A RAMBLE THROUGH TAUPO.
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out of the rock, and with a whare built over it to accommodate bathers. After bathing here and in the lake, we went into the Taupo township, which is situated just where the Waikato issues from the lake. The river is here a narrow but very deep stream, confined between steep and narrow banks.
In the afternoon we followed the recommendation of some friends, and went to visit a waterfall a few miles down the river. After a fruitless ramble over the hills we were at length led to the right spot by the roaring of the water. The river, after widening its course, somewhat, flows swiftly down an incline for about 600 yards, and then enters a narrow and rapidly descending channel about 200 yards in length, along which it dashes at great speed, falling over three precipices on the way. At the last fall the river makes a clean leap of about 35 feet into a basin below, about 80 yards across, the middle part of which is one white mass of boiling eddies. These have probably suggested the somewhat unpoetical name of Huka (sugar). Even this beautiful spot has not been spared by the hand of vandalism, for some miscreant had fired the trees on the banks, and only the spray from the fall had saved the vegetation near the water from destruction.
Next morning, after hiring horses and a half-caste as our guide, we started across the country for a Maori village on the Waikato called Orakeikoraka, where we were told we should find an interesting cave and some geysers. We were welcomed by a fine set of Maoris, who knew little more of English than we did of their own language. Fortunately our guide made an excellent interpreter, and through him we negotiated for a day's board and lodging, a visit to the cave, and a guide and horses for the next day's journey. Geysers—both intermittent and constant—large hot pools
and steaming holes abound everywhere about this strange place. The largest geyser occasionally threw out water to a height of fifteen feet, but a dense steam rising from its basin prevented us from making a close inspection.
Towards the end of the afternoon we were skilfully ferried across the river by a Maori in a somewhat cranky canoe, which shipped a good deal of water during each passage. After a quarter of an hour's walk through the manuka, with hot and cold springs in every direction about us, the shouts of the Maori children in advance told us that they had reached a cave. Descending a flight of steps cut out of the rock we entered a beautiful vault. The floor of the cave was covered with large boulders. These were encrusted with a white alum deposit, the taste of which we easily recognized. At the end of the cave is a large pool of hot blue water, holding alum in solution. The roof is covered with pink, white and yellow incrustations, and is about eighty feet above the pool at the bottom.
In the evening the Maoris sat smoking and talking to us by means of the interpreter till after ten o'clock. Two of them had fought in the war—one as a Hauhau, the other as a friendly native—and they became quite excited in recounting their deeds of valor. Next morning we were provided with horses and a Maori lad for a guide, and after about six hours' riding we reached Wairoa, the nearest town to Rotomahana. On the whole we had no reason to regret that we had chosen to travel straight across the country instead of keeping to the roundabout and uninteresting high road, and those who travel from Taupo to Rotomahana will find the geysers and alum cave of Orakeikoraka well worth visiting. Nelsonian (New Zealand). RAMBLER.
It is the voice of years that are gone! They roll before me with their deeds. — Ossian.