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A WEIRD REGION
PROPERTY OF
PARKE, DAVIS & C0,
NEW ZEALAN ID
LAKES, TERRACES, GEYSERs
AND
V O L CAIN O E S.
By THOMSON. W. LEPS
%ſuckland
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY H. BRETT, STAR OFFICE
MDCCCLXXXVII
\ Qººb Y
&; frt
T2+ cKa-Pavi's **, §
37– £– Z93%
A WHRD REGION
NEW ZEALAND LAKES, TERRACES, GEYSERS,
AND VOLCAN OES.
-
CHAPTER I.
Introductory—The Volcanic Eruption at Tarawera—Physical Features of the District—Its Previous Condition—
Rise and Progress of Rotorua Township—Its Thermal Springs and Sanatorium—The Old Mission at Wairoa
and the Modern Settlement—Lake Tarawera and its Environs—Mount Tarawera—Rotomahana, and the
Terraces—The Buried Villages.
YYYHE scientific research of the past
half-century, especially in the de-
partments of Geology and Astro-
nomy, has opened up to our view
wonderful vistas along the pathway of
Creation, and we can comprehend with
Some measure of clearness the vastness of
the scheme of the Universe, and the
tremendous character of the forces that
have been called into action to mould and
subdue to order and to law the inchoate
elements of a world; yet we are still
inclined to regard ourselves as the heirs
of the ages, the possessors of a creation
in which the process of construction has
been completed, and upon which the
physical changes are now comparatively
few and insignificant. Geology itself, in
its primitive teachings, gave a certain
amount of countenance to these impres-
Sions by depicting the earth as a huge
ball, formed in a series of layers, unvary-
ing and universal in their order, and but
little interrupted in their development.
This idea, however, has given way to a
more accurate perception of the truth,
that, though subject to greatly altered
conditions, the forces which are cease-
Tº
lessly at work destroying and rebuilding
the physical features of the globe are the
same that have, under the control of
universal law, brought the component
parts from that stage when the earth
was “without form and void” into their
present order and beauty. Some of these
forces are perhaps no less active now than
during any past age of the earth's history;
but the violent changes accomplished by
volcanic action are, we know, happily of
much rarer occurrence and lesser magni-
tude now than at an earlier stage in the
geological development of the earth, ere its
present physical configuration had been
wrought out amid the contention and war
of powerful agencies in nature's labora-
tory. From time to time, however, a sudden
outburst like that in the Straits of Sunda
in 1883, or the eruption of Mount Tara-
wera in the North Island of New Zealand
on the Ioth of June, 1886, comes as a vivid
reminder that the igneous energies are
not exhausted, and that the earth as
we now know it may, for aught we
can tell, be only the unfinished out-
line of the earth that is to be—that
in creation, as in all else, there has
A WE/A&AED AºA'G/ON.
never been a period of stagnation in
the past and can never be one in the
future; with inanimate nature, as with
life, there is ever progress and develop-
ment, or decay and death, change of form,
and reproduction. We gather some con-
ception of the magnitude of the convulsions
which have in past ages disturbed the
crust of the earth when we consider
that by one throe of nature in the
eruption of Tarawera an area computed
by Mr. S. Percy Smith, the Assistant
Surveyor-General, at 1,850 Square miles,
has been affected in a sensible degree, and
that there are traces of the dust deposit
over an area of land equal to 5,700
square miles. It may be well to state
here, however, lest these formidable figures
should mislead with regard to the ex-
tent and character of the disaster, that
the destructive power of the eruption was
confined within the narrow limits of a
very few miles from its focus; neverthe-
less the effect of the dust deposits, spread
over the whole extent of country between
Lake Tarawera and the Bay of Plenty,
on the East Coast of the North Island,
cannot be omitted in considering the
phenomena which have contributed to the
preparation of the earth for the support
of mankind. -
The suddenness and unexpected
character of this extraordinary volcanic
outburst is one of the features of the
occurrence that most strongly rivets
the mind, yet few among the thou-
sands of visitors to the Wonder-
land of New Zealand, which centred at
Rotorua and Rotomahana, were alto-
gether without a feeling of insecurity
when treading with circumspection the
treacherous ground in the localities where
hydro-thermal action was especially
violent, making the earth tremble in
agitation from shocks administered by
the confined steam and boiling water
as they forced their way to the surface.
The Seething, the roaring, the sighing,
the grunting, that accompanied the
heavy thuds under ground, in the vicinity
of some of the great geysers on the
shores of Lake Rotomahana, excited
no little apprehension for the present
meter in it.
or future safety of the district in the
breasts of persons who had not become
familiarised with these phenomena. Even
about Rotorua, with its boiling pots and
hot water streams, bubbling and steam-
ing, amid the whares of the native village
of Ohinemutu, and to a greater degree
when inhaling the odours of molten
brimstone at Sulphur Point, there was
much to excite disagreeable qualms and
inward questionings whether the earth in
such a region might truthfully be described
as ferra firma. Mr. Froude puts these
impressions, so common to most visitors
for the first time, into words, when
describing Tikitere, “a gorge where a
sulphurous and foul-smelling liquid, black
as Cocylus or Acheron; bubbles and
boils and spouts its filthy mud eternally.”
“Indeed,” he says, “the condition of
things all about suggests the alarming
nearness of the burning regions.”
Dr. Hochstetter experienced a similar
feeling at Rotomahana when camped
on the small island of Puai. “I believe,”
he says, “that anyone who did not know
that persons have lived here for several
weeks would only with great difficulty
be persuaded to remain even for one
night. The continual roaring, rushing,
singing, buzzing, boiling sound impresses
a feeling of terror, and during the first
night of my stay I awoke suddenly, as
the ground under me became so hot that
I could not possibly bear it. In exam-
ining the temperature I made a hole in
the soft ground, and placed the thermo-
It rose immediately to
boiling point, and when I took it out, a
stream of hot steam instantly ascended.
Indeed, the island is nothing but a torn
and fractured rock, decomposed and
softened by steam and gasses, which,
almost boiled to softness, may at any
moment tumble to pieces, and vanish in
the hot water of the lake.”
But the most timid of men might
feel confidence that a condition of
things, which had as a testimony to
its comparative stability the tradi-
tions of at least five centuries, would
outlast his day and generation. . No
doubt Maori tradition is faulty and in
*-
THE BOIL/WG SPRINGS OF ROTORUA. 5
complete. The sinking of the old native
pah at Ohinemutu in the bed of the lake
seems to be preserved more from the
posts still showing above water than
from any oral narrative transmitted from
father to son, and we can only conjecture
inow far we should have had an accurate
knowledge of the destruction of the chief
Te Heuheu and his village by a landslip
induced through the undermining of
thermal springs near Taupo, if the
occurrence had not come within the
record of European occupation. Pro-
bably the narrative would have been very
imperfect. But the stability of Tarawera
seemed to be attested by the testimony
of the rocks; the forest-covered slopes of
the deeply-furrowed mountain, and the
uncracked alabaster walls of the beautiful
terraces inspired confidence. The Maori,
who squatted on the hot stones in
Ohinemutu and smoked his pipe, while
the wahine boiled potatoes in nature's
cooking-pot by the whare door, was not
more assured that what had been would
continue for ever, than the Government
savants who, after consultation, laid off
the site of a great city, with pleasure-
grounds and public reserves, upon the most
grousome spot around Lake Rotorua,
where the ever-rising fumes of sulphur
act as a perpetual reminder of Sodom
and Gomorrah.
But if the Maori at Ohinemutu, whose
house was warmed and his dinner
cooked by water heated underground,
had no apparent cause for uneasiness,
and, as events proved, was actually ex-
empted from misfortune when the great
Outburst occurred, how much less reason
for fear had the European and native in-
habitants of Wairoa, over-looking the
cool expanse of Lake Tarawera, and the
dwellers in the villages of Kariri (or
Tokoniho) and Waitangi, so soon to be the
Scene of a tragedy without precedent in
New Zealand history. The nearest of
these villages was situated fully six
miles, as the crow flies from any mani-
festation of volcanic activity. In the
villages of Te Ariki and Moura, which
were buried with all their inhabitants,
he risks were greater, because of all places
seemed
in the Lake District, except, perhaps, the
Paeroa range and the active solfataras of
Tongariro and Ngaurahoe, Rotomahana
was the spot where an eruption seemed most
probable. Around the lake, at twenty-five
points, boiling springs of great size poured
forth volumes of water that heightened
the temperature of the lake. Geysers
throwing up massive columns into the
air amid clouds of steam, huge cauldrons
in unceasing turmoil, steam funnels
Snorting and roaring, mud geysers or
miniature volcanoes sputtering, sulphur
springs, and yawning chasms of unknown
depths, from which steam issued with
deafening noise, were among the pheno-
mena of this uncanny region. The ground
everywhere permeated with
steam, which would issue forth wherever
the surface was disturbed. Nevertheless,
the terraces stood monuments of stability,
to which a period of two hundred years
seemed the shortest time we could allot
for their production, and the general
aspects of the lake gave no hint of very
recent extensive disturbance.
The volcanic character of the surround-
ing district had, no doubt, been indicated
by Dr. Hochstetter as far back as 1859,
when in his geological survey he outlined
the whole country around Lake Tarawera,
from the mountain itself nearly to the
shore of Rotorua, and southwards along
the Paeroa range, as of ryolitic lava,
obsidian, and pumice, but there was
nothing in the existing appearances to
indicate very recent eruption. On the old
road from Kaitereria to Okaro there were
some extensive earthquake cracks, one of
them half-a-mile in length, but these had
been there from time immemorial, and
though more careful examination has
since revealed traces of an old crater on
this flat, ancient craters and earthquake
cracks are not such rare phenomena as to
cause much apprehension. The eye of
the Maori saw nothing but the placid
little lake with its beds of rushes, its
marginal swamps overhung with clouds
of steam, and beyond the hills and gullies
covered with manuka or fern and tussock.
To the forty-five natives who slept as they
had done year after year within their
6 A WE/RD REGION.
recollection, in the Ariki settlement, the base of Tarawera to Orakei-korako,
beneath the shadow of Tarawera | Crossing Rotomahana. The thermal
mountain, and whose ancestors had been
reverentially laid to rest upon its summit,
there was nothing upon the eve of that
fatal 1 oth of June to tell them that ere
morn they would all be buried thirty feet
deep in ashes. These dusky children of
the soil, a good-natured, happy people,
living lives of indolence and indulgence,
as ministers to the pleasures of a more
vigorous race, lolled unconcernedly in
the hot baths near the village, contented
with existence as they found it, and
convinced, from a gratified experience,
that carelessness for the morrow is the
first rule of life and the essence of all
true philosophy. r
Before narrating the events connected
with the eruption, however, it will be
wise for the reader to fix upon his mind
clear ideas of the localities. There is, we
fear, still uneffaced a kind of vague impres-
sion that the whole Lake District has been
damaged, if not actually blown up. Gi-
gantic as the disturbance was, it would
have been without parallel in historical
records if that had happened. The
country in the North Island of New
Zealand, over which boiling springs occur
in more or less regular order, lies along
a belt extending from Tongariro in a
north-easterly direction to the coast, a
distance of over 100 miles. The line may
even be continued seaward to White
Island, an active solfatara in the Bay of
Plenty. Dr. Hochstetter estimated the
earth-rent along which these hot springs
are distributed as having a breadth of
seventeen miles. There are, of course, very
marked differences in point of activity.
On the southern and eastern shores of
Lake Rotorua, which come within the
boundaries of this great earth-fault, the
thermal springs are numerous and of
considerable volume. But from the south-
eastern side of Rotorua to the vicinity of
Rotomahana and Okaro, a distancé of
nearly fifteen miles in a direct line, the
only trace of disturbance is that indicated
by the colour of Lake Rotokakahi and
the earthquake cracks on the Galatea road.
Then occurs the channel of activity from
action here was probably greater than in
any part of the Lake District, and it
is not therefore very surprising that an
eruption should have occurred along a
section of that line. In discussing this
subject Mr. S. Percy Smith says:—“If a
line be drawn very nearly south-west
(true) from the top of Ruawahia, it will
be found to indicate very closely a line of
thermal action extending from the base
of that mountain to Orakei-korako, along
which from time immemorial have existed
hot springs, geysers, and fumaroles in
immense numbers. Such a line will also
pass along the wall-like western face of
the Paeroa Mountain, at the base of which,
in several places, hot springs and fuma-
roles have always existed. A little to the
north of Paeroa is the Maungaongaonga
Hill, on which no sign of recent action is
apparent; but immediately to the east of
it is a country with innumerable hot
Springs, boiling-mud holes, and lakelets,
having on the east side the Kakaramea
Mountain, where thermal action is very
active, the greater part of the mountain
having been steamed and boiled and
coloured by the subterranean vapours
from top to bottom. In many places it is
only necessary to make a hole in the sur-
face to see the steam come forth. Further
to the north-east the same line strikes
through Rotomahana. It is thus obvious
that this line indicates an old line of
activity and consequent weakness of the
crust of the earth; and it is easy to show,
by varying its direction very slightly, or
by treating it as a band of moderate width,
that its production northward would strike
White Island, whilst in the opposite direc-
tion Tongariro and Ruapehu form the
terminal points of activity southwards.”
The native village of Ohinemutu, on
Lake Rotorua, is the natural centre
for the Thermal Springs District, not
merely because it is easily reached
from the excellent harbour of Tau-
ranga and vić the Waikato, but because
the hot springs at Ohinemutu and
Whakarewarewa, two miles distant, are
of large volume and afford a wide
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7 HE GOVERNMEAVZ" SANA 7TORIUM. 9
range of medicinal properties. Their
reputation as curative agencies in
rheumatic and skin affections has become
widespread. On this account, as well as
for its accessibility, the Government have
established a Sanatorium at Rotorua and
have expended nearly £20,000 upon the
erection of hospital, the construction
of baths, and a water supply for the
town. But ere such an institution
was thought of, the fame of the White and
Pink Terraces of Rotomahana was noised
abroad, and attracted tourists in annually
increasing numbers. Hotels were erected
at Ohinemutu, from which place excur-
sions to Rotomahana were Organised.
Regular coach services were established
between Tauranga and Ohinemutu, a
distance of 42 miles, connecting with
steamer from Auckland, and the journey,
which at one time was a formidable
undertaking, became formidable in no
sense except the extortionate charges of
the natives, who were the owners of the
land and the custodians of its wonders,
which they kept locked and barred
against intrusion unless opened by a
golden key. Scarcely a book on New
Zealand was published without the beauty
of New Zealand scenery, the unique
loveliness of the Terraces of Rotomahana
and their wonderful surroundings, being
extolled, and tourists flocked in from all
parts of the world. A railway was pro-
jected, branching from the Southern
trunk line, to bring this “eighth wonder
of the world,” as it has justly been
designated, and also the healing waters
of the Rotorua thermal springs, within
still easier reach. This railway is now
open to Oxford, about 36 miles from
Rotorua, and the journey may be accom-
plished in a day. The distance is 169
miles by rail and road.
