The illusion, however, was only momentary, but I would have liked it to continue for the rest of my natural life, and then, in default of a better place hereafter, I would have been content to paddle in that pool to all eternity, floating on its surface, diving into its depths, and basking on the pearly margin of its brink. Its water was just warm enough to render it delightfully pleasant, and it seemed to wrap itself round the body in gently waving folds, while, as I glided from point to point, streaks, as it were, of cold water would bathe the skin with refreshing effect, and then a soft, tepid wave would impart a voluptuous sensation of glowing warmth.[33]
When we had enjoyed the luxuries of the bath, we went along a winding path fringed with bush, at the back of Te Tarata, when we came suddenly upon Ngahapu, an intermittent boiling geyser, which burst forth with a loud noise from the farther side of an oval-shaped basin, about a hundred feet in circumference, and in which the heated, steaming water, in a constant state of ebullition, kept rising and falling in great hot waves, which lashed themselves into fury against the rugged sides of the cauldron with a loud hissing sound, as a column of boiling water shot high into the air. Right above this spring, on the side of a hill, a transparent jet of steam burst forth from a narrow fissure with a loud screaming noise, as if anxious to escape from its rock-bound prison-house, and blow up the surrounding country. It blew, whistled, steamed, and hissed, and shrieked away, like a fifty-horse-power engine, and the terrific pressure, acting in some way upon the rocks below, made them send forth a sound like the "thud" of a great steam-hammer.
Passing along by Te Tokapo, a region of small hot springs, on the margin of Lake Rotomahana, we came to Waikanapanapa, a small lake, surrounded by gaunt-looking manuka scrub, and whose thick, slimy water, of the colour of green sealing-wax, gave it the appearance of a veritable slough of despond.
Just beyond Waikanapanapa we entered a rocky, desolate gorge, seamed and fissured in every direction with streams of hot water, while jets of hissing steam, bursting from its sides, marked the site of subterranean fires. The heated, quaking soil was covered with thick deposits of silica, sulphur, oxide of iron, pumice, obsidian, scoria, and other volcanic products, and, with its sulphurous atmosphere, fierce heat, and shrieking sounds, it appeared as we entered it like a short cut to Pandemonium. The high hills on each side of the gorge rose up in quaint, fantastic shape, and their rugged sides, composed of shattered volcanic rock, sent forth water and jets of steam from a thousand fissures. There was something very wild, weird, and fascinating in this strange place. All the huge rocks, boulders, and stones had been pitched and tossed about by the tremendous action of fire and water into a wild and endless confusion, and when we had so recently gazed in admiration upon the delicate, tranquil beauty of the White Terrace, it seemed as if we had got behind the scenes and into the laboratory and mysterious manufactory where all the wonders of Te Tarata had been evolved before Nature had sent them through the subterranean depths below to rise on the other side of the hill in the form of the marvellous "transformation scene" we had so recently beheld.
One of the most remarkable wonders of this singular region was Te Ana Taipo, or the "Devil's Hole," a deep, circular aperture in the rocky gorge, about forty feet in diameter, from which a column of transparent steam burst from a small aperture at the bottom of the deep, funnel-shaped hole with a deafening screeching sound, like the voices of a thousand fiends. Never had I heard anything so wild and so dismal as the human-like wailings of Te Ana Taipo, and, as the thrilling noise went echoing over the hills, one expected to see an army of evil spirits spring up around, headed by his Satanic Majesty himself. Near to this was Kakariki, a boiling geyser which, beneath a cloud of steam, lashed its hot waves about and foamed with a furious sound in a rock-bound basin about sixty feet in diameter, while in close proximity Te Whatapohu, or "Pain in the Belly," a noisy intermittent spring, sent up its seething waters with a rumbling sound, which seemed to suggest that even the "bowels of the earth" had their pains and trials sometimes.
Scattered over a greater portion of this fiery wilderness were innumerable fumaroles, all hard at work shooting out steam and vomiting black streams of liquid mud. Some of these were round, some flat, and others cup-shaped, while not a few assumed the form of a miniature volcanoes. One of the latter formation, known as Te Huka, spewed up a soapy kind of clay, which the natives eat as kai, and pronounce it to be very good, both as an ordinary article of diet and as a medicine in cases of diarrhœa, and I was solemnly informed by Sophia that a native in want of a meal would make a splendid repast from it. I tasted some of it off the end of a stick, and if one ground up a slate pencil, mixed it with water to the consistency of thick pap, and threw in a dash of sulphur and a little cinder grit, one would have a very good idea of what Te Huka kai is like.
