Governor Grey at Rotomahana.

Turn to the old Rotomahana, the old Tarawera, and draw again the curtain from the dramatic scenes of an unearthly beauty that once brought travellers from the ends of the earth.

One of the earliest pakeha visitors to Rotomahana and the White and Pink Terraces was Sir George Grey, during his first Governorship of New Zealand. The account of the tour, which is contained in a now rare little book, “Journal of an Expedition Overland from Auckland to Taranaki,” published in Auckland in 1851, is the first detailed description we have of the lake and its page 26 thermal marvels. It was written, at the direction of the Governor, by his assistant private secretary, Mr. G. S. Cooper, and there is a Maori version, by the Governor's interpreter, Piri-Kawau. Grey and his party made the journey in the summer of 1849–50. After visiting the resident missionaries, the Rev. Thomas Chapman at Te Ngae, and the Rev. S. M. Spencer, at Kariri, Tarawera, the Governor crossed Lake Tarawera in a lb>arge war canoe on December 28, 1849, accompanied by the Chief Te Rangiheuea, and landed at Te Ariki village. Next day the party pitched camp on the shore of Rotomahana, close to the foot of Te Tarata, the White Terrace. The Grey description of the lake need not be quoted here, as there is a more scientific account by Hochstetter, to be given presently.