—Chapter IX.—

Mud Volcanoes—Dead Geysers—"Steam Hammer"—"a Thing of Beauty," the "Champagne Pool"—another Bath—a Good Day's Work—work for other Days—from Taupo to Alaska Home Again.

Another class of wonders at Wairakei is supplied in the mud pools before alluded to. Within a few yards of each other may be found small clayey holes from which steam issues, constantly or intermittently, the clay, and the water if any, being differently and distinctly colored in the different holes, yellow, pure white, blue, red, or brown, and two or three holes within a yard of each other may be found presenting such widely different colors. One of the most interesting of these mud-holes is called the "Pink Porridge Pot" (Burton Bros.', No. 3837), a hole about three feet in diameter, with the surface of its pinkish yellow filling of porridge a couple of feet below the margin. Steam bubbles up through the mud continually, all over the surface at random, but every now and then it forms and maintains a small clear pipe of escape in the (probably) thicker stuff near the sides, and issues thence with a strong hiss. The bubbles break very prettily. They swell up to the size of a page 22 medium orange; burst; the top is shot up several inches and the sides are blown out like the petals of a flower; commonly the pellet shot up falls plum in the centre, and the mud has just enough consistency to require several seconds for the flower thus curiously formed to fade away. If the pellet falls to one side it splashes out a flower of another shape. These mud flowers are extremely interesting, and they are continually being produced. The margin of this "Porridge Pot" looks as if at times the steam is more active, and throws the mud clean out of the hole. There are several of these curious mud "volcanoes" close together, and beside them is a considerable pool of scalding thick blue water,—blue from the suspension of clay continually stirred up by steam escaping from the bottom. At one point there was formerly a pretty miniature terrace of sinter a chain or moro square, where a hot spring spread its waters over the ground, depositing silica as they flowed. The surface is now covered with a cake of dull white stone, on which the vegetation is encroaching.—Not that the vegetation need have waited for the extinction of the spring, to judge by the hardi-hood the manuka exhibits to-day in spreading over the ground.

The "Steam Hammer" is a great curiosity to most visitors, but finding a simple explanation for it, right or wrong, I thought little of it. At a large and deep pool in the creek a heavy regular thud is heard, and the ground around vibrates with the shock that produces the noise—not enough to shake a house to pieces, but enough to be distinctly felt through one's boots. There is nothing to be seen as the cause of either noise or shock. The "simple explanation?" Merely this: that there is an escape of steam under the water, and the latter being cool condenses it, and the water occupies the place of the steam bubble in such a hurry as to come into violent collision with itself, causing a shock and a thud.

I have reserved till last, mention of one of the most remarkable things in the valley—the most interesting and beautiful in my opinion (but this is a question of taste)—what is called the "Champagne Pool." This is a deep pool, about thirty feet in diameter, of hot, almost boiling hot, perfectly clear, intensely blue water, which is continually, but with regular variations, bubbling and effervescing—like champagne—with bubbles to match its dimensions. It appears to be a multiple geyser (by geyser, meaning an intermittent steam spring). Toward one side of the pool there seems to be a wide vent-pipe, up which large quantities of steam and gases rise. Round the sides are several smaller vents, up which rises steam of somewhat greater pressure. The larger and smaller vents alternate in their activity.

