The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-08-30
LIKE INTERNAL SPOT
MOST .REMARkABLE VOLCANOES
 ARE IN NEW ZEALAND.
Nature Has Provided Vast Kitchen in the Rotorua Dlstriet, Which the
 Omcers of Our Fleet Visited fssf Lusf Week

New York Evening Post.
 If you would see. the earth used as cooking stove and sniff savory odors from the worlds most unique outdoor kitchen, you have only to journey to Rotorua, land of wferdness and Maori romance. where 200 of the officers of the American battleship fleet went last Wednesday. Here you will find Dame Nature in the role of cook, making light the dutiesN of the housewife and providing one of the most unusual wonders of the globe. In this thermal wonderland. away down in the charm Ing dominion of New Zealand. they even have the frying pan" Within few rods of what was until recently the worlds greatest geyser is silicious crust covered with suffocating clouds of steam and so completely perforated that the eternal sputterings of the bubbling hot water beneath are strik- ingly suggestive of pan of frying fat.
 Here. in this strange belt of steam ing mountains. colored lakes and springs and buried villages. the Maori daily draws his food from the ground. thoroughly cooked and never burned to crisp nor scorched in the slightest degree Here the Maori lads do not have to carry firewood to their moth CTS. and so escape task that occa- sions much grumbling in many other lands. Where natures subterranean fires are always burning and constant ly supplying hot water and steam. stoves are not needed and fuel men are scarce. Even white people follow the example of the natives of "Aotea- -roa," {" and cook their food In steaming holes and boiling pools.
 In the native village. of ohinemutu, hard by the orld-rehowned resort of Rotorua, we first saw the famous steam cooking holes. and watched the men and women, both brown and white, place in them utensils containing pork. chicken, and potatoes. Then they cov- cred the holes with boards and gunny sacks and returned to their other duties leaving obligng nature to do the rest. We saw one Maori woman place a pot containing a chicken in a hot pool and sit comfortably by. solid and uncommunicative while we look ed on in amazement Not far away a white woman struggled to 8 steaming pool carrying q large section of pork. and within a few yards of the public road a middle-aged white man put a pot of potatoes in hole. covered 1t. and returned to hts house.
 Kitchen Always Ready.
 Hot water and steam so underlie Ohinemutu and It's nelghborhood and
 
 these kettles and ovens of the earth's crust can be obtained at almost any place any time, by just little dig ing. All around Ohinemutu--part of which was sunk in an earthquake twen- ty-f five years ago-near the carved public meeting house and away over in the manuka swamp, with its labyinthine paths, effervescent pools and ponds, mud volcanoes. and kitchen crust. and columns of steam ascend day and night The 'kitchen"5 Is ever ready to respond to any demands for meals at all hours"
 But these are only patches in the cooking valley of Rotorua. Passing through whakarewarewa. where cook ing holes and pools and native chefs are plentiful. one may reach after long and somewhat uninteresting drive the valley of Waiotapu, where the ex- hibition of hidden power is striking, In fact, bewildering. Really terrifying, however, is White Island, a few miles off the coast. This bit of land Is being demolished quickly by the action of the internal forces, and it's only inhabi- tarfts, red .ccrabs and rats may eventually find themselves cooking in the acidulous lake Into which the is- land is crumbling. Hardly less ferbid-i ding, and certainly nauseating. is Tikitere. where the guide leads you from "Hells Gate" to the Inferno" amid blankets and eddies of stihing odor-laden steam. Altogether, this open air scullery spreads over many square miles of territory. and presents hundreds of attractions that qualify. this hot lake wonderland to be called the Yellowstone Park of the southern hemisphere