6 New Zealand Institute. 
southern extremity ; among them the Upper Waikato, which, in this portion 
of its long course, is generally called by the natives the river of Tongariro. 
On our arrival at Tokano, as everywhere else on my tour, I was welcomed 
with hearty respect and good-will by the local chiefs and their clansmen. Our 
party was lodged in several Maori whares, and food was liberally provided, in 
the absence of the supplies shipped on board our boat. 
We bathed that evening, by moonlight, in one of the many natural basins 
into which overflow the Hot Springs, that seethe and boil amid and around 
the kainga, or native village, of Tokano. In these fairy baths—with sides as 
of polished marble, and bottoms as of glazed porcelain—meet, each evening, 
the Maoris, old and young; while from every quarter are heard gay chants 
and songs. “ But,” to quote the graphic description of a recent traveller, * 
“ever and again, even these voices are hushed and stilled, while, with a weird 
and rushing sound, the great geyser bursts from the calm waters, rising white 
and silvery in the moonbeams which reveal the dark outlines of the distant 
hills, and dashing its feathery spray high against the starry sky.”+ 
The southern shores of Lake Taupo are the most fertile and attractive. 
Near its south-western extremity is the Pa of Pukawa—the residence during 
many generations of the family of Te Heuheu, one of the most powerful 
among the old Maori aristocracy. The father of the present chief perished 
by an awful catastrophe in May, 1846, in the neighbouring village of Te Rapa, 
on the shore between Pukawa and Tokano. He was buried alive during the 
night, together with sixty of his clansmen, by a landslip, or rather by an 
avalanche of boiling mud. To quote Hochstetter ;t “ Above the springs on 
the side of the mountain, probably 500 feet above the lake, steam issues from 
innumerable places. The whole north side of the Kakaramea mountain seems 
to have been boiled soft by hot steam, and to be on the point of falling in. 
From every crack and cleft on that side of the mountain, boiling water 
streams forth with a continual fizzing noise, as though hundreds of steam- , 
engines were in motion. These steaming fissures in the mountain side, upon 
which every stone is decomposed into reddish clay, are called by the natives 
Hipaoa, i.e., the chimneys ; and it was at the foot of this mountain that, in 
the year 1846, the village of Te Rapa was overwhelmed by an avalanche of 
mud, and the great Te Heuheu perished.” Hochstetter adds that the corpse 
of their chief was afterwards exhumed by his clansmen from the buried 
village, and accorded a solemn interment. “ According to Maori custom in 
the case of great chiefs, the remains were disinterred after some years, laid 
out upon a kind of bed of state, and preserved in a magnificently carved 
* Lieut. the Hon. Herbert Meade, R.N. ; see, “A Ride through New Zealand,” chap. ii. 
- +The largest geyser at Tokano is called Pirori. The water is here sometimes thrown 
to a height of more than forty feet. + Hochstetter’s “New Zealand,” chap. xvii. 