The township of Rotorua at present
is in that infantile stage of existence
so familiar to the traveller in British
colonies. It consists of hotels, church,
School, post and telegraph office, a few
stores and shops, and a number of houses
occupied by persons engaged in various
pursuits about the place. The hotels are
far in advance of anything that would be
looked for in such a centre of barbarism.
They are really comfortable and well-
provided, and, considering the difficulties
of supply, are not extravagantly dear.
The European settlement took first root
close to the site of the native village of
Ohinemutu, but the Government town-
ship has been laid off at Sulphur Point,
rather more than half a mile further on.
The plan of this town anticipates the
growth of another Baden-Baden, but at
present these dreams are represented by
the sanatorium and post and telegraph
office and a few cottages, one or two of
them being of course of the boarding-
house kind. The hotels remain at Ohine-
mutu, and their baths are supplied with
water from thermal springs within their
Own grounds. At Whakarewarewa, about
two miles from Ohinemutu, the geysers,
fumaroles, and sulphur pools, with frag-
ments of terrace formation, represent
in miniature some of the matchless mar-
vels of Rotomahana. These will now be
more highly valued than before, since
Rotomahana has been desolated. There
are, however, even better specimens of
such formations at Orakeikorako, the
largest of them in ruins, the geyser which
created it having become inactive; and
at Wairakei, six miles from Taupo, the
variety of thermal phenomena (if we
except the terraces) are not even second
to those which were seen around Roto-
mahana prior to the eruption.
The visitor to Rotorua usually dallies
a day or two in agreeable indolence in
the township, wandering through the
native village, making an acquaintance
with Maori life, in its least agreeable
form, and obtaining variety by visiting
Whakarewarewa, testing the properties of
the “Priest's Bath,” “Madame Rachel,”
and the big Blue Bath, with perhaps a
visit by boat to Mokoia Island, the scene
of Hinemoa's adventure, which Mr.
Domett and tradition have embellished
with the flowers of poetic fancy. Follow-
ing the road around the southern end of
Lake Rotorua to the eastern or Tarawera
side, the settlement of the Ngae, an old
mission station, is reached, at a distance
of seven miles from Ohinemutu and
IO
A VVEAA/O A&AEG/OW.
$2 m
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§,
.
*
three miles beyond, but lying back from
the main road, are the thick sulphur
springs and active geysers of Tikitere.
This was always a strange sulphurous
region, weird and desolate—a veritable
inferno. The road continues onward to
Rotoiti in the vicinity of which there are
also numerous thermal springs.
To reach Rotomahana from Rotorua
the tourist formerly set out by coach for
Wairoa, a village about ten miles distant,
along a fairly good road, which for the
greater part of its length has now been
rendered impassable by the deposit of
volcanic mud. The surrounding country
was hilly, bare, and unattractive, the
land poor and uncultivated, Whatever
effect may be produced by the mud
deposited on this land, we can hardly
conceive of it as being agriculturally
less valuable than before. The pretty
little Tikitapu bush, through which the
road passes, came as an oasis in the
wilderness. It was a perfect specimen
of New Zealand bush scenery — the
trees tall and evergreen, shading a
dense undergrowth, in which the graceful
fern tree and the cabbage palm figured
conspicuously in a garden of beau-
tiful shrubs, sown upon a carpet of
delicate moss and fern, and interlaced
with innumerable creepers. All visitors
took away pleasant recollections of Tiki-
tapu Bush and the Blue Lake on its
border, a sheet of clear water of deep blue
colour, and surrounded by steep bare
hills—high on one side, but running
down to a low ridge, dividing the lake
from Rotokakahi, and forming a cup or
crater without visible outlot. After
skirting the pebbly beach of Tikitapu for
nearly a mile, the road opens out Roto-
kakahi, an oblong lake of considerable
dimensions and of green colour, also
skirted by steep high hills, but having an
outlet to Tarawera. Two miles from the
Wairoa road, on this lake, and approached
by a track round the hill-side, is the
‘mative village of Kaitereria. Passing the
end of Rotokakahi, a drive of half a mile
landed the visitor in the village of Wairoa.
It would be pleasant, if we could
always think of Wairoa as it was
when the Rev. Mr.
lished his mission – station there in
1850. He had been labouring since 1845
at Kariri, a pah built upon a precipitous
point on the western side of Lake Tara-
wera, about two miles from Wairoa.
When the mission was removed to Wairoa,
the land at that settlement was marked
off into half-acre lots, fenced in, every
family having a patch of ground and in-
dustriously cultivating it. There was the
mill, the school-house, and the church,
with the parsonage adjacent, the mis-
sionary by example and precept incul-
cating habits of industry. The fertile
soil about the settlement yielded abun-
dant crops. But then came the war
and its alarms, which disturbed the minds
of all the Maoris far and near. Mr. Spencer
stuck to the post of duty, but his flock
deserted Wairoa and went back to 1ive at
Kariri, where the natural strength of the
position offered an impregnable line of
defence. Wairoa never flourished again,
its cultivations were overrun with fern
and scrub, the fences disappeared, the
communal habit reasserted itself, the
acacia grove planted on the church
grounds ran into a thicket, and ivy grew
unchecked over the walls and roof of the
old church at the Mu, a beautiful emblem
of decay. Superstition dies hard, and
there was more of realistic belief among
the Maoris in ancestral traditions and the
power of the fo/izamgas than in the creed of
the missionaries. They accepted the Bible
readily enough, but interpreted it by their
own lights and grafted their superstitions
upon it. -
The Wairoa of 1886 was still very pretty.
In buildings it had not much to boast
of. Mr. McRae's Rotomahana Hotel, a
well-managed, commodious, and substan-
tial hostelry, was the most pretentious
structure, and did the chief business.
Mr. Humphries' Terrace Hotel, conducted
upon temperance lines, was also a
comfortable boarding-house. Near these
were the Snow Temperance Hall, and
around them the whares of the Maori
village, extending as far down as the
old mill, a relic of the days when
Spencer estab-
the natives grew large crops of wheat
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WAIROA AMD 7ARAWERA. I3
and maize, and made their living from
the soil. The house of Sophia, the native
guide, stood back from the road, about
five hundred yards from McRae's ; ; it
was a good specimen of the better class of
native house with high pitched roof and
stout walls. Nearer to the lake, on
high ground, affording a magnificent
view of the broad sheet of water, with
Mount Tarawera seven miles away
and the peak of Mount Edgcumbe in
the far distance, stood the native school
and teacher’s house, in the midst of a
well-cultivated garden, where English
flowers and vegetables flourished peren-
nially. The old ivy-clad church was an
object of interest; its parsonage had
come into the possession of Captain
Way, who married a daughter of
the veteran missionary. Wairoa was
built upon a hill, which sloped to a
narrow arm of Lake Tarawera, from
whence the boats set out for Roto-
mahaná. In a deeply shaded ferny gully
the Wairoa stream, carrying off the sur-
plus waters of Lake Rotokakahi, flowing
rapidly along a verdurous bed, came down
by one clear leap of eighty feet, and a
succession of smaller bounds, into the
great lake. Nature had done much for
Wairoa. Its fertility was an agreeable
change from the general poverty of the
country. The broad expanse of Lake
Tarawera reflected every change of sky
in a surface of glass, or was tossed by the
winds into angry waves that spent them-
Selves upon its bluff headlands. The lake
was endowed in a greater degree than
most of the lakes in this district with the
physical features that contribute to the
charm of lake scenery, the rugged outline
of Tarawera Range, 2,600 feet above the
lake level, contributing in no small
degree to its beauty. But a tourist traffic
does not tend to the elevation of an
aboriginal race, and the natives about
Wairoa had but little inducement to
follow in the footsteps of their fathers
when an easy indolent life could be pur-
chased by extortionate fees for ferriage
over Tarawera, and liberal payment for
the haka, with special pay for the exhi-
bition of its grossest indecencies. The
money distributed among the natives of
Wairoa by tourists has been esti-
mated at £4,000 a year. Mr. Snow, an
American philanthropist, had worked,
and with some success, to institute a tem-
perance crusade at Wairoa, and after his
death his relatives erected a memorial
lıall in the village. Through his ex-
ertions and liberality a mission was
re-established, and carried on under
the zealous direction of the Rev. A.
Fairbrother with excellent results, as
a number of touching incidents in con-
nection with the eruption bear witness.
Several of the leading men in the tribe
gave their influence to the movement,
and Mr. C. H. Hazard, the schoolmaster,
did good work. But it is very hard to
inculcate thrift and industry against the
allurements of easily-earned gold, and
the Wairoa settlement of 1886 was pro-
bably the antithesis of Mr. Spencer's
dream in 1850. -
It is about eight miles from Wairoa to
the site of the native settlement of Te
Ariki. Boats conveying tourists across
Lake Tarawera, en route for Rotoma-
hana, kept over towards the southern
shore, which was picturesquely broken into
receding bays and protruding headlands,
clad with flowering rata and feathery toi-
grass. Between five and six miles from
Wairoa, an arm of the lake, about half
a mile wide at the entrance but broad-
ening out, bends southwards. The village
of Moura stood at the point, and the
Maori crews almost invariably landed
there in the season for supplies of pota-
toes and fruit. The village was not a
very extensive one; it is estimated that at
the time of the eruption forty natives
were living there. Not one escaped.
We are now in close proximity to the
focus of the great convulsion. On the left
hand of Te Ariki Bay Tarawera mountain
rises majestically, its massive sides black,
deeply furrowed, and broken into frightful
precipices. Its appearance was always
terrible and awe-inspiring rather than
pleasing, and the dread with which the
Maoris regarded it was no doubt due as
much to the gloomy aspect of its frowning
cliffs and weather-blasted ridges as to the
I 4 A WE/A&AD A&AEGION.
-
knowledge that on its summit reposed in
weird solitude the bones of their fore-
fathers. The three peaks of the mountain
were Wahanga, Ruawahia, and Tarawera,
the first-named lying to the left looking
from the lake. The name Ruawahia was
applied to the central and highest peak,’
and to the mass of the mountain; the term
Tarawera being employed by the natives
to distinguish the southern end only, that
nearest to Rotomahana. Europeans,
however, commonly spoke of the long,
massive, truncated mountain or range as
Mount Tarawera. There was no crater
or other sign of recent volcanic activity
on the mountain, nor any record of
the occurrence of volcanic disturbance
within the chronicles of Maori tradition,
although it is urged by Dr. Hector, on
the authority of Mr. Locke, that the
names of the three peaks appear to
signify that the igneous character of this
remarkable eminence had at one time
been known to the natives. Much stress,
however, cannot be laid upon such fanciful
interpretations, especially when they are
contradicted by the ancient practice of
burying the dead on the mountain, dating
back, it is said, fourteen generations, a
custom that would never have arisen if
the Maoris, who are peculiarly solicitous
for the safe custody of the bones of their
ancestors, had suspected that they were
liable to such rude disturbance. Mr
Percy Smith, who ascended the mountain
three times in 1874, says: “There was
no sign of a crater visible. Prior to the
eruption the two mountains of Wahanga
and Ruawahia (for Tarawera is only a
local name on the south end ofRuawahia)
formed two high table-lands of about
three miles in total length by about
half a mile in width, divided by the
saddle before referred to, the top of
which was covered with large angular
fragments of trachyte, which had the
appearance of having been shivered
into pieces by frost: and the top was
further divided into hillocks by deep
crevasses running irregularly in all
directions. The edge of this table-
land has steep, precipitous, rocky sides,
falling off into gentle slopes all round,
composed of obsidian.
on which were several forests of consider-
able size—now, alas, all destroyed P’
Dr. Hector states: “Tarawera Range,
about 3,600 feet above sea-level, is an
isolated and very conspicuous object in
the scenery of the Lake District. It
slopes from Tarawera Lake, the level of
which is about 1,000 feet above the sea,
and previous to the eruption rose very
abruptly, with mural precipices and
columnar rocks, especially on its western
and Southern escarpments. It was no
doubt judging from this feature that Dr.
Von Hochstetter was led to class Tara-
wera Mountain with the Horohoro Range,
as being part of his older or submarine-
formed volcanic series, and a remnant of
the great plateau, the surface of which
denotes the original level of the country
prior to the production of its present
broken surface by the excavation of
valleys, by the upbursting of volcanic
mountains, and the consequent subsidence
or breaking-in of large cavities that are
now occupied by lakes. He nevertheless
maps Mount Tarawera as belonging to
his recent volcanic series, and also alludes
to it in other parts of his work as being
I have never as-
cended the Tarawera Range, but have
examined its slopes and found them to
be composed of lavas of a high acidic or
rhyolite type, in the form of floes inter-
sected by dykes, and containing, amongst
other rocks, large quantities of compact
and vesicular obsidian. From this I
conclude that the mountain really is one
of recent volcanic origin, belonging to
Von Hochstetter's new volcanic series,
and that its abrupt outlines have resulted
from fractures and subsidences of its
flanks. According to this view it is natural
to assume that the still-imperfectly-cooled
mass of lava in the heart of this volcanic
mountain has given rise to the long-con-
tinued (historically speaking) solfatara
actionathigh temperatures that created the
attractive wonders of the Rotomahana.”
After rounding the point at the Moura,
a pull of between two and three miles
brought the tourist past the native
village of Te Ariki into the mouth of
the Kaiwaka Creek, a warm stream
THE ZERRACES OF ROTOMAHANA. 15
which carried the overflow of Roto-
mahana into Lake Tarawera. A path
through fern and manuka of about , a
mile and a half in length connected the
landing-place with Rotomahana, in the
vicinity of the White Terrace. The
lake itself was a dull, Sedgy, unat-
tractive sheet of water, with clouds of
steam rising from the numerous boiling
springs around it. Without the Terraces
Rotomahana would have been but little
resorted to, its other wonders having
counterparts at Rotorua, Whakare-
warewa, and Tikitere. But no one
who had ever visited Rotomahana came
away disappointed. The dull, unin-
teresting aspect of the lake, and its
scrubby vegetation, served rather to
enhance than detract from the magni-
ficence of those splendid natural stair-
cases. The White Terrace surpassed
its sister in size and loveliness. There is
no comparison by which we can convey
an exact impression of its appearance.
