TIIE GEYSERS, HOT SPRINGS, AND TERRACES OF NEW ZEALAND. 371 
temperature can be enjoyed, and is freely indulged in by natives 
of both sexes, heedless of the restrictions imposed by the pro- 
prieties of fashionable watering places. The little tongue of 
land on which this settlement stands is quite undermined, and 
the place is shown where a similar 66 Kianga,” or village, disap- 
peared one night beneath the water, taking all the inhabitants 
without warning into the yet warmer regions below. 
On this slope are some vegetable gardens belonging to the 
British residents, where fruits, flowers, and all garden products are 
forced upon a natural hot-bed to a perfection unattainable else- 
where. On the other side of this ridge several very large ponds 
of water, some about 200° F., are to be seen under their cloudy 
canopy of steam. 
About a mile from this point, on the borders of the lake, is a 
sulphur point, an extensive plateau of sinter incrusted here and 
there with crystals of sulphur, where some very remarkable 
medicinal springs abound, in which some wonderful cures have 
been effected. (See Analysis No. 7.) 
Many invalids, who have been attracted by the world-wide 
renown of their effects, suffer under great disadvantages from 
the want of a competent resident authority, and the absence 
of adequate shelter. Numerous pools are shown, one of which 
is called the Pain Killer (see Analysis No. 6), but they are 
merely holes in the ground, or small running streams, which 
must be cleared out by the visitor to allow of his immersion, 
and perhaps, directly this has been done, a watchful native takes 
advantage of the opportunity afforded and steps in first. 
A mistake may easily be made in the selection ; at one place a 
boiling and a cold spring, each overflowing from small cisterns 
of sinter, unite their streams in a third or tepid bath ; an 
invalid on one occasion, intending to use the warm bath, stepped 
inadvertently into the cold one ; the shock was unexpected, and 
in his alarm it was mistaken for the boiling pool ; to remedy 
his supposed error he jumped into the other nearly up to the 
middle ; his scalded limbs immediately discovered his error, 
which unfortunately proved fatal. The whole surface adjoin- 
ing this plateau is incrusted with sulphur ; and ponds of various 
sizes, dark mud holes, yawning cracks, miniature geysers, arti- 
ficial baths, beautiful basins of bubbling sulphur, thousands of 
little tiny cups and countless jets of noxious vapours combine 
the attractive and the repulsive in fantastic profusion. 
On the opposite side of the lake are the renowned Tikitiri 
springs. The columns of vapour which arise from these re- 
markable eruptions are seen from every part of Kotorua. 
Geysers are so numerous, and deep spluttering mud holes so 
abundant, that the spectator is appalled. The largest geyser is 
about 100 feet in diameter, and boils in billows of great fury, 
B B 2 
