springs, moreover, considerable medicinal virtues are ascribed. At 
Orakeikorako we mot an Irishman, belonging to Port Napier, who told 
us, that he had been conveyed thither perfectly lame with the gout, 
and that after a short use of those baths he was entirely restored. 
On both sides of the Papa Kohatu, up and down the river, 
there are, concealed in the copse of the river-banks numerous boil- 
ing mud-pools, which can be approached only with the utmost 
caution, because the softened soil , unprotected by a sheet of sili- 
cious deposit, gives way most readily. The largest of these mud- 
basins I saw a few hundred yards down the river. It has an ellip- 
tical form, is Id feet in length, (1 to 8 feet wide and equally deep. 
There was boiling in it a mass of mud dyed intensively red by 
oxide of iron; clammy bubbles of mud rose, burst, exhaling a sul- 
phurous stench, and relapsed — a truly infernal sight. Woe unto 
him, who here misses a single step! The very thought of it made 
me -shudder; and yet, such fearful accidents have frequentlv occur- 
red here both to children and adults. 
On the opposite river-bank lies the Puia Tuhi-tarata. The 
discharge from a basin full of sky-blue shining water forms a steam- 
ing cascade over strata of silicious deposits shelving off in terraces 
towards the river and varying in the gaudiest colors, white, red, 
and yellow. The same scene recurs five ot six times up the river; 
and intermediate there are points exhibiting periodical eruptions, 
on some places every five minutes, at others every ten minutes. 1 
But wherever bare, reddish patches occur along the river-terrace, 
there steam can be seen ascending; the same is the case at count- 
less places in a side-valley intersecting the river-terrace. But 
impossible as it is to see every thing here, it is yet more impossible 
to describe every thing. ( Irakeikorako with its hot springs would 
prove an inexhaustible field for years of observation. 
April 25. — Accompanied by Captain Hay I ascended the 
summit of the Tutukau mountain , rising North of Orakeikorako to 
1 The natives have for the most of these springs special names, such as Te 
Wai-whokata, rtakau-takuma, Whangairorohea, Ohaki, Te Wai-angahue, Te Poho, 
Wai-mahana. 