At a distance it looked white as alabaster,
but on nearer approach was seen not to
be white, but tinged with a faint salmon
or cream colour. Sometimes, when illu-
minated by the sunshine, it glittered with
the varied colours of an Opal, an effect,
however, not attributable to the Substance
of the terrace itself, which was opaque,
and so nearly white that a close inspection
was required to detect the delicate flush
over its surface, but arising from the
action of light upon the water rippling
downwards to the lake. In the crater,
and the baths upon the lips of the terrace,
this water was a lovely blue, and the
crystals deposited in its passage formed
themselves into regular groups, covering
the whole structure with a fine lacework.
There was not an inch of it that had not
in this way been chiselled, as it were,
into graceful lines and curves, which
the natives, apt to seize upon resem-
blances, had appropriately compared to
tattoo, from which the name Te Tarata
was derived. The fretwork over the
surface was so sharp that a European
could not ascend the terrace with
bare feet. . To the action of a geyser
opening on the hillside we owe this
marvellous structure. Mr. Josiah Martin,
during a photographing tour in 1885,
took for the first time, the exact measure-
ments of the White Terrace. Its height
was . Ioo feet; frontage to the lake,
800 feet, and distance from the lake to
the centre of the crowning basin or
crater, also 800 feet, giving a superficies
of silicated terracing of about seven
and a-half acres. The circular crater
had a diameter of 220 feet, with a
silicated rim six feet in breadth,
enclosing a basin, the platform of
which was 30 feet below the rim.
The basin was generally full to over-
flowing of azure blue water; while in
the centre was a funnel, 15 feet across at
its opening, and gradually narrowing to
the dimensions of a broad pipe, that ex-
tended down to unfathomable depths. The
geyser was intermittent, the water sink-
ing down into the funnel and leaving
the crater empty for several hours
at a time. Then it would be thrown
up to a height of ten feet until the huge
cup was gradually filled and boiled over,
the stream supplying the basins that
were formed on the platforms of the
terraces, and widening out as it descended,
renewed and beautified the structure
with fresh deposits of the silicious sub-
stance. The terrace was fan-shaped,
with the crater at the apex, and the
full extension on the lake level; the
stairs or buttresses were also of un-
equal height, varying from a few
inches to twelve feet; the platforms
differed to an almost equal extent in
width, and the largest of the baths was a
circular basin of about thirty feet in
diameter, covered like the rest of the
terrace with rich tracery, more beautiful
to survey than to scrape against. The
water in this cistern was usually too hot
for bathing, but when the geysers had
been for some time inactive, a swimmer
might safely dive into the blue waters.
The baths on the Pink Terrace, which
were smooth as polished marble, weremore
resorted to than those on Te Tarata.
No more exquisite and graphic descrip-
tion of the White Terrace was ever
written than that contained in Mr.
16 A WEIRD REGION. .
Domett's remarkable poem “Ranolf and
Amohia’’:— -
A cataract carved in Parian stone,
Or any purer substance known—
Agate or milk-chalcedonyl
Its showering snow-cascades appear
Long ranges low of stalactite,
And sparry frets and fringes white,
Thick-falling, plentecus, tier o'er tier;
Its crowding stairs, in bold ascent,
Piled up that silvery-glimmering height,
Are layers, they know—accretions slow
Of hard silicious sediment.
For as they gain a rugged road,
And cautious climb the rugged rime,
Each step becomes a terrace broad,
Each terrace a wide basin brimmed
With water—brilliant, yet in hue
The tenderest delicate hare-bell blue,
Deepening to violet !
Slowly climb
The twain, and turn from time to time
To mark the hundred baths in view—
Crystalline azure, Snowy-rimmed—
The marge of every beauteous pond
Curve after curve—each lower beyond
The higher—outsweeping white and wide,
Like snowy lines of foam that glide
O'er level sea-sands, lightly skimmed
By thin sheets of the glistening tide.
They climb those milk-white flats, incrusted
And netted o'er with wavy ropes
Of wrinkled silica. At last—
Each basin's heat increasing fast—
The topmast step the pair surmount,
And, lo, the cause of all ! Around
Half-circling cliffs a crater bound;
Cliffs damp with dark-green, moss—their slopes
All crimson-stained with blots and streak—
White-mottled and vermillion-rusted.
And in the midst, beneath a cloud
That ever upward rolls and reeks
And hides the sky with its dim shroud,
Look where upshoots a fuming fount—
Up through a blue and boiling pool
Perennial—a great Sapphire steaming,
In that coralline crater gleaming.
Upwelling ever, amethystal,
Ebullient comes the bubbling crystal,
Still growing cooler and more cool,
As down the porcelain stairway slips
The fluid flint, and slowly drips
And hangs each basin's curling lips,
Like sea-crests crystallised, the lips
of the terrace, in some parts, were
curved over so that a child might
stand dry beneath the dripping rim.
The process of incrustation went on
very rapidly, any article exposed to
the action of the water becoming coated
in a month or two, but there was no
petrefying property in the water, and such
specimens were valueless unless exposed
long enough to acquire a hard silicious
crust. Patches of manuka, still unsub-
dued, grew and flourished well within the
margin of the terrace, which, however,
was steadily advancing towards a com-
plete conquest of this vegetable survival
within its borders; but a greater force has
controlled its destinies, and where the
Queen of Rotomahana Sfood there is
nothing now but a mound of mud and
a roaring crater.
The Pink Terrace had been formed like
the White, but it was of smaller area, the
surface smooth as enamel, and of a pro-
nounced pink hue. The water in the
crater was usually calm, just simmering,
and flowing gently over the rim. One
might stand on the margin and look far
down into its azure depths, a spectacle
matched only by the coral forest viewed
in the shimmer of a placid sea. The baths
on the terrace were shallow, but sensu-
ously luxurious, imparting a peculiar
smoothness to the skin, as though a fairy
Madame Rachel had covered it with an
exquisite varnish. Upon the terrace itself
the process of renewal proceeded so
rapidly that lead pencil marks were almost
instantly rendered indelible, a quality
which gave too tempting a hope of cheap
advertisement or questionable fame to be
resisted by the British globe-trotter. Many
parts of the terrace had been disfigured by
pencillings to such an extent that the aid
of the Maori guides was at last invoked
to put an end to the sacrilege.
It is hardly necessary to refer in detail
to the large geysers, mud volcanoes, and
sulphur pools which are associated in the
minds of tourists with the environs of
Rotomahana. The terraces eclipsed all
else, and the other phenomena were
not specially remarkable in a country
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that abounds over a stretch of a
nundred miles with the curious effects of
hydro-thermal action. We think rather-
of the eighty-five human beings who
reposed with that sense of security
which came of habit in the two
villages near this strange turmoil on
the 9th of June, and we feel thank-
ful that no great town had sprung
up here, but that, except for these
villages, the country for many miles
around was an uninhabited waste, across
which the traveller passed uncheered by
the smoke of human habitation or the
lowing of cattle. If it had been other-
wise, the story of the morrow would have
been a more terrible record of suffering
and death.
C H A P T E R II.
The Eruption — Premonitory Signs — The Cloud over Tarawera — Wonderful Electric Display–Earthquakes,
Rumblings and Crackling Noises—Narratives of Spectators Compared—Touching Scenes in Wairoa –Fall
of the Schoolmaster's House—Death of the Young English Tourist—Escape from the Rotomahana Hotel—
Exhuming the Dead Bodies—The Panic in Rotorua.
* NCIDENTS trifling in themselves and
without significance, may, when in-
terpreted by the light of subsequent
events, be made to assume the aspect
of premonitions. So several slight earth-
quake shocks that were felt in the dis-
trict during the year, and a kind of tidal
wave which was said to have travelled
across the surface of Lake Tarawera about
a fortnight before the eruption, were after-
wards spoken of as warnings. The earth-
quakes probably had a significance, and
Some importance may be attached to
the reported oscillation of the water,
although it was not thought much of at
the time. Mr. Josiah Martin also wit-
nessed a kind of eruption of water from
the big cauldron of the White Terrace in
November of the previous year, and on
the 3rd of June, six days before the Tara-
wera outburst, a party visiting the Pink
Terrace found mudflowing overit, showing
that there had been some unusual disturb-
ance. But in a country that is in a perpetual
ferment, and where many of the geysers
and springs are intermittent, trifling irre-
grº-
gularities are but little noted, and similar
disturbances may often have come under
the observation of visitors before, and
passed without record. The love of the
marvellous and mysterious was ministered
to by a story told by tourists, with much
circumstantiality of detail, that a phantom
canoe had been seen passing over Tara-
wera a short time before, and the natives
very commonly believed that this evil was
brought down upon the Tuhourangi tribe
by the malevolence of the old tohunga,
Tuhotu, who had been cursed by some in-
discreet and irreverent member of the
tribe. We find some substantial evi-
dence of an abnormal activity in the re-
ports published prior to the eruption,
that steam was issuing from Ruapehu,
an unprecedented phenomenon, and of
increased disturbance at Tongariro. But
the latter mountain has on many occasions
been very considerably disturbed without
affecting the rest of the Thermal Springs
District, and the recent accelerated activity
of the great solfatara south of Taupo, if
taken as a sign at all, would have been
20 : A WEIRD REGION.
interpreted as the forerunner of an im-
pending eruption there rather than at
Tarawera, seventy miles away. The fact
that rumblings were heard in the vicinity
of Tongariro during the night of the
eruption does not necessarily indicate any
close connection between the two centres
of volcanic energy, because similar rumb-
lings were heard at Tauranga and at
Gisborne, places widely removed from the
line of weakness along which thermal
springs abound. It is, in fact, absolutely
certain that if there were any local pre-
monitory signs of the impending convul-
sion they were so trivial as not to occasion
alarm, and if the catastrophe were to be
repeated, such indications would not be
sufficient even now to warn people to flee
from the doomed settlements. -
On Monday, the 7th of June, a party of
six tourists, including Mr. Bainbridge, a
young Englishman, who lost his life in
Wairoa, visited the terraces, under the
conduct of the favourite guide Sophia.
They went through the regular routine,
bathed on the Pink Terrace, and
observed no unusual activity at any
of the springs around Rotomahana.
The whole party remained at McRae's
hotel on Monday night, and all, with
the exception of Mr. Bainbridge, re-
turned on Tuesday to Rotorua. The
last named gentleman intended to have a
day's shooting. Fortunately it was the
dead season, and there were very few
visitors in the district. On Tuesday night
it came on to rain, and rained heavily all
Wednesday, when the weather cleared.
No suspicion of danger crossed the mind
of anyone; the inhabitants of Rotorua
and Wairoa retired to rest with their
wonted sense of perfect security. The
calamity was as sudden and unexpected
as it was terrible. Soon after one o'clock
in the morning the people were startled
from sleep by shocks of earthquake;
these continued at frequent intervals, and
occasioned such serious alarm that the
residents in both townships got up and
dressed hurriedly. The earthquakes were
accompanied by a prolonged rumbling
nolSe.
It is difficult to fix the time accurately
from the rather conflicting statements
bearing upon this point, but it would
appear that a dark cloud, in a highly
electrical condition, was observed gather-
ing over Tarawera Mountain before
two o'clock. The great explosion seems,
however, to have occurred nearly a .
quarter of an hour later. Whether the
eruption first manifested itself upon the
peak of Wahanga, or on Ruawahia, Can-
not be positively determined, but not
more than a few minutes elapsed before
what appeared to be flames—but which
we may attribute to the glare of the
incandescent rocks reflected upon the
rising columns of steam—were seen above
the three peaks of the mountain. Subse-
quent examination has confirmed this
observation by showing that the mountain
top was rent open from end to end. An
earthquake, exceeding in violence all
that had gone before, attended the mighty
convulsion, and was felt along the East
Coast from Tauranga to Gisborne. It is
very remarkable, however, that at no
time during the eruption were the earth-
quakes of such severity as to overturn a
chimney at Rotorua, or even to throw
down articles from shelves, and the atmos-
pheric concussions occurred at too great
a height to shatter glass in the windows
of the townships. For an hour after the
great explosion very sharp earthquake
shocks were experienced at intervals
of not more than ten minutes, coming
from the direction of Tarawera Mountain,
and they continued throughout the night
at longer intervals, and with varying
degrees of severity.
The electrical display in the dark cloud
overhanging Tarawera was of the most
extraordinary description. Before two
o'clock the residents at Wairoa, disturbed
by the earthquakes, had gone up to the
hill at the Mu, in order to obtain a good
view of the mountain. The inky canopy
was then slowly gathering, and while the
spectators watched, it rapidly rose and
extended. Forked lightning played about
the peaks of the mountain, and in the
cloud above it, in lurid and awful
streaks. Fiery electric balls darted in
every direction, and bursting, extended
SEESMHC PHEAWOMENA. $. 2?
out into serpentine ribbons of flame, or
dispersed in showers of brilliant fire-
works. Blood-red tongues, starting Sud-
denly out of darkness, lapped the face of
the sky, and disappeared. The great
thlack cloud, wide-spreading above the
lake, carried its heavy electric charge
over towards the doomed village of
Wairoa, and the inhabitants became
fearful of destruction from its dropping
fires. Nor were their fears groundless,
for it was one of these falling balls which,
at a later hour, set fire to the ruins of Mr.
Hazard's house—and others, raining down
upon the forests as far north as Taheke,
set them in a blaze. Distinct from the
electrical phenomena, although subdued
By the recurrent blazes of brilliant light,
the steady glare of the volcanic fires was
plainly observed, and red hot bodies—
presumably the volcanic bombs and
stones with which the mountain is now
thickly strewn—were seen to roll down
the peaks.
The rumblings that accompanied the
earthquake shocks before two o'clock
now gave way to a loud and dreadful
roar, attended with crackling noises.
The former undoubtedly came from the
open throat of the volcano, while the
latter were probably electrical. Strange
to say, the booming reports, like heavy
cannonading, which were heard in Auck-
land from half-past two o'clock until
after four o'clock, so loudly as to arouse
people from sleep and create the belief
that a ship was in distress on the Manu-
kau bar, were not noticed by persons at
Wairoa and Rotorua, nor were they
heard at Tauranga. At the latter place,
the only sounds observed were the rumb-
lings which attended the shocks of
earthquake. As the sounds of explosion
heard in Auckland were of a very dis-
tinctive character, and may assist us in
determining some of the phenomena con-
nected with the eruption, a further refer-
ence to them here will not be out of
place. . They commenced about half-past
two o'clock, and continued irregularly
for an hour. Then for half an hour there
was a marked acceleration, both in
frequency and violence. The sounds
of the spectators.
consisted of a series of detonations
resembling the firing of a prolonged
salute with cannon at about minute
intervals. Then would intervene a lull
of five or six minutes, followed, perhaps,
by a rapid succession of reports so
unequal in sound as to produce
an effect such as we may suppose would
attend a combat between two warships
at unequal distances from the spectator,
or which might be produced by a vessel
firing a rapid salute with guns of varying
calibre. Auckland is 120 miles in a
direct line from the seat of the eruption,
but these reports were heard at the Bay
of Islands, another Ioo miles further
north, and as far south as Christchurch
and Nelson. The flashes of lightning
were also plainly visible from Auckland
and Gisborne; this, it has been estimated,
would require for their exhibition a height
of between six and eight miles above the
peak of Ruawahia.
