70 
EXPLANATION - OF THE MATS. 
A path leads from the foot of the Te Terata spring through 
the bush to the great Ngahapu spring. The basin of this 
spring is 40 feet long and 30 feet broad. The water within it 
is in constant and dreadful agitation. It is only for a few 
moments that the water is quiet in the cauldron, when it again 
bubbles up, and is thrown eight to ten feet high ; and a foam¬ 
ing surf of boiling hot waves stream over the walls of the 
basin ; so that the observer is obliged timidly to retreat. The 
thermometer rises in these springs to 98° c. (208'4° F.) Fur 
ther south, close to the banks, is situated the Te Takapo spring 
—a boiling water basin of 10 feet in diameter, the geyser 
eruption of which rises to a height of 30 to 40 feet. 
Not far from this spring the traveller arrives at a hollow 
called Waikanapanapa (Variable Water),the approach to which 
is covered with bush, and somewhat difficult, as one has to 
pass several suspicious - looking places, where there is 
danger of sinking in the boiling mud. The cavity itself 
appears like the crater of a volcano; the walls, bare of 
vegetation, are rent and torn ; pieces and tongues of rock of 
white, red, and blue fumarolic clay rising upwards like 
spectres, threaten to fall every moment. The bottom is formed 
of fine mud, and silicious stalactites, broken into every form 
and variety, lie about like pieces of ice after the breaking up 
of a frozen stream. Here is a deep pool filled with bubbling 
mud—there a cauldron full of boiling water—near it a 
dreadful hole which, with a hissing noise, ejects a column of 
steam; and further on small mud hills (fumaroles), from two to 
five feet in height—mud volcanos, if the name may be applied 
to them—which, with a dull noise, throw out of their craters 
boiling mud, and represent, on a small scale, the effects of large 
volcanos. In the back-ground is situated a green lake named 
lioto-punamu, an extinct spring. 
Coming out of the north side of the cave is seen lying 
picturesquely amongst rocks and bush the spring Kua Kiwi 
(Kiwi Hole). It is an oblong basin of sixteen feet in length, 
filled with dear simmering water. The banks of the lake 
assume here a steep and rocky character; hot springs bubble 
out of them below the surface of the water, while on the 
slope are situated, near the Ngawhana spring, the vacated 
huts of a Maori settlement of the same name, and not far off 
