basin with a loud hissing sound, partly veiling the spout of water. This lasted for a minute and a half; then the expelling force decreased, the water rose only two or three feet high, and after two minutes the performance ceased entirely, amid a low, gurgling noise. On now stepping up to the basin, I found it empty, and was able to look down to a depth of eight feet into a funnel-shaped, graduallycontracting aperture, from which steam escaped with a hissing sound. Gradually the water rose again; after the lapse of ten minutes the basin was again full, and presently another eruption took place.

A MUD VOLCANO.

AT three P.M. this day we encamped close to the foot of the Pairoa Peak, amid a dense growth of manuka. It was a dismal neighbourhood; for close by our camping-ground lay a terrific basin, about thirty feet in diameter, in which a bluish-grey clay-pap was boiling. By the side of this mud-basin, concealed among the bushes, arose a flat mudcone about ten feet high, with a regular crater on the top. A heavy cloud of steam, which suddenly escaped from the crater, accompanied by a slight detonation, attracted our attention. Carefully sounding the ground with our sticks, we approached the mud-crater, and saw a deep, funnelshaped hole, in which a thick boiling mass of mud rose higher and higher, heaving up in large bursting bubbles. As the mud rose quite close to the brim, we receded a short distance, and then observed a second eruption, during which again steam escaped with a hissing sound, while the mud was discharged over the margin of the basin. Quite a number of such mud-volcanoes extend on the steaming

slopes of the Pairoa Peak, playing in the gayest colours of red, white, and yellow; while at the top of the mountain a powerful column of steam is seen to ascend.

There

We next passed the Waikato springs, which are real boiling wells. In well-shaped circular holes, six, eight, or ten feet wide, and equally deep, partly clear and partly turbid water of a milky colour may be seen boiling; in some of them, also, mere mud. Whatever grows there grows in a uniformly warm steam-atmosphere. were some ferns of luxuriant growth, but in forms such as we had as yet observed nowhere else. We were therefore very desirous of gathering them, though the attempt was not entirely unaccompanied with danger. The most successful method of accomplishing our object was for one of us to lay himself flat upon the ground, and while the others were holding him fast by the legs, gradually push the upper part of his body so far over the margin of the hole, that he could reach far enough down with one arm. Our delight on first seeing these beautiful ferns was fully justified, for the result proved they were of a species which is usually found only in tropical countries.

TARAWERA LAKE.

Ir was on a delightful morning when my eyes roved for the first time over the smooth deep-blue mirror of Lake Tarawera. Resplendent in the radiant sunlight, the landscape appeared to me perhaps doubly beautiful. Its scenery surpasses in wildness and grandeur that of all the other lakes in the lake-district. It is seven miles in length, with a breadth of about five miles, and is probably very deep, for its shores are mostly rugged, rocky bluffs,

shaded by pohutukaua trees. The chief ornament of the adjoining landscape is the Tarawera mountain, with its crown of rocks, divided into three parts by deep ravines. It rises on the south-eastern side of the lake, to a height of at least 2000 feet above the level of the sea. It is an imposing table-mountain; and it is not to be wondered at that its dark ravines and vertical sides have given birth to many a weird story in the Maori imagination. Among others, a huge monster, twenty-four feet long, resembling a crocodile, is said to haunt the clefts between the rocks, devouring every one who dares to scale the mountain.

LAKE ROTOMAHANA, THE HOT LAKE.

I Do not think that the impression which the traveller receives at the first sight of this small dirty-green lake, with its marshy shores, and the desolate and dreary-looking treeless hills about it, covered with only a dwarfish copse of fern, corresponds in any degree with his previous expectations, conceived from hearing so much about its marvels. So it was, at least, with us. The lake lacks all the beauty of landscape scenery; and that which makes it the most remarkable of all the New Zealand lakes-indeed we may well say one of the most wonderful spots in the world— must be observed closely, being mostly hidden from the eyes of the traveller on his first approach.

We crossed over in a canoe to a small island in the lake, called Puai, recommended to us by the natives as the best place to take up our quarters in during our stay about the lake. Puai is a rocky cliff in the lake, 12 feet high, 250 feet long, and about 100 feet wide. Manuka, grass, and fern grow upon it, and for occasional visitors to the lake small

raupo-huts have been erected, in which we made ourselves at home, as well as circumstances would admit. I believe, however, that if we had not known that others before us had lived for weeks at that place, we should hardly have been induced to spend a single night upon it, after a close examination of the spot. It is almost the same as living in an active crater. All round there is a continual seething, and hissing, and roaring, and boiling, and the whole ground is warm. On the first night the ground upon which I was lying grew gradually so warm from below, despite the thick underlayer of ferns, and the woollen blankets which composed my bed, that I started from my couch, unable to bear it any longer. In order to examine the temperature, I formed with my stick a hole in the soft clay soil, and placed a thermometer in the aperture. It rose at once to boiling-point; on taking it out again, hot steam came hissing out, so that I hastened to stop the hole up again. No fire is required here for cooking; whenever we dug but a little into the ground, or cleared the existing crevices of the crusts formed upon them, there we could cook our potatoes and our meat by steam.

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The Rotomahana is one of the smallest lakes of the district, not even quite a mile long from north to south, and only a quarter of a mile wide. It justly bears the name of the warm lake." The quantity of boiling water issuing from the ground, both on the shores and at the bottom of the lake, is truly astonishing, and is enough to maintain its whole mass at a warm temperature. But on making experiments to ascertain this temperature, it is found to be very different in various places. In bathing and swimming through the lake, the variation is very easily felt; but care must be taken not to come too close to any of the hot springs. The water is turbid with mud,

and of a smutty-green colour; no fish live in it. It is, however, the favourite haunt of countless water-fowls. Various kinds of ducks, water-hens, the magnificent pukeko, and the graceful oyster-catcher, enliven the surface of the water.

About eighty feet above the lake, on the fern-clad slope of a hill, from which, in various places, hot vapours. escape, there is an immense boiling cauldron in a craterlike excavation, with steep, reddish sides, thirty to forty feet high. The basin of the spring is about eighty feet long and sixty wide, and filled to the brim with perfectly transparent water, which, in the snow-white incrustated basin, appears of a beautiful blue, like the blue turquois. Immense clouds of steam, reflecting the beautiful blue of the basin, curl up, obstructing the view of the whole surface of the water, but the noise of boiling and seething is always distinctly audible.

Siliceous deposits cover an area of about three acres, composing terraces which doubtless thousands of years have been required to form. The flat spreading foot of these terraces extends far into the lake. There they commence with low shelves containing shallow water-basins. The farther up, the higher the terraces grow-two, three, and some also four and six feet high. They are formed by a number of semi-circular stages, of which, however, no two are of the same height. Each of these stages has a small raised margin, from which slender stalactites hang down upon the lower stage, and encircle on its platform one or more basins, resplendent with the most beautiful blue water. These small water-basins represent as many natural bathing-basins, which the most refined luxury could not have prepared in a more splendid and commodious style. They are to be had shallow or deep, large