The violent atmospheric disturbances
set up by the eruption gave rise to a
bitterly cold wind, which drove across
towards Wairoa, and attained at one
period of the night the strength of a
tornado, uprooting great trees as it tore
its way through the Tikitapu Bush.
Subsequently, the atmosphere became
charged with pungent gasses, which
were almost suffocating at Wairoa, and
were perceptible as far as Tauranga and
Gisborne during the fall of the volcanic
dust.
In placing upon record the events con-
nected with this remarkable eruption,
there are two circumstances which contri-
bute materially to the production of an
accurate account. The first is the fact
that the phenomena were watched
throughout by a number of independent
and intelligent observers; and the second;
that the vivid impressions produced by
experiences so startling were set down in
writing while still fresh upon the mind:
We think it will be valuable to reproduce
these, as nearly as possible, in the words
Mr. McRae, whose
courage throughout the whole of that
dreadful night has been deservedly ex-
tolled, says:--" About twenty minutes to
22 : A WEZRD REGION.
one it began to shake, and shook con-
tinuously for about an hour before the
eruption broke out. When this was first
seen, it was just like a small cloud on the
mountain shot with flashes of lightning
of great brilliancy. We all got out of
bed, and went up to the old mission
station to ascertain the cause of the
occurrence. While there we saw a sight
that no man who witnessed it can ever
forget. Apparently the mount had three
craters, and flames of fire were shooting
up fully a thousand feet high. There
seemed to be a continuous shower of balls
of fire for miles around. As a storm
appeared to be coming on we returned to
the hotel, and shortly after what seemed
to be heavy hailstones came pouring on
the roof, which continued about a quarter
of an hour. This was succeeded by a
fall of heavy stones, fireballs, and mud,
the latter falling after the manner of
rain.” --
Mr. J. C. Blythe, surveyor, who was
staying at Mr. Hazard's house, states:—
“We went to bed at the usual hour. I
was awakened about ten minutes to two
by Miss Hazard asking if I felt the earth-
quake shocks. The house was thenshaking.
I got up, and in ten minutes' time I found
Miss Hazard and her two sisters dressed.
Mr. Hazard was also dressed. We went
on to the verandah, and saw immense
volumes of smoke in the eastern direction,
charged with what seemed to meto be elec-
tricity. The edge of the cloud was framed
with flame. There was a loud rumbling,
which continued for some time. I then
saw on the northern end of Tarawera
something like red lights, and thought it
was the Ariki natives coming from Roto-
mahana. Mr. Hazard proposed to light
a fire in the drawing-room, for all of us
to go in there. It was now about three
o'clock, and the noise outside was tremen-
dous, and there was a great rattling on
the roof as of stones falling. There were
shocks of earthquake every ten minutes.
We all kept the centre of the room, think-
ing that its ridge was the strongest part to
resist the stones. Mr. Hazard and myself
kept walking to the windows to see if we
could make out what the trouble was. It
was very dark. We could see nothing
but lightning. We felt that the door was
being pressed out of shape inwards, and
we noticed some dirt at the bottom of it.
The last thing I remember was when
there was an earthquake shock at half-
past three. I am sure it was that time, as
I looked at my watch. Without any
warning, the roof fell in.” -
Mr. H. Lundius, who was also in Mr.
Hazard's house, and to whose presence of
mind the escape of Miss Hazard and Mr.
Blythe was due, describes the appalling
electrical phenomena very much in the
same terms as the other spectators at
Wairoa, but although watching the moun-
tain from the beginning of the disturbance,
its appearance at no time gave him the
idea that it was emitting flames. It
does not appear, in fact, that the nature
of the calamity was divined by those who
were in Mr. Hazard’s house until a piece
of the ejected matter was picked up in the
TOOIT). . .
Mr Minnett, who was staying at Mr
Humphrey's Temperance Boardinghouse,
Wairoa, was aroused from sleep, at
about one o'clock in the morning, by
what was evidently an earthquake. “At
first,” he says, “I tried to think that it
was only a heavy storm of wind, which
the sound very much resembled. There
was a violent roaring, lasting for
four or five minutes at a time, then drop-
ping for a minute or two and breaking
out again. I lit a candle, but, not wish-
ing to disturb the people of the house
needlessly, I sat listening to the rattling
of the doors and the jolting to and fro of
the furniture, and trying to discover the
cause, without leaving my room. I sat
there for about three-quarters of an hour,
when I heard a loud voice call up the
staircase: ‘Stubbs, Stubbs, come and
see Tarawera blow up.’ It was Humph-
reys calling, and Iwas dressed and was out
in the street in about half a minute, and
soon Stubbs and Humphreys joined me.
We looked in the direction of Tarawera,
and there we saw a cloud gradually
rising, black as ink, behind the hill that
shelters Wairoa. It was flashing with
lightning in every direction, while occa-
MAGOR MAIR'S NARRATIVE.
sionally fireballs, like rockets, dashed
from it. The number of these and their
vivacity increased to a fearful extent
while we were gazing. The cloud kept
slowly and steadily rising, and gradually
bent over in our direction. Stubbs and
I proceeded to where we thought we
should get a good view over the lake, but
the darkness was intense, the cold pierc-
ing, and it appeared dangerous to go
forward, as we were getting more and
more under the cloud and its dropping
fires. The cold was so intense that I had to
go back for my great coat, and on arriving
at the house I found I could not keep a
candle alight. The wind forced the doors
open. I turned back again and up the
Mu road. From the hill near the church
I could see the Tarawera mountain belch-
ing out flames thousands of feet into the
air, and illumining the whole heavens.
Clow of steam and smoke rose above
this. . he cloud meanwhile was increas-
ing in volume, and extending over our
heads. The wind increased, and we had
scarcely reached McRae's house when it
began, as we thought, to rain heavily.
The windows were smashed in, and we
found that what we had taken for rain
was scoria and stone. The wind, blow-
ing violently, was veering and shifting
in every direction, stones and scoria were
dashing on the house with deafening
noise, and the roaring of the crater was
tremendous. The roof of the house now
began to fall in at various places. The
stones fell apparently upon the ceiling of
the room we were in, and about two tons
of sand came thundering through the
roof, clearing all before it, and lodging
in the staircase within a yard of where
we were assembled. Looking out, we
perceived a fire on the opposite side of
the road, which reminded us of the
danger we were in from the same cause,
and in about five minutes we saw a still
larger fire to our right, which we at
once made out to be Mr Hazard's house
all in a blaze.” .
Major Mair, who was holding a sitting
of the Native Lands Court at Taheke,
had a good view of the eruption from a
point further North than that from which
23
the spectators at Wairoa and Rotorua
observed it. “I was awakened,” he
states, “about a quarter past one o'clock
by a slight shock of earthquake. This
was soon followed by a heavier one, and
then, in rapid succession, perhaps forty
shocks, some of them very severe. About
a quarter to two o'clock there was a
terrific roar, and upon looking out I saw
that the eastern sky was glowing, and
that over the Whakapoungakau range a
great column of fire was shooting into
the sky, while above it was a mass of
black smoke. Great bodies of solid matter
appeared to be hurled up amid showers
of sparks, and all around them was a
continuous flare of every conceivable form
of “lightning—forked lightning, chain
lightning, rounded masses of dazzling
white light, as if caused by the explosion
of bombs and showers of electric sparks.
There was not so much tremor at this
period. I went down to the shore of Lake
Rotoiti, but saw no disturbance. There
was a gentle breeze from the S.W. and
the sky in that direction was perfectly
clear. Later on the roar increased, and
louder crashing reports could be heard,
as of heavy bodies falling. The light-
ning, too, became, if possible, more vivid,
the white light appearing to shoot
through and through the red flames of
the volcano, and the earthquake shocks
were resumed with greater vigour. Soon
after three o'clock the wind shifted to
about S.E., and a black veil, as it were,
dropped down and completely shut out
the light for a time. The lightning
flashes could be seen indistinctly, and
then there came on the most utter dark-
ness. Still the roar of the volcano was
heard, and at short intervals tremendous
peals of thunder. ... About four o'clock
there was a pattering on the roof as if
light cinders were falling, and soon after-
wards a sulphureous smell was apparent.
Upon opening my window I found the
sill covered with fine sandy ooze. At
eight o'clock there was still the most
intense darkness. No sound could be
heard except an occasional rumble of
thunder. The oozy sand was "falling
silently as snow, and covering up every-
•24
A WEARZ) REGION.
ºthing. About half-past nine o'clock
there appeared a faint gleam of greenish
light in the south-west. The wind
changed again to that quarter. . The fall
tof sand became less, then ceased, and the
Tight increased, until at noon one might
read ordinary print in the open air.
sThroughout the day there were occasional
tremors of the earth and a little thunder.
FAll round Lake Rotoiti, as far as the eye
ccan reach, everything is covered with a
(pall of grey sandy ash. . In some places
hit is in drifts eighteen inches deep, but
a nowhere is it less than three inches. The
fern and light shrubs are levelled with the
ground, and in the woods every leaf has
(its burden clinging to it. All over this
stretch of country there is not one green
A thing visible. The lake is turned to a
ryellowish white colour, and the water is
so mixed with earthy matter as to be
..undrinkable. The cattle, clothed in the
juniversal grey garb, are wandering aim-
, lessly about the hills. Numbers of trees
have been struck by lightning and are
blazing like great torches. But it is quite
impossible to give an adequate descrip-
tion of this weird scene of utter desola-
–tion.”
Mr. Roche, surveyor, who watched the
- eruption from the railway camp near
ł Rotorua, had a clear view of the mountain.
Although his observations were made at
a greater distance than those of the resi-
dents of Wairoa, they have the special
value that they were made without the
intense excitement which must have pre-
• vailed in the little community on Lake
Tarawera, and also that they were con-
tinued after, the inhabitants of Wairoa
had been compelled to seek shelter from
2the rain' of fire, mud, and stones which
attended the drift of the great cloud across
Lake Tarawera. Mr Roche's account
-confirms the descriptions given by the
Wairoa residents with regard to the early
sphases of the eruption. . He says that the
j cloud of smoke and ashes was so heavy,
Jand lightning played with such brilliancy
earound the peaks that the glare from the
rowolcanic fires was partially obscured; but
¥distinct from the lightning, there was an
-appearance resembling fire, or the reflec-
tion of fire, ascending upwards from the
top of the mountain, attended with a
belching forth of red hot stones, which
could be seen as they rolled down the
mountain sides. This continued for fully
an hour before the second great cloud
arose in the direction of Lakes Rotoma-
hana and Okaro. •
The exact time when the great chasm
was blown out of the south end of Tara-
wera, opening up a huge fissure or gorge
in a south-westerly direction, and extend-
ing the line of eruption through Lake
Rotomahana nearly to Lake Okaro,
cannot easily be determined, but it
seems to have been somewhere about
half-past three o'clock. Up to the time
when the Wairoa inhabitants returned to
their dwellings for shelter, the only phase
of the eruption was that shown on
Tarawera Range, and Mr. Roche states
that it was more than an hour from the
commencement of the eruption on the
triple mountain before he saw a black
cloud rise from the direction of Roto-
mahana. This would also correspond
with the increased rapidity and violence
of the explosions heard at Auckland,
commencing about that time, and con-
tinuing until after four o'clock. Very
violent earthquake shocks were felt about
4.30, 5.30, and six o'clock. It is very pro-
bable that the opening up of the fissure
which let the waters of Rotomahana down
upon the sources of heat below, and turned
the lake into an active crater, preceded in
point of time the extension of the line of
activity up the valley along which, before
the eruption, the surplus waters from
Okaro Lake drained into Rotomahana.
Of that there can be no positive
evidence, because even the existence
of - these craters was not discovered
until the Sunday following the outburst.
The excellent views of the great chasm
opened along the top of the range from
-Wahanga to Tarawera, and extending in
-a deep gorge onwards nearly into Roto-
mahana, together with the views of the
eruption on the site of the lake, will con-
ºvey, a better-idea of the physical changes
that have been effected by the convulsion
than any word description. - More, how-
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THE DEA 7/7 PARTY A 7" AyAZARD’S. - 25
ever, will be said upon this subject further
on. We must now go back a little to
narrate the tragical events that were
occurring in Wairoa at this time. We
left the little party on their way back
from the hill at the Mu, where they had
been watching the eruption, their position
having become unsafe on account of the
dense black cloud of Smoke, stones, dust,
and ashes drifting before the wind over
towards the settlement. What happened
subsequently has been very graphically
told by the actors themselves.
The scene in the house of Mr Hazard,
the schoolmaster, who, with three of his
children and his little nephew, lost their
lives by the collapse of the building, is
described in a very touching manner by
Miss Clara Hazard, who, by her calmness
in the presence of death, proved herself to
be a brave girl. “We were all in bed,”
she says, -“at eleven o'clock. At a
quarter past one I was awakened by a
rumbling noise, and father asked me if I
felt the earthquake. I said “Yes,’ and it
kept on a long time. Mr Blythe was
awakened, and father said, ‘It is the most
wonderful sight I have seen,” and we
went on the verandah to see it. There
was a large, inky-black cloud hovering
over the truncated cone of Tarawera, with
lightning and balls of fire shooting out of
it. Mr. Blythe said it was a cloud
, charged with electricity. We all dressed
and went into the sitting-room, thinking
it was the safest part of the building, as
it was constructed of corrugated iron.
We lit a fire in the stove, and mother sat
down in the middle of the room, with all
the children round her. Looking out of
the window, it was like a great sheet of
fire. Father, and Lundius, and Blythe
were looking out of the window. I sat
down at the organ and played and sang
hymns. At three o'clock we heard a
rattling as of stones falling on the top of
the house. The noise was so great that
we could not hear each other speak.
When that came on father went out into
the middle of the room, leaning on
mother's chair. Mr Lundius picked up a
-piece of the matter which had fallen, when
we all came to the conclusion that Tara-
wera had broken out into a state of erup-
tion. The volcanic shower continued to
fall on the house for about an hour. A
tremendous gale of wind arose, and then
came down the chimney with such force
that we were nearly suffocated with the
Smoke, and had to cover the stove with a
mat, and pour all the water we could get
on it. This not being sufficient to putout
the fire, my father took the pipe off the
stove. . At about four o'clock we were all,
excepting Messrs Blythe and Lundius,
assembléd in the middle of the room,
believing it to be the safest place, as the
walls were bulging and threatened to
come in. I walked over to the door, see-
ing it bulging, to lean against it. Messrs.