When we had seen the wonders of the fiery region of Waikanapanapa we came back to Te Takapo, a kind of platform of silicious rock which bathed its white feet in the dark-green waters of Rotomahana. It was a very picturesque spot, dotted about with springs, some tepid, some hot, some boiling, and fringed with manuka scrub. Here the natives had constructed small baths, and there were rude seats formed of slabs of rock where they could take their siestas in comfort, after undergoing the soothing effects of the warm mineral water. At this point we embarked in a canoe, and headed across the lake in the direction of the Pink Terrace.
Lake Rotomahana, like Tarawera, stands at an elevation of a little over 1000 feet above the level of the sea. It is one of the smallest of the group, and is about a mile long by a quarter of a mile wide. It is, however, very picturesque, not only by reason of the unequalled features presented by the terraces, but likewise on account of its steaming shores, with their countless marvels, as well as by the bold, rugged scenery which surrounds it on every side. It is the seat of a vast thermal action, which spreads out to the base of the conical hills which encircle it, and beyond which the towering mountains, as they rise thousands of feet in height, appear to have been heated and twisted about by the terrific action of volcanic fire, while the deep gorges and dark ravines seem to have formed at some period or another the channels for the streams of boiling lava. Everywhere around one sees the wondrous working of fire and water, and, although these tremendous forces appear to have nearly expended their strength in the geysers, mud-holes, and fumaroles, and other active evidences of subterranean work to be seen at the present day, there was no doubt a time when the whole region surrounding this curious lake was the scene of a widely extended volcanic action. There was a soft balmy stillness in the air as we glided over its singularly dark green water, which was in many places covered with large air-bubbles sent up by the hot springs from the depths below, and it was interesting to reflect that a capsize into one of these places would have resulted in one or two of us, at least, being hauled out parboiled.[34] Our primitive canoe, however, which was literally freighted to her gunwale, behaved admirably. This craft, which had been fashioned, some sixty years ago, out of a solid log of totara, about thirty feet long, was as staunch as the day she was launched, notwithstanding the fact that she had done good service as a kind of first-class privateer on the troubled waters of the lakes during the Maori War.
We rounded a low point where was a large solfatara named Te Whakataratara, whose greenish, slimy water boiled up from between enormous blocks of pure yellow sulphur and redhot-looking rocks of pumice and silicious sinter.
At this moment the orb of day was shining warm and brightly over our heads, when suddenly a pink halo in front of us seemed to dazzle the eye, and in another moment Te Otukapurangi, the "Fountain of the Clouded Sky," or the Pink Terrace, rose majestically from the very edge of the shining green water of the lake in all its gorgeous beauty. Now, I have attempted to describe Te Tarata, albeit but faintly, and now that I have Te Otukapurangi before my mind it seems difficult as to which to assign the palm of beauty. Both terraces are unique in their way; both wonderful monuments of nature's grandest handiwork. It seems to me, however, that in Te Tarata we have all that is divinely sublime, ethereal, fairy-like, and lovely—a structure chaste and grand enough to serve as steps to heaven. Te Otukapurangi, on the other hand, has a rich, gorgeous, oriental look about it, which reminds one of those fanciful creations we read of in Eastern tales, and which were constructed of chalcedony, agate, alabaster, onyx, jasper, and lapis-lazuli, studded with precious gems, and inhabited by beautiful princesses, gnomes, and genii, and evolved from the fanciful minds of those gaunt, dark-skinned men who, reared on the sandy deserts of "Araby the Blest," carried fire and sword over the Eastern world, and built up an empire which rivalled in splendour even the most wondrous of their fabulous tales, which still take the mind captive, as it were, and lead it away like an ignis fatuus, a fleeting mirage, or a fitful dream. But there is nothing evanescent in the Pink Terrace; it is adamantine in construction, and grandly beautiful enough to have graced the approach to the Temple of Solomon the Magnificent, the Palace of the Queen of Sheba, or the Mosque of Haroun Al Raschid the Superb.