200 
OHINEMUTU 
CHAP. Ill 
the overland journey would be well repaid by a sight 
of the river alone. We crossed a small suspension 
bridge over the Rapids and stood on the edge of the 
cliff, looking down on the great fall of the foaming 
torrent as it went noisily tossing and tumbling over 
the rocks, and in one great mass of water formed 
a huge blue wave as it took its final plunge a 
few yards below. The mighty stream here rushes 
on with indescribable force between high walls of 
rocks. I tried to think what words could express 
its grandeur as we stood looking down into its 
foaming depths, but none would come. The colouring 
of the water is so beautiful. Sometimes it is a showery 
mass of white foam, through which, as it parts, it shows 
the most vivid blue, and then, eddying under the banks, 
dies away in every shade of transparent green. The 
last sight at Wairakei which we walked to see was 
Kerapiti, or the Devil’s Trumpet, which is a blow-hole 
emitting, they say, 180 lbs. of steam to the square inch. 
Good-sized sticks thrown over it are tossed like feathers 
in the air, and the sound is equal to that of a dozen 
engines letting off volumes of steam. 
We had a delightful drive of six miles to Taupo, 
the largest lake in this island, being twenty-six miles long 
and nineteen wide. In the distance, across the water, 
are the two giant volcanic cones of Tongariro and 
Ruapehu, 6000 feet and 9000 feet high, the latter ex- 
tinct, and covered with perpetual snow. Tradition says 
a third giant stood between them, but having quarrelled 
he fled to the West Coast, and his snow-capped head 
is now the exile in Taranaki — Mount Egmont The 
whole of this thermal district lies between the active 
volcanoes Tongariro and White Island, and at intervals 
along this volcanic line the smouldering fires in the depths 
below occasion the countless grand and healing springs. 