Blythe and Lundius were standing at the
same place, when suddenly there came
a tremendous crash, and all was dark, the
roof falling on top of us. I put out my
hands, and grasped on one side Mr.
Blythe's hand, and on the other Mr.
Lundius, instinctively, for protection.
Meanwhile quantities of matter fell on
our heads. Mr. Lundius jumped up and
smashed the window, cutting his hand
very much. Finding he could not do it
So well with his hand, he used his foot
and got out. He then said, “I’m out;
come out, Miss Hazard,” and he pulled
me out. Mr. Blythe followed, but on
getting into the open air we were struck
about the head and body by lumps. We
shut the door, but finding the roof bulging
down, and being unable to get into some
of the other rooms, we opened the door
and stood in the doorway, so as to be
ready to escape. I was perishing with
cold, and Mr. Blythe got some blankets
to protect me from the cold. Just then
the house appeared to be struck with
lightning, and it took fire. We all rushed
out into the garden. When the portion
of the building in which we were
burst into flames, we endeavoured to
find some other shelter, and got into
the paddocks, stumbling over some up-
rooted trees in the darkness. Seeing by
the light of the burning apartment that
the henhouse was standing, we went there
for shelter, and remained there till day-
light watching the principal buildings
26. A WEZRZO & EGWOAV.
burning. The corrugated iron building
remained untouched, owing to the quan-
tity of volcanic mud around and above
it. We waited there in great anxiety,
being under the apprehension that all
the house was on fire. When daylight
arrived, Mr. McRae and the two Birds,
his brothers-in-law, came up from the
hotel to see how we had fared, and we all
went down to the corrugated portion of
the dwelling-house to see about the rest,
and found a Maori woman, old Mary of
the Mu, with my sister Ina. It appears
that when the building fell in, old Mary
snatched my sister into the bedroom, and
and they had crawled under the washstand,
after a while, finding that no more mud
fell on them, endeavoured to push away
the stuff which was covering them. In
this they succeeded, and raised themselves
upright, waiting their fate, and continued
there, in the dark, till half-past six
o'clock in the morning. At daylight we
were re-united through Mr. Lundius
breaking the window, and getting the
native woman and my sister out. The
whole party, including Mr. McRae's
people, listened for any sound to show
that any of the rest of the family were
alive in the collapsed corrugated building,
but hearing none, and seeing several
feet of mud on the debris of the fallen
roof, we all went down towards Ohine-
mutu, everybody leaving the settlement.
When we got inside of Tikitapu Bush we
met Mr. Robertson's coach, which brought
us to Mrs. Brent's boardinghouse at
Rotorua. Mr. Blythe and Mr. Lundius
went back to Wairoa.” - -
Mr. Blythe thinks the roof of the house
fell at half-past three o'clock, and feels
the more confident on the subject because
he had looked at his watch a little while
before. Miss Hazard, on the other hand,
speaks of theshower of stones commencing
at three o'clock and the fall of the roof
about four. This seems to correspond
with Mr. McRae's account of the sequence
of events. The stones, which are mostly
small pieces of black scoria, are thickly
strewn about Wairoa, and were clearly
the first portions of the ejected matter
which fell there, breaking windows and
answer again.
rattling on the roof with a sound which
gave rise to the idea that it was a
heavy hailstorm. Some stones, however,
of much larger size—one weighing about
eight pounds—were picked up. Mr. Blythe
and Miss Hazard agree that they owe
their lives to Mr. Lundius, who, when
other means of escape were cut off by the
falling in of the roof, broke the window,
and helped them out. - f -
The belief that all the other inmates
of Mr Hazard's house were dead turned
out to be erroneous, Mrs Hazard being
dug out alive several hours after the dis-
aster. She has since narrated her dread-
ful experiences:—“My two daughters,
Clara and Ina, escaped into a detached
portion of the house. While sitting in
my chair, with my three remaining
children around me, I was pinned to the
floor by the leg through the roof falling
in, and I believe that it was at that time
my husband was killed. I had my
youngest child, Mona, a girl aged four,
in my arms, a boy aged Io, Adolphus, on
my right, and a younger child, a girl
aged 6, on my left. Mona, who was in
my arms, cried to me to give her more
room, as I was pressing her against the
beam, but the load of volcanic mud
pouring down on me prevented me from
being able to render any assistance, and
the child was crushed and smothered in
my arms, and died. Adolphus said to
me, ‘Mamma, I will die with you,' and
I think he did shortly after, as he did not
The little girl, I think,
died shortly after, as she said, ‘Oh, my
head, as the mud was beating down on
her, and she spoke no more. During
my entombment I thought a search party
would come to search the room. . I
“cooed' to the first people I heard about
the place. Mr Blythe, Mr McRae, Mr
Lundius, and others got me out, on hear-
ing my call, after being entombed for
several hours. My injuries consist of
bruises and cuts about the head and
limbs, and the leg which was jammed by
the beam has not had the circulation
restored to it yet. Many of the injuries
were sustained by endeavouring to pro-
tect my head from the falling mud.” .
“FAITH FUL UNTO DEATH.” 27
All the other Europeans in Wairoa at
, the time had meanwhile gathered together
at Mr. McRae's Rotomahana Hotel.
These were, Mr. McRae, Mr. and Mrs.
Humphreys, and Mr. Minnett, of the
Terrace Hotel ; Mr. Stubbs, who was
staying at the Terrace Hotel; Mr. Bain-
bridge, a young tourist; Mr. Fallon,
storekeeper; George Baker, the cook;
Mary Kean, and Mary Bridan, Messrs.
John and William Bird, Mr. McRae's
brothers-in-law, one of whom had arrived
the previous night from Rotorua with a
wagon load of goods for Mr. McRae's
store. There were also some Maoris in
the house. In his narrative of the occur-
rence, and when giving evidence at the
inquest on Edwin A. Bainbridge, the
young tourist who lost his life, Mr. McRae
said:—“Deceased, Mr. and Mrs. Hum-
phreys, myself and others went up the
hill to see the eruption, and after remain-
ing twenty minutes, returned to the hotel.
All went into one room, and stones com-
menced to fall, breaking all the windows.
I thought the last day had arrived. The
roof of the hotel gave way about half-past
four a.m. with a loud smash, and the
whole of the upper story collapsed, the
debris falling into the rooms below. We
left the smoking-room, and went into the
drawing-room, which, as it was the
newest part of the house, we thought
would stand the longest, but it was with
the greatest difficulty that we got there,
owing to the falling stones and mud
which impeded us. When we went out-
side, everybody, without exception, was
cool and Self-possessed, and as good as
gold. The back part of the house, in
which was the dining-room, gave way
next, and all of a sudden we heard a fear-
ful crash and roar as if thousands of tons
of stuff were falling. The danger of our
position was now painfully apparent
Mr. Bainbridge remarked on this fact,
and suggested that we should engage in
Some sort of religious service. He
remarked with awful calmness that he
expected to be before his Maker in an
hour or so. We acquiesced, and Mr.
Bainbridge read a portion of Scripture
and said a prayer, in which we all fer-
vently joined, at the same time we agreed
that we should make an effort to
save ourselves, and with this object
determined to leave the hotel and make
for the first Maori whare we saw
standing.' I said, ‘Boys, we shall have
to go. Put on what you can to cover
your heads.” We all placed rugs and
blankets over us to protect us from the
danger. Mr. Humphreys and his wife
went first; Mr. Bainbridge, the English
tourist, next; then I took the girls,
jumped over the broken balustrade which
lay in our way, and lifted the girls over.
I called out, “Are you all right, boys *
and all seemed to call out ‘Yes’; so we
went on shouting to each other. Having
only to go 500 yards to reach Sophia's
house, we continued shouting to prevent
us losing one another. Suddenly I missed
the young tourist, and putting a shawl
tightly round my head, I went at once
back after him. The shower of debris
was great. I was knocked down, but
getting up again, called as loud as
possible. Though unable to find him, I
was rewarded by coming in contact with
George Baker, my cook, who was stand-
ing against a tree, and got him to the
whare. Then I went to look for Mr. and
Mrs. Humphreys, whom I had missed.
While looking for them I found Messrs.
Minnett and Stubbs, who, after groping
about in the blinding mud and darkness,
had gone back to the drawing-room of
the hotel. I helped them to reach Sophia's,
and then went towards the Wharepuni,
and my delight was great when I heard
the voice of Mr. Humphreys answering
my shout. He and his wife were making
for the carved house, and they reached
there and remained there all night. I
went back to the whare, looking for Mr.
Bainbridge, but could get no answer, and
never saw him alive again.”
The death of this young Englishman
was one of the saddest events of the
catastrophe. He seems to have had a
presentiment that he would not live
through the night, and to have prepared
for his end with great calmness and resig-
nation. Mr. Minnett, after describing
what occurred up to the point when they

té A WEZRD REGION. . .
saw the fire burst out at Hazard's house,
says:—“We dared not stir out to attempt
assistance; between earthquake and fire
we stood expecting death ourselves. Mr.
Bainbridge now asked if any of those
present would like to engage in prayer,
and all cheerfully consented. He read a
chapter from the Bible, and then offered
up prayer. He said this might be the
last hour of our lives, or we might at
once, and without further preparation, be
ushered into the presence of our Maker.
But it was in His power to deliver and
save us, even in this terrible extremity;
and should any of our number mercifully
be delivered from this present peril and
imminent calamity, oh! might it be a
turning point in their lives, and induce
them to give up their hearts and lives to
Him. e said, in conclusion, “O Lord,
be with us now ; our lives are in Thy
hand, and should we meet Thee at this
time, have mercy and forgive.’ Some
moments elapsed, and we were all silent.
I went up to him and thanked him for
having thought for us all in these dread
moments; for during the whole time we
were expecting death at any moment,
either by being buried alive by the sand,
mud, and stone that was overwhelming
the house, or by suffocation with the sul-
phureous gases which pervaded the atmo-
sphere, or by crushing under the falling
timbers, or being swallowed by the
opening ground as it trembled beneath
our feet. There was also the additional
danger of being burned to death by the
fireballs which were dashing over and
through the building. Mr. Bainbridge,
though calm, seemed to feel that he
would not survive the night. He told
me that the disaster would soon be heard
of in England, and, whether he lived or
died, that it would have a great effect on
his family, as his brother had been shot,
and two of his sisters had lately died
suddenly from disease. He said this in
such a manner as to lead me to think
that he felt positive he himself would not
escape the terrors of the night.”
The following fragment of a letter which
the deceased had begun to write, evidently
with the object of leaving it as a record
for those who should afterwards search
for their dead bodies, was found in the
ruins of the hotel. The letter was written
in a firm, clear hand, on the first page of
half a quire of foreign notepaper:—
“Written by Edwin Bainbridge, of New-
castle-on-Tyne, England.—This is the
most awful moment of my life. I cannot
tell when I may be called upon to meet
my God. I am thankful that I find His
strength sufficient for me. We are under
heavy-falls of volcanic —.” Mr. Bain-
bridge's body was found underneath the
balcony in front of the hotel, which must
have fallen upon him while in the act of
escaping.
Mr. Minnett speaks in the most cordial
terms of the presence of mind of Mr.
McRae, but for whose cool courage the
loss of life among the inmates of the hotel
would certainly have been greater. He
states: “As we left the hotel we had no
matches, and were in total darkness,
except occasionally the light afforded by
the lightning and fireballs, which ren-
dered the intervals of darkness still more
intense. The crashing of the house in all
directions, and the roar of the volcano,
prevented anyone from hearing the sound
of the falling verandah, which must have
collapsed just at this time, because when .
all were going to step out of the door I
did not perceive it. I stepped back into
the house to Stubbs for a moment, when
I heard McRae's voice shouting for Hum-
phreys. Seeing me, he said, “What,
Minnett | you here? For God's sake get
out of this and make for Sophia’s.” We
at once left the house, stumbling as we
went over the fallen verandah and fallen
roof, when Stubbs fell, believing that his
leg was broken. At length the whole
party, some twenty in all, reached Sophia's
whare, with the exception of Bain-
bridge.” -
Very early in the morning, the still-
falling shower of mud prolonging the
darkness, Mr. McRae and the two Birds
went over to the schoolhouse to see how
the family had fared. They found the
survivors, and directed them to Sophia's
house, which had borne its enormous
covering of mud, wonderfully well. An
DISCOVERY OF MRS.-HAZARDS BODY. 39
examination of the ruins of Hazard's still
burning house was made, but without
revealing any sign of life. The party
were compelled to desist and return to
shelter, and it was now deemed advisable
to despatch the women under escort to
Rotorua. Protecting their heads as best
they could from the still falling volcanic
debris, the procession of refugees set out
on their ten-mile tramp through the
heavy blue mud, which covered the
country for miles around. It was a
welcome sight when, on emerging ftom
Tikitapu Bush, they espied Mr. E.
Robertson's coach, in care of its owner,
who had gallantly set out from Rotorua
at six o'clock in the morning, accom-
panied by Mr. Edward Douglas and
Constable Moroney, to render what aid
they could to the residents of Wairoa, for
whose safety the gravest fears were enter-
tained. Upon meeting the coach, the
women from Wairoa were placed upon it,
and the men who were with them, com-
prising Messrs. Humphreys, Blythe,
Lundius, Minnett, and Willie Bird, again
returned to the scene of their night's
perils to render what aid they could. In
the interval, Mr. McRae and Johnny Bird
had made another ineffectual attempt to
reach the buried inmates of Mr. Hazard’s
house, and had then set out towards
Rotorua. About two miles from Wairoa
they met the men returning after sending
the women on in the coach. The whole
party returned to Wairoa together, spades
were got out of Mr. McRae's store, and
work was begun in earnest.
Mr. McRae, describing the discovery
of Mrs. Hazard, and the subsequent
operations to dig out the remaining
members of the family and the native
whares which were imbedded in the grey-
blue mud that covered the whole settle-
ment to a depth of twelve inches on the
level to three or four feet where it had
drifted, says: “After digging some time,
we were rewarded by seeing the hand of
a woman, and quite a thrill was caused
by the fingers moving, showing that she
was alive. We called to her that we
would soon have her out, and on digging
away the accumulation, found Mrs Hazard
with a shawl wrapped round her head,
which we unfastened. She was sitting
on a chair with her back to a cheffonier.
Her right arm was round the neck of
Mona, her dead little daughter. Her
dead little son was across her lap. She
said, ‘Yes; I khow they are both dead.
