218 



Report of a four/icy Around the World. 



but no geysers! The natives who once thronged the place and 

 gave it life and interest had moved away; Maggie, the famous 

 guide, had married a millionaire Englishman and was living in 

 England and her fine little house was closed. On the hill the Pa, 

 so graphically described by Mr. Hamilton, 1 with its carved houses, 

 watch towers and gateways had been reerected on the hill, but this 

 relic of the Christchurch Exhibition is now looking tawdry and in 



l66. MUD VOLCANO, WAIOTAPU. 



decay, and hardly recalls the fine account given by Hamilton. 

 Graves were prominent, but with the geysers and hot springs dead, 

 the whole place seemed to me a cemetery. At my last visit all the 

 many varieties of natural fountains were in most energetic action, 

 and my then companion Acland Wansey and I had to be on our 

 guard against the hot spatters coming every now and then from 

 basin or crevice. Have these springs followed the Maori inhabit- 

 ants or are they simply resting? The destruction of the Terraces 

 in the eruption of Tarawera a dozen years ago ; the spoiling of the 

 mighty Waimangu geyser, the largest in the world (1800 ft.) by 



'Bulletin s, of the Dominion Museum, 191 1. 



[366] 