The water swells up over the [unclear: large] with an uprush from below, into a [unclear: m] three or four feet across, [unclear: that] away as fast as it can, but [unclear: s] and swells until the surface [unclear: can] longer maintain itself, and [unclear: what] the violence of the uprush of [unclear: w] and the quantity of vapor [unclear: coming] the mound breaks into a [unclear: fountain,] continues shooting upwards for the [unclear: sp] a minute or so, the water, as it falls, [unclear: ra] little wavelets that go splashing [unclear: over] lower margin of the pool. This [unclear: fount] pretty, but not nearly so pretty [unclear: as] follows its subsidence. By the [unclear: time] uprush has ceased, the water through the pool is full of large bubbles of [unclear: v] and the rising of these to the [unclear: su] through the rich blue water, is [unclear: a] beautiful sight Before they have [unclear: d] peared, the small lively vents [unclear: unde] cliffy bank come into play, and [unclear: provi] further, but smaller supply of [unclear: bu] which lasts until the large vent is [unclear: real] erupt again. The splashing of the [unclear: l] vent has built up beautiful [unclear: coral] masses of silicia above the water [unclear: level] the lower lip of the cavity is [unclear: being] over with a sheet of silicia deposited [unclear: by] splash of the wavlets from the [unclear: fou] adding to the inner edge. [unclear: The] portion of this is decaying, but [unclear: the] inner margin presents [unclear: wonderfully] coral-like forms and delicate [unclear: filagrees,] white in color. Notwithstanding [unclear: th] springs in the pool are so active, [unclear: but] water flows away; as far as I [unclear: could] only what, was splashed over the [unclear: c] margined lip. For my own part [unclear: I] inclined to place the "Champagne [unclear: P] first among the beauties of [unclear: Wair] Standing on the high bank above, one look right down into it, and watch million silver spangles rise [unclear: spar] through the water. The pool is [unclear: very] would make a splendid bath, and [unclear: the] of view is a suitable place to dive [unclear: f] but it would not be easy to got out [unclear: a] Besides, one would get into hot [unclear: water] the proprietor, who does not want [unclear: it] verted into a culinary utensil.

One could spend a whole [unclear: day—] days—wandering among the [unclear: curiositi] Wairakei Valley and gazing at [unclear: the] active wonders. We had to be [unclear: ex] with a hurried run round them, [unclear: and] of them. On our way back to Taupo pulled up at the homestead and [unclear: dismo] to look at the hot bath constructed is creek near it. We would not bathe, was too cold, and damp, and we [unclear: were] ourselves. But we would go and [unclear: look] for the credit of the place, so to speak, looked, and dipped our fingers [unclear: into] warm grey water, and remarked [unclear: re] fully what a pity it was so cold a [unclear: day] page 23 [unclear: lamp] as our clothes were it would not be [unclear: afe] to go in,—we'd be sure to catch a old—and as fast as we could manage it, [unclear: re] were up to our necks in it. Bath No. 3 [unclear: hat] day for me. What a delicious exercise [unclear: f] homage to cleanliness it was! Certainly [unclear: o] one at Wairakei could ever commit [unclear: uicide]. The most depressed in spirit [unclear: ould] surely have "one more" hot bath, and [unclear: hat] would make him think life was worth [unclear: ving] after all, if only for the sake of [unclear: epeating] such a "dip" as that. The bath [unclear: s] really well constructed, and a large tank [unclear: f] cold water lies beside the hot pool, for [unclear: he] convenience of those who like a chill to [unclear: race] them up after a warm bath, and it a [unclear: old] plunge is not sufficient a shower can [unclear: e] had that would make the stoutest quake, [unclear: t] was not pleasant putting on cold, damp [unclear: lothes] afterwards, but habit conquered [unclear: istaste], and after all it was not so [unclear: disgreeable] as the necessity for quitting the [unclear: rater], in order to get home by dinner time, [unclear: never] noticed on coming out of cold water [unclear: s] I did on climbing out of those hot baths, [unclear: ow] the muscles felt the growing dead-weight of the body as it emerged from the [unclear: upporting] water. It is a curious sensation. Fortunately it does not last long, or [unclear: e] would get weary of his avoirdupois.

After thanking the fair custodian of the [unclear: lace], we cantered home comfortably (except where it was necessary to get off and [unclear: ead] the horses up and down terrace faces with but little more slope than precipices) with another look at Te Huka on the way, [unclear: nd] reached the Lake Hotel just as the bell [unclear: ang] for dinner. The five-and-twenty [unclear: ours] that had elapsed since the coach had [unclear: ulled] up in the yard the day before, seemed [unclear: ve-aud-twenty] weeks, so many and so [unclear: aried] were the experiences, the surprises, [unclear: he] ideas, that had been crowded upon me [unclear: that] brief space. I did not see half the [unclear: onders] within easy reach of Taupo, but [unclear: robably] I saw samples of every kind of [unclear: sity] to be seen in the fire belt, save and except close acquaintance with a volcanic [unclear: rater] and the products of a recent eruption, was and am quite content with my day's work, and will remain so—until I can find [unclear: n] opportunity to repeat it.

