ro 9 8 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



spectacle matched only by the coral forest viewed in the shimmering of a placid sea. 

 The baths on the terrace were shallow, but sensuously luxurious, imparting a peculiar 

 smoothness to the skin, as though a fairy Madame Rachel had covered it with an 

 exquisite varnish." The height of the White Terrace was one hundred feet ; its frontage 

 to the Lake measured about eight hundred feet; and the distance from the Lake to the 

 centre of the crowning basin, or crater, also eight hundred feet, giving a superficies of 

 silicated terracing of about seven and a half acres. 



Reference to the lost glories of Rotomahana naturally carries the mind back to the 

 incidents of the eruption. Rain set in on Tuesday night, on the 8th of June, 1886, 

 and fell heavily throughout the Wednesday, when the weather cleared. Soon after one 

 o'clock on the morning of Thursday, the loth, the inhabitants were startled from their 

 slumbers by shocks of earthquake occurring at frequent intervals and accompanied by a 

 prolonged rumbling noise. The startled sleepers were aroused. They arose in alarm, 

 dressed hurriedly, and left their dwellings in order to ascertain the cause of the strange 

 disturbance. Before two o'clock their attention was concentrated upon a black and 

 lowering cloud in a highly electrical condition, which seemed to be settling down over 

 the truncated cone of the triple-peaked Mount Tarawera, immediately at the back of 

 Lake Rotomahana. A few minutes later; flames subsequently attributed to the glare of 

 the incandescent rocks reflected upon the rising columns of steam were seen above the 

 Mountain, and within a quarter of an hour a terrific explosion rent its broad top open 

 from end to end, with a convulsive tremor that was felt along the east coast from Tauranga 

 to Gisborne. For the next hour the awe-struck and trembling watchers were witnesses 

 of phenomena the fierce vigour and dread solemnity of which were enough to appall 

 the heart of the stoutest. Forked lightning played continuously about the peaks of the 

 Mountain and its inky canopy, from which also fiery balls darted hither and thither, 

 flashing into broad ribbons of flame, or dropping in showers of huge sparks. Blood-red 

 tongues, issuing from the darkness, lapped the face of the sky and vanished. Incandescent 

 bombs rolled down the precipitous sides of Tarawera, the internal fires maintained their 

 lurid glare, and to add to the striking horrors of the scene, earthquake shocks at v ten- 

 minute intervals formed the prelude to the fearful roaring of the volcano, which united with 

 the crackling of the electric discharges to produce a vast, mixed, and indescribable noise. 



At Auckland, distant one hundred and twenty miles in a direct line, and at the 

 Bay of Islands, one hundred miles farther north, the people were aroused from their 

 sleep by reports as of a war-vessel in distress, and they were heard also as far south 

 as Nelson and Christchurch in the sister Island. More than that, the flashes of light 

 were seen at Gisborne and Auckland, and the pungent gases which charged the atmos- 

 phere, and almost suffocated the denizens of the Lake District, were distinctly perceptible 

 at Tauranga and Gisborne during the fall there of the volcanic dust. Meantime, how 

 fared the hapless residents ? While a bitterly cold wind was raging with the force of 

 a tornado through the devoted district, uprooting great trees in the Tikitapu Bush, the 

 native inhabitants were being overwhelmed in swift destruction. A tremendous eruption 

 of scoria, hot stones and liquid mud poured clown upon the Maori settlements around 

 the margin of Lake Rotomahana, and entombed both them and their inhabitants Moura 

 with its forty people and Te Ariki with its forty-five, while Te Wairoa suffered less 



