The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-02-13
The HOME OF The MAoRIs.
The sanatorium of the Southern Ocean
Delightful Existence.


The little brown huts Of the Naoris are
dotted along the lake shores and up the
hillsides, in the very midst Of innumerable
boiling springs of every sort, which send
up ceaseless steam clouds, so that the
houses are only seen fitfully through the
wells of white vapor. So thin is the crust
Of soil on which this strange village is es-
tablished that you have only to thrust a
walking stick into the ground and up
comes puff of hot air. Even here, as at
Roto Mahans, each step requires caution,
as any deviation from the narrow beaten
tracks which lead from house to house
would most likely plunge the careless foot
into some very literal phase of hot water.
There is pleasing variety in the posi-
bic forms of danger, but not much TO
choose between them as regards the GER
tainty of pain! And yet, although
good many terrible accidents do occur,
little children by the score are safely
reared in this strange, steaming nursery,
where nature does all the household wash
ing and all the cooking in natural steam
pots, finding her own soap into the bar.
gain, in the form of chloride of potassium
and of sodium, and suIphate of soda A
very sad accident had occurred before my
visit; when a little, tOddling child had
tumbled into the village laundry pool,
where its mother was boiling her clothes;
but after all, such things, grievous though
they be, do happen from time to time in
British cottages and wash tubs.
In point of fact, the chapter Of acct
dents at Ohinemutb is really wonder
fully short all things considered, and the
inhabitants have wonderful advantages
in the tightening of all domestic labor
consequent on the selfsupplying, self
kindling furnaces which boil the natural
cooking pots, so that no care is required
beyond depositing food in a fax bag and
leaving it floating in the nearest pool till
dinner-time. o.. course it is necessary to
see that the pool is not too strongly
favored with alum or any other trife of
that sort. but long experience has taught
the people the characteristics of the near
pools, and which are safe for culinary
purposes.
So the human beings whose domestic
cares are made easy spend the greater part
of their lives floating about in mud pools
or immersed in mud baths, or swimming
joyously in the beautiful blue lake. for
they are well nigh amphibiOus, and fain
would emulate the fame of their beautiful
ancestress, Hinemoa, who on a dark,
moonlessmight swan four miles to Mokoia
isle, in the middle of Lake Rotorua, there
to keep tryst with her true love Tutenekai
"a legend much appreciated by her de-
scendants When not in the water they
delight to lounge about on a
rude pavement of large fiat stones.
which, being laid above boiling
springs are always pleasantly heated; SO
here the grave old chiefs and their fol-
lowers love to recline is their fax
cloaks or blankets, discussing the affairs
+ of the village and smoking (alas, how
unromantic) common short clay pipes
They have real council house, however,
and very curious place it is, being all
covered with most grotesque carving of
true Maori type-hideous figures, with
! deliberately tattooed faces, and oblique
eyes formed of pearl shell.