No matter how many times one has visited Rotorua, a return to Geyserland always has something of the charm of breaking into a region of magic as well as of wonder and beauty. When first I went up that way it was in its semiprimitive condition, considerably over thirty years ago, and the Maori villages around the lakes were more populous than they are to-day. On Mokoia Island, for instance, there were many people living-it is now deserted most of the year except for an old man and woman by way of tribal caretaker-and it was a scene of picturesque native life, with its decorated houses, its large cultivations, its many canoes, and its fishing nets for the capture of the koura or crayfish that then teemed in Rotorua before the greedy trout gobbled them up.