Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1876-03-24
One of the Wonders of tho World.
San Francisco Call.

the State of California has its equally
marvellous and renowned Yosemite
Valley, and the Province of New
Zealand can boast of almost as great
a natural wonder in its Rotomahaua,
or mighty keyser. This lies inland
from Tauranga, which may be reach.
ed by steamer from Auckland-about
sixty-fve miles. At Wairoa, the head
quarters of the Arawa Contingency
and the residence of Capt. Mair, is
the old mission, kept by a French
man, and surrounded by familiar
trees, on lovely site overlooking
Lake Tarawera. There is plenty of
fruit here, especially cherries. In the
mission house one pleasantly reposes
till 4 o'clock in the morning, when
he is aroused for breakfast, after
which he enters log canoe, thirty
or forty feet in length, propelled by
four Maori men, and starts for nine
mile row up the pretty Tarawera
Lake. The time occupied to the
mouth of Little River is two hours
and half. Here the water is found
to be luke-warm, being supplied from
the hot springs. The current of this
stream is very swift, and it requires
hard work to force the canoe up
against it, but by padding and pole
pushing, and sometimes jumping in
to the stream and pulling the Maoris
manage to reach "the heaven of our
desires and the elimination of our
hopes" The hills all around the
geyser TEEN with hot springs and
hot mud in liquid state, and con-
stantly bubbling and emitting hor-
rible sulphuric smell, which is almost
sitting. The ground appears to be
but a mere crust over boiling springs,
and often so yields to the step that
one feels as if he were about to de-
scend into the earth. The great gey
ser itself is up in the top of a lofty
hill, which appears to have been the
extinct crater of a volcano, now filled
with a light blue boiling water of an
unknown depth. The water is for
ever seething and boiling, as if all
the fires of perdition were afame be
meath it. 1t is constantly shooting
up in columns from six to thirty feet
in height, which sometimes looks
very beautiful when the son converts
the falling globules into showers of
pearls and silver.
The great geyser is approached
from below by series of crescent
shaped terraces, bowed outward, a
few feet in height each. and perhaps
100 yards in width, all overhowing
till you come to the two principal
terraces, the top one of which is al
ways boiling over into those beneath
it. The steam is almost binding
and suffocating when the wind is
blowing towards you. In many OF
the pools there are pleasant bathing
places. The water is hot on the sur
face, but cool beneath, the boiling
water from the great keyser above
not seeming to penetrate far below
the surface of the more distant ter
races, which it overfows.
There are two sets of terraces, the
first of which are called the White
Terraces. The rim around the boil
ing cauldron is composed of a white
substance, like the most delicate fill.
gree work, almost resembling lace
work, such is its regularity and beau
ty. This white rim, which projects
some distance over the boiling fount
ain, shows to all the greater advan
tage because of the intense blue OF
the waters. These beautiful terrace
brims are formed by deposits of sui
phur and silica from the boiling
springs on top of the hill, which
pour down the sides and crush the
tea scrub and other trees growing
there, and form the incrustation.-
For, strange as it may seem, there is
green grass and shrubbery on the
very verge of the boiling fountains
Many of the basins appear to be
made of petrified tea scrub or ferns
These brim-tormations are rough and
very sharp-edged, and very hard on
boots or bare feet, though the Maoris
whose feet are hardened, trip over
them without any serious inconven
ience. The water in all the terraces
is beautifully clear and blue.
Near the great keyser there is q
spring constantly boiling out of 4
fissure in the rock, md called the
steam-pipe spring. The noise from
this spring can be heard great way
off, and it sounds just like 4 vessel
letting off steam, while the hot water
which shoots out of it reminds one
of the manner in which a steamer
when she is light sends up the water
with her screw, and the action seems
to be accompanied with a thud-like
sound of y similar character. The
ground is literally honeycombed with
these boiling steam springs. From
the white terraces one enters a canoe
and paddles over to the pink terraces,
but short distance from the former.
Their formation is the same as the
first, but they are smaller, and, in
stead of the pure white brim, they
have a pink-tinted border, which is
exquisitely beautiful, and it is ques-
tionable if they are not the prettier
of the two. The effect is lovely and
quite enchanting. Between the two
sets of terraces one may spend sever
al hours very pleasantly and profita-
bly,. For this is certainly one of
natures most wonderful phenomena
And while it differs from Niagara
and Yosemite, and comparisons may
be odious, it is certainly in its way rs
marvellous rs either of these two
great resorts of tourists. AS yet the
Rotomahaua is almost inaccessible to
travellers, owing to the roughncss of
the route thither, and to the misera-
BILE native accommodation on the
| way.
He came home very late one night,
and after fumbling with his latch key
good while, muttered to himself, as
he at length opened the door, 81
mushnmakeny noish, caush tholo-
mons ashleep." He Invested himself
OF his garments with some trouble,
and was congratulating himself upon
his success as he was getting into