364 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



parent diameter, there was a ring of bright white light ; then came a 

 ring of light brown, deepening outward to purple ; then came blue 

 growing into green, that melting into yellow, that deepening through 

 orange into a beautiful red. The series of rings was very perfect, about 

 sixteen times the width of the moon, and lasted, apparently without 

 any change, for several hours. 



After crossing the river at daybreak we soon came to a native set- 

 tlement of Orakei-korako, and there got a native to guide us to the 

 alum cave, for which the place is famous. The entrance to the cave is 

 completely hidden by creepers and magnificent tree-ferns with heavily 

 silvered fronds fully twelve feet in length. Descending the cave some 

 eighty or ninety feet by almost regularly formed steep steps, we found 

 a beautiful pool of clear blue water at the bottom. Of course we 

 bathed in the pool ; it was warm, strongly impregnated with alum, 

 and when we were swimming with our backs to the entrance it had, 

 curiously enough, exactly the appearance of getting its light from be- 

 low. The Maori name for it is " the looking-glass," so called, prob- 

 ably, from its power of reflecting light. The floor and walls of the 

 cave were thickly covered with deposits of pure alum, and the roof 

 was colored in parts with pretty variegated patches resembling marble 

 frescoes. 



Soon after leaving the cave my horse broke down, and it was with 

 the greatest difficulty that I got him to the high-road before he suc- 

 cumbed entirely. While waiting to see if he would recover I saw 

 three people riding toward me : one was a smart-looking native in the 

 uniform of the armed constabulary, the second was a lady, and, to my 

 surprise, she too was a native. She wore a tall black hat and dark 

 veil, a dark-blue well-fitting riding habit, a dainty pink-and-white 

 necktie ; I afterward saw she wore a pair of French-looking boots, and 

 black-and-white stockings. She was, in fact, a " real dark swell." She 

 talked a little English, and, after hearing of my plight, she made the 

 third rider, an ordinary-looking native, dismount, and give me his 

 horse, he remaining to do what he could for mine. We rode on to a 

 native village, and there had some boiled potatoes and dried peaches 

 for lunch. My fair riding companion soon afterward appeared without 

 the riding habit, but with a dirty clay pipe in her mouth ; I fear her 

 civilization, like her dress, was only a new habit, whose greatest charm 

 was the ease with which it could be discarded. I had eventually to 

 walk to Taupo, a township on the biggest lake in the country, where 

 we intended staying a few days. 



Major Roberts, the head of the constabulary, who had been asked 

 to help us, kindly provided us with horses, and an orderly as a guide. 

 We first visited the falls of the Waikato ; the great broad river is con- 

 tracted into a narrow channel, not more than thirty feet wide, with 

 precipitous banks, between which the immense volume of water rushes 

 along, one mass of waves and foam, for a distance of about two hun- 



