186 WHAKAREWAREWA chap. 
in the rich colouring on the bracken, the brown and 
gray rocks, the river below with its grass-lined banks of 
waving yellow toe-toe grass and red-brown flowers of 
flax, and the never-ending shades of blue on the distant 
mountains. We had our lunch under the shadeless ti 
trees, and the Maori guide who met us at Waiotapu took 
us over a small bridge across the river to the springs 
beyond. The great mud geyser is only in action at 
eight in the evening, and we merely looked down into 
its black yawning chasm with steam hissing up and a 
sound as of giant bellows being blown. Farther on 
we came to the Champagne Lake, which, when earth 
was thrown into it, all bubbled and fizzled like a seidlitz 
powder. From the bank we looked down upon it with 
its yellow water all steaming. Another pool is of black 
boiling mud. Beside it is one of the most brilliant 
yellow-green water, and another of opal blue. They 
were all, with the exception of the last, boiling. Mud 
was seething in every direction. The White Terrace 
is a rippled slope of white silicious deposit Then 
there is a sulphur fall, the brightest yellow ; alum cliffs, 
acid and alkaline lakes, and pools of every colour. 
Last, but not least, is the Opal Lake, the largest of all, 
with the most beautiful transparent turquoise -blue 
water. The red cliffs, the dark -green clumps of 
manuka scrub, and the rich blues of the near and 
distant mountains made a wonderful picture of colour. 
Some ducks flew over our heads and it occurred to us 
what a shock it would give them if they unsuspectingly 
alighted on one of these burning lakes. Gertrude 
suggested to the guide that it would be a quick and 
easy way to get boiled game, but he did not smile. I 
asked what the natives lived on in olden times in these 
bare regions. He said " Old man long ago old times 
lived on this (pulling up a fern root, which he said 
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