HOT SPRINGS OF NEW ZEALAND 95 



exploded marvellously just five minutes after we 

 had left the danger-zone and climbed the adjacent 

 cliff. 



The road through the hills from Rotorua toward 

 Waimungu led us over the most desolate country : 

 in all directions only the lava-formed, rolling wil- 

 derness was to be seen. Occasionally we passed 

 terraces of sulphur, silica, and alum, where jets of 

 steam or boiling mud-holes showed the volcanic 

 nature of the land. So far as any natural earthlike 

 features were to be seen, one might have been in 

 the nether regions. Then, after scrambling up a 

 steep hill to the westward of Rotorua, a superb view 

 suddenly appeared : at our feet lay the azure surface 

 of Lake Rotomahana, of such a blue as one sees por- 

 trayed and believes unreal, a turquoise in an old-gold 

 setting, for the encircling mountains were bathed 

 in the yellow haze of afternoon sunlight, and rose as 

 tawny protectors of their charge below. Grim and 

 foreboding in the background stood Tarawera, pas- 

 sive now and smokeless, brooding over her dark 

 deeds of bygone years, dreaming perhaps of the day 

 when power would once more be given her to rise 

 and strike the land with terror. 



From the hill beside Rotomahana we descended 

 to Waimungu's basin. The boiling pool which occu- 

 pies the centre of the crater, some three hundred 



