192 
OHINEMUTU 
CHAP. 
we could look down upon its wonders, and from where 
we had a magnificent panoramic view of the whole of 
the surrounding lake district. 
The last place to be visited before leaving Rotorua 
was the scene of the eruption, seven years ago, at 
Tarawera. We rode ten miles, as far as Wairoa, 
where you see the ruins of the hotel and other build- 
ings, cruel evidences of the horrors of that dreadful 
night ; from here we were rowed across Lake Tarawera 
by Maoris, and then commenced our ascent up to the 
great rift. We passed the site of several deep craters, 
and higher up the mountain nothing could describe 
the weirdness of the scene ; not a tree, not a shrub, 
not a green thing of any description, nothing but a 
vast panorama of desolation as far as the eye could 
reach, a gray crust of earth scarred and seamed in 
every direction, and above the great, frowning, deeply- 
furrowed cliffs overlooking this once beautiful lake 
the silence was death-like in its intensity, unbroken 
even by the flutter of a wing. The sense of loneliness 
chilled you, and with an infinite feeling of relief I turned 
my back on it all. A few days after I went to stay 
with Judge and Mrs. Gill and we spent a delightful 
week with them at the old-fashioned town of Tauranga, 
with its long avenues of poplars and willows. 
During the last war in New Zealand it was the scene 
of many battles, among them that of the well-known 
Gate Pah disaster, when the Maoris so bravely defended 
it with only 300 men against 1500 of our troops. The 
natives had made a redoubt in a narrow neck of land 
between two swamps, and palisaded and defended it by 
lines of rifle-pits. These were thatched with fern, and the 
eaves of the roof so raised that they could fire on their 
besiegers. Early in the morning our troops opened 
fire on them, the natives in their burrows listening 
