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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 77

Wellington, N. Z. August 31st, 1904. My Dear Friends

page 28
Wellington, N. Z. My Dear Friends,

There is an English mail every week from here as from all the Australian States, hut it is of little or no use to us because it is always forestalled by the American mail which leaves every three weeks only, but takes four weeks instead of six on the way. Thus if I had written to you ten days ago, you would not receive it till three or four days after this is due, and you would have the later news first and the earlier to follow. It is somewhat confusing, but such is the fact, and the consequence is that people who would elsewhere write home every week, write but once in three weeks here. We hardly know whether to be glad or sorry for the higher privileges we enjoy through being nearer to America, but we must needs avail ourselves of them.

Since my last letter, despatched on the 12th inst., my time has passed very agreeably, but by no means idly, at Auckland. I have been engaged almost every night preaching or lecturing, and have always had good and appreciative audiences, in spite of stormy weather which prevailed for eight days—drenching showers, coming on almost without warning, and the sun shining out in a blue sky a few minutes later, very preferable to the dull wet, or even dull fine days which we have so often in England, but not such as will tempt half-hearted enquirers to face the night for the sake of sermon or lecture. The church, which was built four years ago, is like most of page 29 New Zealand buildings—even the Houses of Parliament—of wood, but a very pretty and suitable place of worship. The organ, the gift of Mr. Macky, now in England, is an excellent instrument. The key board is just where our gates between the choir stalls are, the performer facing the congregation, and the pipes are arranged on either side of the chancel, if so it may be called. The choir is as yet young and unpracticed, but escapes the worst fault of attempting more than it is fit for. I found myself more than once wishing to have Mr. Briggs at the seat, and the Mill Hill Choir under his eye at either side, but imagination failed to place them, for truly there could not have been found room for so many in the little well-filled church. Besides, at the time of our morning service you were all, I hope, in bed, and when we were meeting for evening service most of you would not have got up.

By the kindness of the congregation we were enabled to visit Rotorua, some 170 miles up country, lamous of old for its pink and white terraces, which were destroyed in one disastrous night of 1886 by earthquake, still famous for its hot baths and boiling fountains and steaming ponds and pots of mud, throwing up sulphurous fumes, and for wayward geysers which burst out violently now and again, and then refuse to play at all. Of these last, some smaller ones six or eight feet high are pretty constantly on show, but there is none of the greater ones which at present works naturally. The most wonderful of all which, perhaps, deserves the much abused epithet "awe-inspiring," after having swept away two spectators a page 30 year ago in a sudden outburst, has been quiet for months. But one remains which can be teased into what looks for all the world like an ebullition of temper, by throwing soap down into its crater. They are so afraid that if too often provoked it will cease to answer to this appeal that it is strictly forbidden to make the experiment without an authorization from the Minister to whose department it belongs. This we obtained, thanks to Mr. Jellie's exertions on our behalf, which also procured for us a free pass on all the government railways. Some three or four pounds of soap, cut into small blocks, was provided and thrown by Mrs. Hargrove's hands into the dark hole in the rocks where the hot water simmered sullen and still. Presently the monstrous chaldron began to fume and boil and throw white suds over its brim as if trying to clear itself; the waters fell back, and rose again, and so during ten minutes of patient waiting on our part the commotion went on subsiding and increasing; then suddenly there rushed up a column of steaming water, and rose to a height of 110 feet they said, as high as it could in half a gale of wind, which caught it at the top when the force of the eruption was expended and blew it away as rain. It fell and rose again, the outbreak of passion seeming to subside in sobs till after some twenty minutes all was still as before. So our appetite for the wonders of nature was perforce satisfied, by what seemed to us an almost sacrilegious outrage on nature. It was undoubtedly worth the seeing, yet somehow did not either entrance or appal us. To me more wonderful seemed the mysterious page 31 pools, where, untouched by man's tricks, the thick mud steamed and bubbled, or the clear waters boiled in ceaseless commotion, whirling and bubbling and talking in an unknown tongue, day and night without end. A weird land indeed, such as perhaps the whole earth was a million or more years ago.

C. H.