You can take them away.’ Ted Robert-
son now came to Wairoa, and helped us
to carry Mrs. Hazard on a stretcher.
Marchereau, manager for Mr. Carter, had
been half-way to Oxford, but kindly
brought his coach and refreshments over
to our relief. Next morning (Friday) the
Government sent men to help to clear the
road, which had got packed up five feet
deep with enormous trunks of trees, nine
feet in diameter, across the track, conse-
quently the work of digging out the
bodies was attended with the utmost
difficulty, although from sixty to seventy
men mustered on the ground. The
first thing done was to search for the
bodies of the Hazard family. After
cleaning the drift sand from the de-
molished structure, the sand was care-
fully taken from among the sheets of
iron and timber, and after a little time
the foot of a little boy was seen. When
taken out he was quite dead. His head
was fearfully mangled. The next body
recovered was the little girl. Her face
showed that she had been crying bitterly
and suffered much, which corroborated
her poor mother's statement that she was
sure the child was dead, as she had heard
her crying with pain. Next was found
the body of Mr. Hazard, much injured on
the head, but his face looked placid. . He
was lying face downward, evidently
crushed to the earth with the weight of
the beams which fell across his back.
Mr. Hazard's death was probably instan-
taneous as also that of his little boy who
was in a fearfully crushed state, but his
little seven-year-old daughter appeared
to have suffered a great deal of agony. She
was lying on her back with a wound on her
face. The house had taken fire and was
smouldering, butthebodies werenot burnt.
The three bodies taken out, with the bódies
of the two children exhumed the day
before, were conveyed into Rotorua.”
3O A WEZRD AºEGION.
The inhabitants of Rotorua, although
sixteen miles from the point of eruption,
had spent the night in a condition of in-
tense anxiety. They were suddenly
aroused from sleep by the earthquakes,
which commenced shortly after one
o'clock, with rumbling noises, and con-
tinued without intermission. Then a dense
black cloud was seen advancing from the
direction of Tarawera and Ohinemutu.
In this cloud occurred wonderful electric
phenomena, like the most brilliant light-
ning, but terrible beyond description.
Finally the whole population rushed from
their houses, terror-stricken, and ran
down the street, moved apparently by the
impulse to get away from the black canopy
which swelled as if it were about to seal
up the history of the village and involve
all its inhabitants in a common grave.
A cry was raised in the street that the
day of judgment had come, and a number
of women and children semi-nude rushed
from their houses and ran along the road
in disorder to the schoolhouse at Te
Awahou, where they took refuge for the
remainder of the night. The nervous
shock was so severe that for days
afterwards the excitement and uneasi-
ness were unabated. The following
telegram despatched by Mr. Dansey,
officer-in-charge of the Telegraph
L)epartment, who with his assistant re-
mained at the post of duty, conveys a
good impression of the feeling which
prevailed throughout the township:—
“We have all passed a fearful night here.
The earth has been in a continual quake
since midnight. At 2.10 a.m. there was
a heavy quake, then a fearful roar, which
made everyone run out of their houses,
and a grand yet terrible sight for those
so near as we were presented itself. Mount
Tarawera, close to Rotomahana, became
suddenly an active volcano, belching out
fire and lava to a great height. The
eruption appears to have extended itself
to several places southwards. A dense
mass of ashes came pouring down here at
4 a.m., accompanied by a suffocating
smell from the lower regions. This im-
mense black cloud, which extended in
line from Taheke to Paeroa Mountain,
was one continual mass of electricity all
night, and is still the same. Between the
roar of the thunder, the roaring of the
three or four different craters and the
stench, and the continued quaking of the
earth, several families left their homes in
their night-dresses, with whatever they
could seize in the hurry, and made for
Tauranga. Others who are lucky got
horses and left for Oxford. Judging from
the quantity of ashes and dust here I fear
serious results to the people at Wairoa
and all the natives round Tarawera
Lake.”
Notwithstanding the very natural alarm
which prevailed in Rotorua through
the night, when day dawned and it
was seen that the wind had turned the
menacing cloud away from the village
and that the violence of the eruption had
subsided, the first thought of the people
was of the residents at Wairoa. Mr. E.
Robertson had his team harnessed to the
coach by six o'clock, as already narrated,
and started out to render them assistance.
Meeting the worn-out refugees coming
down through Tikitapu bush, he soon had
them comfortably domiciled at Rotorua,
and returned to render what further aid he
could. Meanwhile Mr. Dunbar Johnstone,
Government Native Agent at Rotorua,
with Mr. Roche, Surveyor, and a staff of
men, had also set out to make a systematic
examination of the whares in the village.
Europeans and natives were employed to
dig out the members of the tribe in the
various buried whares. The road through
Tikitapu bush to Wairoa had to be
cleared and great trees removed. One
Maori nearly 100 years old was dug out.
He had waited patiently with his elbows
on his knees until his deliverance came,
and when the mud was properly scraped
off him, he rose, shook the refuse of the
crater from his person, and without giving
a look of recognition to anyone, went
straight away off to satisfy the cravings
of hunger.
The native loss of life in Wairoa was
eleven persons, the cause in most instances
being the collapse of the whares from the
weight of mud deposited on them. The
Rev, Mr. Fairbrother, who lived at Wairoa
MAORI DE WOTION. 3 I
for a long time as missionary, rode over
from Cambridge to visit his former flock as
Soon as he heard of the misfortune that
had befallen them. He says: “Those
who know what a big snow storm is, if
they can imagine volcanic debris instead
of heaped up or drifted snow, can under-
stand what Wairoa looked like. To get
to the scene of the Hazard catastrophe we
had to go through nine miles of it. The
difference between this and ‘snow is the
greater weight of the former, which has
borne down whatever it rested on, and
what was once the beautiful village of
Wairoa is a desolate plain of mud, with
here and there skeletons of trees covered
with this heavy deposit. Many of the
great trees of the forest are levelled to the
ground, while every vestige of foliage has
entirely disappeared from plain and
mountain, the forest looking a perfect
wreck. When I arrived, there was one old
Maori lady, who threw her arms around my
neck crying, “I must die here ! I must die
here !” I afterwards persuaded her to
leave and come to Ohinemutu. She then
told me that Mary and her little boy were
1ying dead in Sophia’s whare. I went
inside, and when able to command my
feelings, Mohi, the husband of the dead
girl, told me her sad story. He said they
were in the chief's house when the erup-
tion first commenced, but Mary was
afraid to stay there because of the noise
of the falling boards of the house, and
they then went down to their own whare,
of mud.
taking two little boys with them. Mohi
said, ‘Well, Fairbrother has taught us to
pray. Let us pray to God,” and they
prayed. The roof now was smashed in
with stones and mud. To save the
life of the elder boy, he wrapped him
in a shawl and knelt over the little one
that its body should not receive any
hurt from falling matter, but the drift
rose so quickly round his body that
the little one was soon covered, and he
had to keep throwing it aside with one
arm to keep it away. Mohi had his
hands on the ground, and was also on his
knees, so as to provide effectual shelter
for the little one on his back, thus form-
ing a resting place for the increasing fall
All this time his wife was
trying to protect the other little boy,
named after Fairbrother, but her efforts
were in vain, and after a silent struggle
with the elements, both mother and child
were overpowered and died. Mohi find-
ing it getting dark and the mud very
heavy on his back, made a desperate
effort and flung it off, and, taking up his
little one, called to his wife to be quick
and follow, when to his horror he found
both his loved ones had died silently by
his side. They were afterwards dug out.
She was in a sitting position with her
hands extending over her babe to protect
it from the sand drift. This is but one
of many sad narratives which could be
told of Maori devotion to their loved ones
in danger.”
32.
A. WEZRD'AºEGION.
cHAPTER III.
The Scare at Tauranga—A Rescue Steamer—First View of the Great Steam Cloud—Rotorua the Day after the
ruption—Expedition to Examine the Terraces—The Desolated Tikitapu Bush—Search for the Dead in Wairoa
+-Unéarthing the Old Tohunga Tuhotu-Camping Behind Rotomahana—The Wonderful Sand Hills—The Black
Crater—The Roaring Turmoil of Rotomahana—The Boating Expedition on Tarawera—Dr. Hector's Visit—The
Abandonment of Wairoa.
# turned aside from Rotorua, after
J. burying the whole country between
Lake Tarawera and the eastern
shore of Lake Rotorua in mud, drifted
over towards the East Coast, and north-
wards beyond Tauranga, producing an
unnatural darkness. During the night;
the inhabitants of Tauranga, and other
East Coast settlements, had been alarmed
by the earthquake rumblings, and had
gº great dust cloud, which had
seen the vivid lightning, flashes in the
direction of Rotorua, without any other
visible signs of storm. When about seven
o'clock in the morning the sun became
obséured, the prevailing uneasiness in-
creased. Onward came the great cloud,
drifting up on the south-west wind. By
eleven Ö'clock Tauranga was enveloped in
total darkness, and something approach-
ing tô a panic prevailed. ‘The people
believed that the eruption must be nearer
than Ohinemutu, especially as the volcanic
dust began to fall steadily until the
streets were covered to a depth of nearly
half an inch, and in some places the drift
was two inches. The paddocks were
covered, and cattle came lowing in dis-
tress to the farm buildings. Such com-
plete darkness prevailed for some hours
that lights had to be lit. About one
o'clock, however, it had cleared away,
and the panic subsided. But before
that time the Mayor had sent urgent
telegrams to the Mayor of Auckland,
asking for steamers to take the people
away. In response to these appeals, the
steamer Wellington was chartered and
despatched to Tauranga, reaching there
at two o'clock on Friday morning, only
to find all the people protesting that
they had never been even a little bit
frightened. Those who had gone down
in the steamer, therefore, immediately set
out for the scene of the eruption. We
left Tauranga at half-past six on Friday
morning (the day following the eruption).
The wind was sharp and bracing, and
the ground covered with hoar frost and
the pools with ice. All over the surface
of the land, as far as the eye could reach,
lay a coating of volcanic dust, which was
stirred up into clouds by every puff of
wind. As we ascended the hill towards
Oropi Bush, this coating became thinner,
diminishing from an even deposit of
about a quarter of an inch to a bare
covering over the ground. Vegetation
everywhere was coated with this earthy
matter, although it was not so deep as to
prevent the cattle from obtaining food.
The road from Tauranga to Rotorua, it
appears, might almost be taken as the
western boundary of the deposit, which
covered the ground to a much greater
depth over all the settlements east of it.
The atmosphere was perfectly clear, and
the sun unobscured. The few settlers
spoken to on the road all referred to the
alarm caused by the untoward events of
the previous day, but it was generally
assumed that the force of the eruption
had been expended, and the danger was
over. The distance of the seat of the
eruption, and the cause of the dust cloud
being understood, there was no further
uneasiness, except for the fate of the
people living near Lake Tarawera. The
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T H E O L D M I L L , W A I R O A.
(AFTER THE ERUPTION.)
















(ºsofia nºta aſil ſtºlaev)
‘T E L o H s. a v 8 o W -- O X O V 8 - O M E I Å

THERMAZ Acz/v77'y AT Rozorva. 33
coating of dust steadily diminished as
we approached Rotorua. On emerging
from the bush at the top of the hill over-
1ooking the lake, a magnificent pano-
rama burst upon our view. A dense
cloud of steam of snowy whiteness, ex-
tended for miles above the range
of hills bounding the eastern shore of
Lake Rotorua. This bank of vapour
drifted slowly to the northward, and
merged into a dust-cloud, that was
being whirled about by the play of the
wind. In the direction of Tarawera the
bank of steam rose in a solid and un-
broken mass to a height of 16,000 feet.
Farther to the right, apparently beyond
Rotomahana, there was another vast
column, while just across the lake the
whole line of hills from Taheke to the
Wairoa road, that is to say, all the
eastern shore of Rotorua wore the grey-
blue hue of the volcanic mud. The
setting sun shone upon the Snowy moun-
tains of steam, tinting them with a pink
flush, and covering with glory the ram-
parts of desolation below.
The general appearance of the village
of Ohinemutu gave very little token of
the startling events of the previous day.
There was a light deposit of volcanic
mud on the ground, and several thermal
springs had broken out again at points
where they had long ceased to be
active, but the steam rising from the
numerous hot water fountains in the vil-
lage appeared to be no greater than usual,
although it was soon found that both the
volume and temperature were enhanced
by the eruption. One “cooking pot” was
turned into an active little geyser. The
level of the lake waters had risen several
inches, owing possibly to recent rains and
the heavy deposit of mud on the eastern
side. These causes alone, assisted by
the disturbances of the earthquake
shocks, might perhaps be enough to ac-
count for the revival of old springs, but the
increased temperature can scarcely be ex-
plained in the same way. In the township,
among Europeans and natives, intense
anxiety for the future prevailed, although
most of the residents who had fled in the
first panic returned to their homes on
Friday. The natives were coming in from
Wairoa and taking up their quarters at
the big carved house, preparatory to
holding a great tangi or wailing for the
dead. The predominant feeling was one
of incertitude and utter helplessness;
every earthquake shock might be the
precursor of another great convulsion,
involving strong men, women and children
in a terrible death, and yet they knew
that nothing could mitigate the calamity
or save them from destruction, if it should
come, except flight, abandoning all that
they possessed. The steam jets in the
neighbourhood, and visible for miles
around, were scanned with anxious eyes,
false rumours got afloat and were believed,
Mokoia Island, it was said, was sinking,
Mount Edgcumbe had broken out, and
strange things were happening at Tiki-
tere. These reports, which subsequently
proved to be untrue, had a disturbing
influence, but they never diverted the
inhabitants from their duty toward those
whose lives might still be in jeopardy.
The excavations went on at Wairoa, and
on the afternoon of our arrival we saw a
mournful procession come into Rotorua
with the remains of the poor schoolmaster
and his little ones, whose bodies were laid
out to await the inquest. The search for
the young tourist, Bainbridge, continued;
steps were also being initiated by volun-
teer effort to convey a boat across to
Wairoa to make an examination of the
villages of Moura and Ariki. The boats
previously plying on Lake Tarawera were
destroyed in the strange tempest.
Although care for human life occupied
a foremost place, it did not make men
forget the terraces of Rotomahana nor
prevent speculation concerning their
fate. This was, indeed, the topic that
came uppermost when the widespread
desolation was surveyed. To every one
who had seen those beautiful natural
structures the thought of theirtlestruction
was intolerable, and to the people of
Rotorua these wonders had, besides, a
monetary significance. They held a lead-
ing place among the attractions, on the
strength of which a large amount of capital
had been invested, Werethey gone,andifso
C
34 A WE/R/D FEGION.
how would their destruction affect the dis-
trict These queries were upon everyone's
lips. It was still uncertain how far the
eruption had extended, but the great steam
cloud rising over the hills in the direction
of Rotomahana made us fear the worst.
