ioo SPORT AND TRAVEL 



ridge-Pot" seethes and rumbles with some foul 

 glutinous concoction ; on the other you look down 

 through the "Gates of Hell" into a slimy lake, 

 whose thickened waves rise and recede as if about to 

 break upon the banks above, and whose sulphurous 

 fumes send you back gasping for a breath of pure 

 air. 



But we have had enough of this. Heaven and 

 Hell rub elbows in this country : let us have a look 

 at some of its more cheerful features. We will leave 

 behind the boiling mud, uncanny jets of steam and 

 sulphur-laden air, and cross over to Rotorua Lake, 

 where the fresh lake breeze washes the poisonous 

 fumes from our lungs and cools our skins from the 

 burning breath of those horrors behind. A small 

 steamer carries us across the rippling lake, dotted 

 with white sails of robroy canoes and knockabouts, 

 passes between green islands, and lands us in thick 

 woods on the opposite shore, where we enter a row- 

 boat and row lazily up an enchanted river to a 

 fairyland of extraordinary beauty. The banks are 

 thickly grown with great overhanging trees and 

 blossoming shrubs, ivy and tall ferns, which shade 

 marvellously clear depths of opalescent color. Sud- 

 denly the river narrows, turns, and stops short, cut 

 off and walled in by the same luxuriantly wooded 

 banks. For a moment we are astounded that a 



