The “Singing Isle.”

As mentioned by Mr. Percy Smith, there were two small islands in the lake, with thatched huts peeping out among the manuka. These islets were named Puwai and Pukara. Puwai especially was resorted to by the Maoris for the healing hot springs, and there were often people camped there. It was the “Singing Isle” described by Alfred Domett in “Ranolf and Amohia.” The poetical name fitted it, because there was a continual sound of steaming water and escaping vapour. One visitor to Rotomahana in the old days (Lieut.-Col. St. John) compared a night's camping on Puwai to sleeping on top of a steaming tea-kettle. Domett described the camping-ground of his romantic lovers on the Singing Isle. They heaped “Elastic fern and broom to keep Down to a pleasant warmth the heat The ground gives out.” There they were lulled to sleep “… by that low changeless churme, The hissing, simmering, seething sound That sings and murmurs all the while, And ever round that mystic isle.”

Puwai, with its Maori campers, and pretty Pukara were utterly destroyed when Rotomahana exploded and was blown into boiling mud and shattered rock on that fearful morning of June 10, 1886.