Anyone who can afford the time could, I [unclear: as] assured, spend a fortnight as busily as [unclear: spent] one day, and still leave many of the [unclear: riosities] within a radius of twenty miles [unclear: seen]. And anyone who should make [unclear: okaano], at the other end of the lake, a [unclear: esh] centre of excursion, would require to [unclear: ultiply] that time by a good-sized [unclear: inultiier], and obtain a similarly incomplete [unclear: sult]. "Rotokawa" (the bitter lake) and [unclear: he] Solfatara near it, at the foot of Mount [unclear: auhara] and about nine miles from Taupo, [unclear: ill] become one of the greatest shows of the [unclear: cality] when it is better opened up by tracks. The almost dead sulphur field near the township is bad enough to travel over. The Rotokawa field, all hot and hot, must be a horrible place to be lost in on a dark night—an adventure that happened to one present Taupo resident, he being then on horseback. Then there are Blue Lakes and green ones, and caves assorted, and goodness knows what, near the township. Away over the river, Karapiti constantly maintains a "pillar of cloud by day," within sight of the town, and visible for ten or fifteen miles. A strong head of steam is employed in the Karapiti works, and if water were in supply it would be a very powerful geyser. Hochstetter found the steam able to blow sticks 30ft high. The ground about it is pitted with mud volcanoes, he says. At Orakaikorako, about 20 miles from Taupo, the banks of the river for a distance of about a mile, leak steam and hot water like a sieve, and terraces nearly as good as the vanished Te Tarata exist there. From Tokaano, one can easily reach the beautiful Lake Rotoaira, Tongariro, and Ruapehu, and find countless hot springs and geysers, including Ketetahi, which Mr Burton declares "constitutes the grandest collection of steam holes to be found on the whole of the Fire Belt of New Zealand." (This paragraph feels out of place, inasmuch as I did not visit these places.)

The evening was spent as pleasantly, and as instructively as the day almost. Au English tourist was also a guest at Gallagher's—arrived that evening fresh from an ascent of Mount Tarawera, and his description of the "abomination of desolation" presented by that region was vivid enough to enable one to see and feel it, and he had some interesting specimens" to show. He had but recently come from Hawaii, too, where he had looked into Kilauea's marvellous lake of fire. From dealing with scenes of fire the conversation turned to the very opposite, to scenes of eternal frost, for the traveller was also as fresh from the glaciers of Alaska as he could well be. He had no hand specimens of these.

I ought before leaving Taupo by pen, to do as I did before leaving it by coach,—thank Mr Gallagher, host of the Lake Hotel, for the kind assistance he gave mo to make my short visit as satisfactory and gratifying to myself as possible. I do not suppose he treated me differently from other guests, but he certainly treated me well, and as it seemed to me, very generously for one in his position—whose duty in life it is to make money out of wonder gazers like me. The Lake Hotel is a comfortable house, arranged on a plan that might be copied extensively with advantage—main dining page 24 and kitchen quite apart from the rest of the hotel. The latter is handsomely furnished, and travellers or soujourners could be very comfortable there indeed. I did not enter the other hotel in Taupo, so cannot say what sort of place it is.

Of the return journey I shall say nothing beyond this, that not even a single gleam of sunshine brightened our way, but we had less rain, and there were other passengers, and conversation introduced a new [unclear: fe] among the scenery. The two days [unclear: pas] pleasantly enough, despite the [unclear: unfavor] weather, and on the evening of [unclear: Friday,] fifth day, I was delivered home in [unclear: "g] order and condition" as per contract, [unclear: fing] indeed in much better [unclear: order] condition, and better informed if not [unclear: w] as two invaluable results of my

Trip to Taupo and Back, Overland.

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