Mr. James Stewart, C.E., had come into
the township from the Rotorua railway
survey, and he at once set about organis-
ing a party and camp equipments to
ascertain definitely what had actually
happened in that locality. It was
believed, from the depth of mud at Wai-
roa and on the whole breadth of country
between Lake Tarawera and the eastern
Shore of Lake Rotorua, that it would be
impossible to reach Rotomahana on
horseback. This idea proved to have
been an erroneous one, but it led to the
resolution to perform the latter part of
the journey on foot. All arrangements
were made for an early start on Saturday
morning, proceeding by coach along the
Wairoa road as far as Lake Rotokakahi,
then transferring our tents and baggage
to a pack horse with the intention of
following the Kaitereria track round the
lake into the Galatea track, by which
we hoped to reach the back of Roto-
mahana.
By nine o'clock on Saturday morning
we were under weigh, the party consisting
of Mr. James Stewart, C.E., Mr. Roche,
surveyor, Mr. W. T. Firth, Mr. I. Hop-
kins, Mr. W. Berry, Mr. T. W. Leys, Mr.
G. Nicholson, and two or three stalwart
young fellows from the surveyor's camp.
Captain Way joined the party at Wairoa.
Mr. H. Lundius volunteered as guide.
About two miles beyond Rotorua the
deposit of volcanic mud upon the road
became deeper, and before the Tikitapu
Bush was reached, the thick adhesive
covering which overspread the whole
surface of the country with a bluish-grey
mantle far as the eye could reach, had
attained an average depth of about four
inches. The mud appeared to have fallen
in rounded pellets like rain-drops, inter-
mingled with finer particles which must
have come down as moistened dust.
The landscape was a very strange one—
the ground as evenly spread as if it had
been rolled, and hill and dale, land and
shrub and tree, all draped in the same
sombre garb. It was just as though there
had been a snowstorm, only that in place
of snow mud fell which no summer Sun
could melt. Here and there could be seen
the tracks of some human being or animal
on the even surface, which was also
dotted over by dead rats and mice, while
affrighted birds wheeled o'erhead bewil-
dered by the extraordinary transforma-
tion. The great weight of the deposit,
and the force with which it was driven,
had borne down vegetation and stripped
the trees of their foliage. The pretty
little Tikitapu Bush, the favourite of
tourists, was utterly desolated. Great
trees lay flat, their roots an earthy disc
in some instances of ten feet diameter,
attesting the force of the mighty wind
that had torn along the opening of the
road. Above -them, as if outspread in
lamentation, were extended the long bare
arms of those forest monarchs that had
withstood the violence of the tornado.
Torn and battered beyond recognition,
the flowering koromiko, the delicate fern,
and the tenacious creeper were buried in
a common grave. The road here became
very heavy, and was partially obstructed
by trees, which had fallen across it, so
that we were compelled to get out and
tramp through the mud. What had
become of the Blue Lake—surely that
dirty brown sheet of water had never
gone by such a name Over the hill
we came in view of Rotokakahi, once the
Green Lake, now muddy water. The
river conveying the outflow of the lake
was completely choked up. In a gully
beyond this point we saw the mud-
bespattered, lacerated body of a horse,
which was tethered overnight, and had
evidently made a fierce struggle for life.
The entrance of Wairoa presented a
very singular spectacle, the whare tops
peering out of the accumulated debris.
On the roof of one was lying dead the
body of its owner, only just dug out of
the ruins. Three rooms of the Terrace
Hotel were standing, but the back part
was knocked away and the balcony stove
in, The Rotomahana Hotel was a shat-
*s
WA/A’OA AM77 ER 7THE EA’ UPZYON. 35
tered wreck. The roof of a store next
door had tumbled in with the weight of
stuff. The ruins of Hazard's house were
still Smouldering. Sophia's house, which
had so strongly resisted the storm, stood
out with its mud-thatched eaves, a
picturesque and conspicuous object in the
native village. Although the average
depth of the mud in Wairoa was not more
than twelve inches, it had drifted in places
to a depth of as much as three or four feet,
and the whares that had collapsed ap-
peared as if they were buried to the eaves.
The loss of life was principally due to the
weighing down of buildings, and search
parties directed their attention first of all
to whares that had fallen in. At the time
of our arrival they were digging indus-
triously along the verandah of McRae's
hotel for the body of Mr. Bainbridge, who
was found beneath it.
The natives displayed extraordinary
apathy and callousness with regard to
their missing friends and the entire work
of the search was thrown upon the Euro-
peans. Some of the fallen whares in
Wairoa were not searched until three
or four days after the eruption, and
in one of these ruins the old tohunga
Tuhotu, reported to be a hundred years
old, was discovered alive. He was as
much hated as feared by the natives,
many of whom attributed the deaths
and calamities that had befallen the
settlement to his magic and malevo-
ence. His hundred and four hours’ hyber-
nating had not made him speechless,
and he protested against being carried
out. Having partaken of food, however,
he submitted to removal to the Sanatorium
at Rotorua, and was there fed upon milk,
administered in small quantities. His
dutiful nephews and grandchildren, who
had made no effort to search for their
aged relative, flocked down to weep over
him when he came in, but no one would
go near or touch him, and expressions of
profound disgust were freely used by the
natives regarding the insensate folly of
the pakeha in bringing the wizard to light
again from the grave, in which they had
hoped he was comfortably disposed of.
Their fears, however, were soon allayed,
for the old man, after lingering about a
week, during which he conversed cheer-
fully and described his experiences while
buried, died. A week after the eruption
Mr. S. Percy Smith found a woman from
the deserted settlement of Waitangi,
where she had lived alone with her hus-
band. He was killed, and she had been
a week without food. She had staggered
towards Wairoa, but at last fell fainting.
A party of natives who found her took no
steps to bring her in, and the Assistant-
Surveyor General, with Mr. Baker, a
member of his staff, manufactured a litter
out of an old shawl and bore the poor
creature in to Wairoa. Two months after
the catastrophe, a dog rooting about the
buried village drew the attention of some
visitors to a spot, where, upon digging,
they found the body of a Maori woman
sitting in a natural posture, with her
daughter across her knee lying face
downward. Clasped to the girl's bosom,
within her shawl, tºwas a Bible. This
woman was known to have left the chief
Kepa's house on the night of the eruption
with her sick daughter; being unable to
make headway against the storm, they
had sat down and died there, the bodies
becoming hermetically sealed over with
the falling volcanic mud, which kept thcm
in a state of good preservation.
Passing through the village, we went
as far as the hill descending to the boat
sheds, where tourists formerly embarked
on their voyage across the lake. No
trace of boats or sheds remained, every-
thing was covered with the universal
pall. The vegetation battered down and
buried, and even the Wairoa stream,
which three days before had come
bounding merrily down the hill in its
sparkling falls, with ceaseless murmur
and Splash, was gone, choked up at its
source. and along its channel. Not
a drop of clean fresh water was pro-
curable in the settlement. Heavy vapours
hung over Lake Tarawera, shutting in the
view and enveloping in an impenetrable
mystery the gloomy mountain from which
all this evil had sprung.
Retracing our steps to Lake Rotoka-
kaži, we gave up the coach for the con-
36 A WEIRD REGION.
veyance of the dead into Rotorua, and
shouldered our swags for the not very
promising tramp through the mud around
the side of the steep hill which borders
the lake. The tent and heavy bag-
gage were securely fastened on the
pack-horse, and our sturdy guide pro-
ceeded to guess his way along the hill-
side. This was rather Serilous work, the
track being completely obliterated with
mud several inches deep, and as the hill
descends abruptly to the lake, a slip
would have sent the horse and its burden
headlong into the lake one hundred feet
below. But Lundius fully justified the
confidence reposed in him, and though
probably often off the track, his sure-
footed horse went along without mishap,
obtaining a foothold in the solid bed of
mud. We followed in single file along
this ticklish way, stepping into tracks
made by the horse, and leaning up towards
the hillside to preserve our balance while
drawing each foot out of the suction-holes.
Two miles of this sort of travel brought
us to Kaitereria, a native settlement,
where the fall of mud had been much
lighter, and the track became compara-
tively easy. As we neared the vicinity of
the lakes, the soft mud gave way to dry
pebbles the size of marbles of the same
material as the mud, and intermingled
with fragments of scoria. On a stretch of
level land between the hills which the
track crosses, and which has been known
from time immemorial as “Earthquake
Flat,” owing to the old earthquake cracks
across it, we found a number of new fis-
sures—one about a foot wide and of
unknown depth. In this vicinity also a
huge boulder had been rolled down from
the hill above. . . After a weary tramp
over hill and dale, Lake Okaro came
suddenly in sight between the hills, and
a wonderful scene broke upon our view.
Where before had been green fern, now
rose hillock upon hillock, glistening
white beneath the setting sun. We
pushed forward to ascertain the nature
of the transformation that had produced
this weird vision, and soon the track
entered a region of dust or light earthy
matter, into which with every footstep
we sank over out boot-tops. The rapid
closing in of night rendering it impos-
sible to proceed further, we decided to
camp on the margin of a little patch of
bush. Here tents were pitched and a
roaring fire was lit, and we made our-
selves as comfortable as possible. The
air was clear and cold, the sky cloudless,
and the stars shone with brilliancy. Away
to the left, and apparently at no very
great distance, but drifting slowly north-
wards before the southerly breeze, the
massive steam cloud rose to a height of
fifteen or sixteen thousand feet. At in-
tervals, we could hear the sound of distant
concussions and detonations, not unlike
the reports that awoke the inhabitants of
Auckland on the night of the eruption;
these were followed by the rattling sound
of musketry, mingled with the roar of
escaping steam. To discover whence
these strange noises proceeded was to be
our mission on the morrow.
Night passed with no further excite-
ment than three or four earthquake shocks,
that set the hill on which we were re-
posing in gentle oscillation. We were
up with the sun, and after a hasty, break-
fast, having cut alpen-stocks from the
adjacent bush, we set out upon our
uncertain and adventurous expedition.
It was at once seen that Lake Okaro and
Kakaramea Mountain at its head were in
a normal condition, but the steam-jets of
Paeroa further south, towards Taupo,
showed increased activity. The white
line which marked the dust deposit also
stopped half way up Kakaramea Moun-
tain; the fern was green beyond. But
from that mountain to Rotomahana there
was an unbroken succession of grey hills
and gullies, the deposit being dry, and
totally different in texture from the heavy
mud on the Wairoa side. Jets of steam
and brown smoke indicated a number of
points of eruption between Okaro and
Rotomahana, but Lake Okaro glistened
placidly and undisturbed within the circle
of its grey shores. We were soon
plunging across the hills of dry dust,
which in appearance and texture re-
sembled hydraulic lime. At every step
our boots went ankle deep, and sometimes
THE ARLOCK CRA 7TEA’. 37
we sank to the knees. The deposit
varied from a foot to unknown depths
—probably not less than twenty feet.
After travelling for two miles over hill
and gully, we came in view of the
blackened cone of a prominent hill in
active eruption, throwing up showers of
scoria, which fell back into the crater, or
down the hill side. Its side was torn out,
and from several points of activity within
the crater explosions occurred every few
minutes, driving stones 500 feet into the
air with the boom,ing and rattling noise
already described. The hill was about
400 feet high, with a black cone of
about 20 feet built up by deposits of
ejected stone. Volumes of steam and
smoke issued from the yawning mouth
which formed a long and -cavernous-
looking rent across the top of the hill
and going deep down into its heart.
Beyond the range of the regular shower
of ash, the grey hillocks and gullies
intervening between the volcano and the
place where we were standing were
studded with indentations, which, on
probing, we discovered had been made
by stones falling from a great height and
burying themselves deep in the soft earth.
In a more careful examination some time
afterwards, the Assistant Surveyor-
General came across one block of stone a
hundred tons weight, which had been
thrown from this crater a distance of an
eighth of a mile. As the discoverers of
this grim vent for the subterranean fires,
we felt called upon to give it a name—
and “The Black Crater,” suggested by
Mr. Stewart, met with immediate accept-
ance. The character of the deposits over
which we were travelling now changed,
showers of stones covered the dust, and
in some parts the deposit was pure ash.
It became apparent, from rising jets of
steam and smoke, that along the former
bed of the old creek carrying the over-
flow of Okaro Lake into Rotomahana,
but which was covered over with ashes,
five craters, similar in most of their
characteristics to the one first noticed,
but smaller and less active, had broken
into eruption. The country before had
been covered with fern and tussock.
Heavy masses of steam and brown
smoke rising above Te H-pe-o-Toroa, a
mountain 1,920 feet high, on the western
side of Rotomahana, directed our way,
and pushing on we were soon toiling up
the ash-covered, steep, eager to gratify
our curiosity with a view of the lake
below. . At last the summit was gained,
and we looked down upon the most extra-
ordinary spectacle imagination can con-
ceive. The peak on which we were stand-
ing was formerly about half-a-mile from
the margin of the lake, but now, instead
of a placid sheet of water, there was
opened out immediately beneath our feet,
its edge not, 250 yards distant, a huge
crater, belching out showers of mud and
stones from innumerable yawning mouths,
amid dense volumes of steam and smoke,
with a din and roar and rattle baffling
description. Stones were being ejected
high into the air from eleven separate
orifices or small craters, on the side
nearest to us, and the volumes of
Steam and smoke prevented further
vision into the centre of the old lake
site. A partial clearing away of the
vaporous envelope, however, occasionally
gave a brief glimpse into the gloomy
recesses of the great crater, revealing
only a bed of seething, steaming mud
in flats and hillocks, bubbling and spout-
ing in ceaseless ebullition. A small
patch of discoloured water was dimly
distinguishable in one part, but the lake
was gone—not only the water, but the
bottom driven out, scooping the bed to a
depth of at least 250 feet below the old
level. The whole configuration of the
place was so completely altered, that
those who were most familiar with its
features hesitated in locating the site of
the Pink Terrace. The spot finally
settled upon was one of especial
activity, dense masses of steam and
smoke completely obscuring the view in
that direction. The fissure traversed
the western side of Rotomahana, and
was marked by small craters, fuma-
roles, and mud geysers. It had passed
outside the site of the Pink Terrace,
and widened out the south-western end
of the old lake margin, so that the
38 A WEZRD REGION.
great crater was over a mile long and
half a mile wide. To see this enor-
mous chasm torn and lashed with a
fury that baffles description—roaring,
cannonading, screeching, driving into
the air at one spot columns of steam
such as might be generated in the boilers
of a leviathan steamship, and from
another orifice sending out black volumes
of smoke and showers of stones, was a
spectacle that can only lose in magnifi-
cence by any attempt to convey a
description of it in words. That the
Terraces were utterly destroyed was
manifest enough to everyone, and we
gazed in silence and in sorrow upon this
spectacle of fierce and destructive turmoil,
which had driven into fragments a natural
marvel without duplicate on the face
of the globe, and which nature had taken
centuries to produce. The whole moun-
tain-side was strewn with fragments of
terrace-formation, but as the surround-
ings of the old lake at many points were
‘marked by areas of silicious deposit
there was no clear evidence that these
fragments came from either of the great
Terraces, and there was still the narrow
chance that the Terraces were not blown
out but were covered up beneath the deep
ueposits of ejected matter. The stones
ejected from the smaller craters mostly
fell back into the orifices from which they
had been expelled, choking up the vents.
