hi THE INFERNAL REGIONS 191 
and which is now in Sir G. Grey’s collection in Auck- 
land. He also, many years ago, when Governor of this 
Colony, found as an ornament in one of their whares 
the leg and arm bones of a man, who must have 
been over nine feet high. The man’s name was 
Tohourangi ; the bones are now I believe in the British 
Museum. 
We landed on the opposite shore, where a buggy 
was in readiness for us, and we drove on to Tikitere, 
the site of more boiling springs and fresh horrors of 
volcanic forces and fiery furies of the earth. We were, 
I think, more fascinated with the weirdness of these 
satanic-looking fumaroles than any we had yet seen. 
Dante never imagined a more gruesome picture than 
the (so-called) Gates of Hades — a small ridge of rock 
between two boiling lakes of mud. These had been, 
they said, unusually active the last few days, and we 
felt almost suffocated in the hot, evil-smelling steam as 
we passed over. The earth throbbed and thumped all 
round us, steam issuing up from every seam in the 
rock, while small holes of bubbling mud in every 
direction told only too plainly what a thin crust lay 
between us and death of the most ghastly description. 
It was not a pleasant sensation that we felt. Farther 
north is the Inferno, a black, yawning pit, where the 
scattering waves and mud dash in mad fury against the 
rocky sides ; it gives the stoutest heart a thrill of 
horror looking down into its inky blackness, and one 
almost expects to see a forked-tailed monster issuing 
forth. Beyond this again is the large crater basin of 
Ruahine, with the black lake, a mass of boiling mud 
and water with here and there geysers throwing up 
jets of their thick black slime from one to three or 
four feet high. It was with a feeling of thankfulness 
that we climbed the hill above, where from a distance 
