28 Kaxsas Academy of Science. 



earth fairly quivered beside the path, suggesting to us that a few missteps might 

 incur a rapid transit down through to some foreign country, with a chance of bring- 

 ing up rather demolished. 



"Leaving this bellowing trombone of the fire giants of the iriner realms, we came 

 to a much smaller vent in the rocks, with a gush of steam making as much hubbub 

 as its size could possibly warrant. This aperture is as delicately christened as the 

 arger one, being called the "Pain in the Belly." 



"Then Kate led us down a steep, treacherous-looking path to a large, cruel spring 

 called 'Reea Kiwi.' It takes its name from that of a little girl who, with an infant 

 on her back, went to the spring, we were told, to put a kit of potatoes in at the side. 

 Both children were soon found in the water, literally boiled to death. Near the 

 Reea Kiwi is a cave in the rocks where a native chief lived and died in the midst of 

 sulphur fumes, and surrounded by the roar and rumble of the thermal caldrons. 



"Although I have neglected to write of scores of scenes we have passed in this 

 wonder-region, they are still far from exhausted. 



"Kate next escorted us back to the canoe, where reclined lazily our boatman upon 

 the bed of tea-tea she had so thoughtfully arranged for us. We were then paddled 

 swiftly but noiselessly across the half-mile of lake to the foot of the Pink Terraces. 

 These, like the White Terraces, are composed of mineral deposits distributed in sed- 

 imentary mites over the irregularities of a steep decline from a huge caldron to the 

 lake below. In size the Pink Terraces are somewhat less gigantic than the White, 

 and instead of the appearance of fiorescent coral, they resemble huge banks and pro- 

 jecting tables of the purest marble. In color they are in some places spotless white, 

 and in others light gray, threaded here and there with veins of the brightest pink. 

 The caldron at the top is partly covered with and wholly surrounded by a thin shelf 

 of white mineral deposits. This shelf is rimmed with a margin of sulphur as yellow 

 as gold, contrasting with the exquisite blue of the water, which is so clear, so trans- 

 parent and crystalline, that the minutest objects are visible many feet in depth. The 

 verdure of the banks, in the rear of the caldron, is held in the lap of modest, gently- 

 shading hills, overlooking a scene that may challenge the world to produce its coun- 

 terpart. Then there are those cups and basins that are cleft in the flats of apparent 

 marble between the huge steep steps, filled with water — blue, warm, and so luxurious, 

 that you are seized with the desire to drop your wardrobe for a swim.'' 



The delicious bath was taken, going from the lower pools up towards the boiling 

 caldron until the goose-pimples stand out upon the body till it resembles a boiled 

 lobster. The natives during stormy days resort to the hot springs, and lie immersed 

 in the tepid water, with nothing but their black heads appearing above the surface, 

 remaining in them whole days at one time. 



Mr, Snow called a congress of these ex-cannibals, and they told him of their for- 

 mer ways of living, killing their enemies and afterwards eating them; all of which 

 we will omit, except this: That white men and sliced missionary were too salty for 

 their taste. Natives were much preferred. 



After a residence of two and one half years among this people, laboring among 

 them as a temperance missionary, Mr. Snow's health failed, and he set sail for Ger- 

 nany and died while on shipboard. After his death his mother went on to New Zea- 

 land to continue the work so nobly begun by her son. She remained there about one 

 year, and built a meeting-house — or temperance hall, as it was called — for the na- 

 tives, as a sort of memorial gift in memory of her son. 



During her stay there she lived in the family of a Mr. Hazzard, an Englishman, 

 who with his family was teaching a native school in the vicinity of the terraces. 



This hot-spring district seems to have been on a native reservation, and all the 

 Europeans there wexe these teachers and a few hotel-keepers, and a constant How of 



