the latter, and the more so, because according to the statements 
of the natives, a great many interesting points could be visited on 
this route. 
April 22. — The mountains had wept tears on the day. of our 
arrival on Lake Taupo, and to-day they wept again at our depar- 
ture. Lest we should feel too sorry at parting, Tongariro and 
Ruapalfu were wrapped in clouds, so that we were unable to see them. 
In the dreariest weather we wandered over the pumicestone ter- 
races on the left bank of the Waikato , throng'll a very broken and 
treeless country, looking waste and dreary in its scanty garb of 
grass and fern and with its dry water-courses. Soon, however, our 
attention was again engrossed. About two miles from Tapuai- 
haruru we entered the Otumaheke valley. A rivulet of warm water 
(71° F.) flows through it, and on its left bank, a little off the 
road, a colossal column of steam whirls high up in the air. It 
was only with great caution that wo could approach the place, 
from which the steam issued, because around there the bottom of 
the valley is literally perforated and furrowed by fissures and crevi- 
ces, from which hot steam streams forth; whilst in the numerous 
pot-shaped holes about, a gray clay-coloured mud , or turbid milky 
water can be seen boiling. Besides , the whole ground is heated 
to a considerable extent, and boiled perfectly soft into an ferru- 
ginous clayey mass, from which small mud-cones protrude. The 
steam and mud-holes seem here continually to shift their positions. 
The Lycopodium cernuum, found everywhere in hot climates and 
around hot springs has settled down also here in luxuriant growth. 
We safely reached the place, where with immense force, and amid 
loud hissing and booming the steam is streaming out of a circular 
hole in the loose masses of pumicestone at the foot of the hill. It is 
high-pressure steam, without a Lace of any other gas, and bursts out 
through a small aperture in the depth of the circular hole in a some- 
what slanting direction , with a sound like letting-off the steam from 
a huge boiler, and with such force, that branches of trees and fern- 
bushes, which we flung into the jet of steam over the hole, were tossed 
into the air, twenty or thirty feet high. The natives call this 
