376 Transactions. — Botany. 



neath them grew plentifully a curious woolly-looking white 

 moss, which, though I sought assiduously, I could not detect 

 bearing any fructification. We had previously arranged to 

 make Tarawera (the second lake, where some natives reside) 

 our halting-place for this night ; but, although we had nothing 

 to eat, we were so excessively tired as to be obliged to bring 

 up on the white-gravelled shores of the placid Eangiwhakaaitu. 

 I offered my natives the choice of staying supperless where we 

 were or of proceeding on to Tarawera, distant about three miles, 

 and there getting supper, Fatigue, however, overcame hunger 

 even in a New-Zealander, and they chose the former. The 

 whole face of the country in this neighbourhood was over- 

 spread with massy blocks of compact lava scattered in every 

 direction, many of them being vitrified on their surfaces. The 

 ground gently rose on every side from the lake, which appeared 

 to occupy a deep hollow, and I could but venture to suppose 

 that this might have been the crater of that volcano which, 

 m some bygone age, inundated the whole of the adjacent 

 country with showers of pumice and ashes. 



At an early hour the next morning we arose, feverish, 

 stiff, sore, and hungry, to recommence our march. We soon 

 came within sight of the place where the hot springs were 

 situated, from which the steam and sulphurous vapours 

 ascended in dense white clouds. The air this morning was 

 cool and bracing, and after travelling about an hour and a 

 half we arrived at Tarawera Lake. Here, at a little village 

 on its banks, we gained some potatoes, on which we break- 

 fasted with hearty zest. At this place were several small 

 hot springs which flowed out of the earth near the margin of 

 the lake ; the water of some was hotter than the hand could 

 bear. Just within the lake the water w r as warm ; a little 

 further on it was lukewarm ; and further still it was cold : 

 so that these natives have baths of every requisite degree of 

 heat always ready at hand, without any trouble whatever. 

 The water of the lake I supposed to be specifically heavier 

 than the sulphurous hot waters which flow T ed into it, as 

 whenever any of the natives of the village wished to drink I 

 observed them go out into the lake, where the water was 

 knee-deep, and, dashing the uppermost water aside with their 

 feet, quickly take up some from beneath, or, lowering down 

 a calabash, keeping their fingers closed over the small hole 

 near the handle, fill it below. This water they said was 

 good and cold. The natives of the village informed me 

 that at a spring on a hill at a little distance the water 

 was quite hot enough for the purposes of cooking, for 

 which they often used it. Sulphur, too, abounded there, 

 and was often " thrown up " out of the earth, from which 

 place steam and smoke ever ascended. My curiosity being 



