to partake of a pleasure which one has never experienced before. To look around at the sublime wonders of Te Tarata, and then plunge head first into the alabaster pool of liquid turquoise, and to feel that the soft, pellucid liquid that had been for thousands of years, nay, countless ages, building up that wondrous monument of unrivalled splendour would wrap me in its warm embrace, and impart, if only for a moment, its soft, soothing influence to the heated body, was a pleasure, the anticipation of which only seemed to make me the more eager to revel in its enjoyment. There was not a single speck to mar the delicate beauty of the crystal basin, the blue lustre of the water, nor the white virgin purity of the silicious pearls around its brink. One glance at the enchanting scene around me, and, as I shot beneath the shining surface, like an arrow from a bow, the soft, heated water closed over me, and for the instant I seemed to be gliding into the realms of eternal bliss,
Where the wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest.