CHAPTER V 



WAIMUNGU AND THE HOT-SPRING COUNTRY OF NEW 

 ZEALAND 



|N the North Island of New Zealand, if 

 you drive from Rotorua straight back 

 through the scarred and roughened 

 lava-strewn hills toward Mount Tara- 

 wera, that old volcano of such grim associations, 

 you will come upon what appears to be a peaceful 

 pond lying motionless in a depression among the 

 hills. Among its dreary and barren surroundings 

 not a living thing is to be seen ; the thin steam that 

 rises gently from its surface and from the other 

 pools near by is the only sign of movement that 

 breaks its stillness. From the plateau in which it is 

 sunk rises in two directions great rugged cliffs, and 

 these form, as it were, a natural stadium in whose 

 arena below is enacted at intervals one of the most 

 marvellous and sensational spectacles which the 

 natural phenomena of the world produce. For this 

 is Waimungu, the largest geyser in the world, but a 

 geyser whose action resembles far more the eruption 

 of a great volcano than it does the slender jets of 



