Percy Smith's Pioneer Visit.

Two years before Hochstetter came, Mr. S. Percy Smith, afterwards Surveyor-General, visited Rotomahana and canoed about its waters. Early in 1858 he and his cousin, C. W. Hursthouse (the “Wirihana” of the Maoris) walked up here from Taranaki and Taupo. Mr. Smith described the beauty and interest of the place in his diary. He frequently spoke to me about the charm of old Rotomahana, and he recorded the appearance of the lake and its islands in some sketches, one of which is reproduced in this article.

“In the middle of the lake,” Mr. Smith wrote, “are the pretty Chinese-looking islands of Puwai and Pukara, covered with houses and manuka.” These islets, with the Maoris camped on them—the chief Rangiheuea was on Puwai with several other people—were blown into the air in a twinkling of an eye when Rotomahana and the Terraces were destroyed in 1886. Mr. Smith was charmed with the abundance and tameness of the birds of the warm lake, especially the “elegant little torea.” These torea, he noted, were lucky rascals, protected by the tapu (the close season lasted nearly all the year). “They have nothing to do but hop up and down all day long, first on one leg, then on the other, warming their feet in the water, and then jumping into the air with a loud scream.”

One of the sketches in Mr. Smith's journal shows that beautiful little lake, Okareka, between Rotorua and Tarawera. There is a canoe on it with sail set. There were in those days two or three Maori villages on its shores, which were wooded nearly everywhere, relieved by beautiful white beaches and headlands. Most of the shores, with the lake, are now a State scenic sanctuary.