Then the up-rushing steam, with boom-
ing sound, would send them flying once
more high into the air, to fall back again
with noisy clatter. -
The prospect obtained from Te Hape o
Toroa was most extensive and varied.
Far away beyond Taupo was seen the
snow-clad cone of Ruapehu and her
sister Tongariro; nearer, the steam jets
amid the green fern hills around Paeroa ;
then Kakaramea and Okaro Lake. Imme-
diately beneath our feet, so that a slip on
the hill side might roll us into one of the
roaring craters, the violent turmoil of
Rotomahana; and along the bed of the
old creek the other five active craters
already mentioned. Northwards, towards
the Wairoa, were hills glistening in mud.
‘Beneath them, Tarawera Lake, calm and
peaceful, with the dark outline of the
great mountain itself visible through the
steam and smoke. The dividing 1ine
between , the mud eruption and the
showers of dry dust was singularly
marked. From Rotomahana towards
Lake Okaro and back to Lake Rerewha-
Raiti, the hills of dust and ashes were
visible in unbroken continuity, while in
the other direction towards the ill-fated
Wairoa village was the deposit of wet
mud which extended over to the eastern
shore of Lake Rotorua, and which had been
borne on the wind northwards in gradu-
ally diminishing thickness, beyond Te
Puke. Whether this heavy mud deposit
was due to the expulsion of the bed of
Lake Rotomahana with the waters con-
tained in the lake, or whether it was,
as Dr. Hector suggests, solely due to the
condensation of steam acting upon the
dust cloud when brought into contact with
the cold south-west wind that diverted
the cloud from Ohinemutu, must be
a matter of conjecture. But the fact that
the muddy bottom of Rotomahana has
been scooped out, and its waters ex-
pelled, while residents at Wairoa de-
clare that some of the mud fell in
lumps, supports the opinion that it was
not until the outburst at Rotomahana
that the mud shower began to fall, and
that the rapid generation of vapour and
ejectment of mud and water from Roto-
mahana had something to do with the
clearly marked characteristics of these
deposits; but, on the other hand, it is
also evident, from the fineness of the
particles in some of the mud-covered
districts, that the deposit was simply dust
which had become moistened in passing
through a vaporous medium.
The deposits on Te Hape-o-Toroa, and
westward of it, are fragments of stone, the
sinter of the terraces, ash, and dry dust,
which caked on the surface where water
had fallen. Huge cracks in the heaped-
up dust mounds on the hill-side indicated
that the ground was not to be trusted,
and the intermittent tremors of earth-
quakes contributed to the general sense
of insecurity. Having indulged the sense
of wonder to the full with the strange
Aº XPE/D/ZYOW ZEO 7A/E BURAE/D VIZA.A.G.E.S. 39
spectacle of Rotomahana, we set our faces
once more towards the camp. The tracks
of our footprints marked the way over the
smooth unbroken waste of grey matter,
on which no human footstep had pre-
viously trodden. While ascending one
hill, a more than ordinarily violent earth-
quake swayed the hill-side to such a
degree that we had to pause in our climb
until the oscillation ceased. Getting back
to camp about noon, the tent was struck,
and the homeward march for Rotorua
begun. In the return journey we made
the discovery that the Galatea track,
branching from the Wairoa road near
Whakarewarewa, and passing on the
South-western side of Lake Rotokakahi,
was very little obstructed by mud. “It
was, in fact, just within the boundary of
the mud deposit on that side. The road
was in fairly good condition, and in the
weeks succeeding our expedition, scarcely
a day passed without some visitor tra-
velling by this track to see the new
wonderland. The Government have com-
menced the construction of a buggy road,
via this route, which will be available for
visitors during the coming summer.
In our absence on Sunday a boat and
light skiff had with great difficulty been
got over from Rotorua to Wairoa. The
volunteer crew consisted of Mr. Edwards
(native interpreter), Captain Mair, Alfred
and Arthur Warbrick, Black, C. Taylor,
E. Harrow, Ainsley, and Sergeant Cahill.
The work of getting the boat and party
down to Lake Tarawera was attended
with considerable danger. The crew
were lowered over a precipice of mud by
‘means of a rope; they managed to shove
off without mishap, but were followed by
mud avalanches in their passage down the
creek. Dr. Hector, Government Geolo-
gist, who had arrived from Wellington on
the day preceding, witnessed the launch
and expressed the warmest admiration
for the courage of these hardy volunteers,
whose lives were placed in peril from the
mud slips which it was foreseen would
inevitably ensue after the first heavy
rainfall. Lake Tarawera was now com-
paratively clear of vapour, and steam was
seen issuing at various points along the top
W
of the Tarawera range. The party found
that the native settlement of Moura, where
forty natives formerly lived, had slipped
bodily into the lake, owing to the depth of
the deposits and the steep declivity above
the village. A karaka forest had also been
borne with the landslips out into the lake.
The party landed waist-deep in mud, but
saw that they could do nothing. The
inhabitants of the village were past
human aid—overwhelmed with swift des—
truction. At the site of Te Ariki the
change was still greater. The settlement
itself was covered to a depth of over 3o
feet with stones, mud, and ashes, and the
bed of the Kaiwaka stream, which carried
the overflow of Rotomahana into Lake
Tarawera, was also completely buried
with similar deposits—the stones still
unbearably hot. The old landmarks
were obliterated beyond recognition ;
the bay itself was filled up for a breadth
of 150 feet. Death had come with ava-
lanche Swiftness upon all the inhabitants
of the village, forty-five in number. No
palatial buildings, however, or buried
wealth were there to tempt after ex-
plorers to make Pompeian excavations.
The thatched whares would offer but a
frail resistance to the mountains of earth,
and their inmates lie deep down in a
grave that is never likely to be dis-
turbed. Ascending a hill, the boating
party got a good view of the southern
end of Tarawera, and saw that an enor-
mous chasm, 6oo feet wide, and extend-
ing almost from base to summit, had
been blown out of the end of
the mountain. Its sides were brightly
coloured with ferro-chlorides. The erup-
tion from this chasm and from the
mountain above had ceased, although
columns of brown smoke and steam were
frequently emitted. The eye ranged over
a landscape of heaped up mounds of
earth, with intervening fissures and
columns of steam. Near the site of the
White Terrace, there appeared to be a
semi-circular cliff with a very active
crater, emitting dense volumes of steam.
After making a general examination
of the country, the party returned
to the boats and were exploring the
40 ... . A WE/A&AD A&AEGION.
eastern side of the lake, when they
perceived nine natives, who, having come
up from Matata in search of their rela-
tives, had left their horses at Tapahoro
and were completely exhausted by their
efforts to reach Te Ariki. When told of
the sad fate of the village, they raised a
great wailing. The boating party sup-
plied the famished wayfarers with food
and water, and conveyed them to a point
where they could easily get back to
their starting-place. . This timely succour
probably saved their lives, as they
could not have returned before dark,
and must have spent a frightful night
on the mud. The party were unable
to carry out a search of the settlement of
Tokiniho, on the western shore, and it
was not until two months later that the
bodies of the eleven inhabitants of that
village were discovered. They had
assembled together in a large house
which fell in and smothered them. When
, the boats reached Wairoa late at night it
took two hours and a-half to get up from
the landing to Sophia's whare, and two of
the party were compelled to lie down
repeatedly on the mud utterly exhausted.
Before the boating party got back, Dr.
Hector had made arrangements for the
abandonment of Wairoa and the closing
of the road. He took this course in conse-
quence of the opinion that after the
first, heavy rain mud glaciers would be
formed which, slipping down into the
valleys and lakes, would cover the road
to a great depth, and render escape
impossible to any one thus cut off. Also
that Lakes Rotokakahi and Tikitapu,
filled with vast masses of mud, would
overflow, and a long period, perhaps
months, must elapse before the country
could settle into a condition of any-
thing like permanent subsidence. These
anticipations were only very partially
realised. Mud slips did take place, but
fine weather continued through the week,
and some of the natives, actuated by a
spirit of base ingratitude, took advantage
of the abandonment of Wairoa to plunder
McRae's and Humphrey's stores, not-
withstanding that they had received very
great kindness from the owners in the
shape of gifts of food and clothing.
Their wants were also being amply pro-
vided for by the Government, and by
subscriptions raised in Auckland.
In connection with the slips which
afterwards occurred on the Wairoa road,
a very extraordinary chasm was opened
near the Tikitapu Bush. This had appar-
ently been formed originally by an old
earthquake crack, which became filled up
in the course of time with accumulations
of loose debris. The road had gone
across its border, no one suspecting the
insecurity of the ground. By the down-
rush of water and mud from the hill-side
with the winter rains the old deposit was
swept outwith the new, leaving a great gap
in the road, widening out into a deep and
dangerous gorge, in one place 90 feet deep.
The week following the eruption was
an anxious time for Rotorua. Earthquake
shocks continued with great frequency
and considerable severity, and the ther-
mal springs exhibited irregularities that
caused some uneasiness. But the people
gradually settled down to their old pur-
Suits. The excursionists to Rotomahana
from day to day brought back reports of
decreasing energy in the craters, and it
was seen that the eruption was in its
declining phase. Mount Tarawera, after
the great outburst of the Ioth, had slum-
bered, and only the geyser action of the
Rotomahana craters remained. -
The natives assembled in the carved
house at Rotorua commenced the tangi
for their dead, who numbered 110. They
also began to consider their future pros-
pects and place of abode. Return to
Wairoa, was now out of the question, for
although , analyses, subsequently made,
afford satisfactory evidence that the mud
and dust deposits contain all the elements
of a fair soil, return to the mud-covered
lands of Wairoa was out of the question.
But other lands were liberally offered by
the Rotorua, Taupo, and East Coast tribes,
and the homeless natives gradually dis-
tributed themselves in various directions;
the bulk, however, remaining to keep
guard over their ancestral estates, which,
though all uncultivated, were once such
an unfailing source of income.
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THE STAR EXAED/7”/OW TO KOTOMA HANA.
* ~ * * *
4 I
cHAPTER Iv.
Exploration of Rotomahana—A Startling Experience in the Crater—The Great Fissure Through Rotomahana—Its
General Characteristics—Mr. S. Percy Smith's Ascents of Tarawera—The New Lake Rotomakariri-A Green
Lake—The Great Chasm in Tarawera—The Range Torn Open from End to End—The Craters South of Roto-
mahana—How Crater Lakes are Formed—New Crater West of Rotomahana,
Y.Y OR three or four weeks after the
-Hºë eruption the activity within the
- J% great crater of Rotomahana pre-
vented anything like a systematic
examination of its condition, and there
were people who still cherished the
opinion that the Terraces might not be
gone after all, but only covered up. In
the latter event their beauty would have.
been destroyed, but the popular mind
clung with tenacity to the slenderest shred
of hope. Professor Hutton, of Christ-
church, and Professors
Thomas, of Auckland, had visited the
district, but from the state of the weather
and other conditions could only make
partial examinations of Rotomahana and
Tarawera. They procured, however, ex-
cellent specimen collections of the ejected
matter. In the beginning of July it was
reported that the numerous small craters
and geysers were so quiescent that it
would be safe, with care, to descend
into the great crater and survey at closer
quarters the bed of the old lake and the
locality of the Terraces. Acting upon
this information, the proprietor of the
Auckland Evening Star fitted out an
expedition for the purpose of carrying out
the exploration. The party comprised
Mr. J. A. Philp, special correspondent,
Alfred Warbrick, a brave half-caste guide,
whose gallantry in connection with the
Te Ariki expedition a few days after the
eruption has been already alluded to in
these pages, Captain Way, of Te Wairoa,
and two natives. Unfortunately, on the
day they had selected for their descent
into the crater, the most violent eruption
Brown and
that had been observed for three weeks
took place. The column of steam and
smoke ascended in the course of a few
minutes to a height of 14,000 feet, and
being seen from Rotorua and more distant
places, gave rise to considerable anxiety
for the safety of the explorers. However,
they came safely out of the perilous situ-
ation in which the unexpected disturbance
placed them, after penetrating much fur-
ther into the mud-covered region than
had previously been attempted. To the
pen of Mr. Philp we are indebted for the
- first detailed description of the appear-
ance of the great fissure where it crosses
...the site of Lake Rotomahana.
Mr Philp writes:—“We started from
our camp on the margin of the sandhills
behind Rotomahana about 7.30. It was
still bitterly cold; the mud on the ground
was covered with little beads of ice;
and a heavy, wet mist, which congealed
in tiny icicles on our clothing, and even
on our ear-tips, kept alive the unpleasant
memories of the night, and urged us to
adopt a pace which soon rendered one of
the party (Captain Way) unable to pro-
ceed further. An hour saw us on the
hill overlooking the lake. The countless
fumaroles were steaming much more
violently than we had noticed when we
ascended Te Hape-o-Toroa on the pre-
vious day, and the whole space between
Tarawera Lake and Kakaramea Moun-
tain at the head of Lake Okaro was a
mass of vapour, none of the surrounding
landscape indeed being visible. . The
density of the vapour proved too much
for the courage of one of our natives, and
42 A WEIRD REGION.
he declined to proceed further. The rest
of the party descended an incline covered
with heavy boulders. The steam was
rising in such a dense mass that the
vision did not extend ten yards, and the
ceaseless noise of rushing steam, with its
concomitants of intermittent quakes, did
not make our position a very enviable
one. At the bottom of this incline we
found a circular crater with slightly
sloping sides. Its diameter would pro-
bably be 80 yards, and it contained two
or three feet of cold muddy water, but
there was a water-mark about 14 feet
above the water-level. From, the sides
of this basin or crater some twenty or
thirty fumaroles spouted out volumes of
steam. Adjoining this crater, and similar
toitin its characteristics, was a small round
basin, also emitting steam from its sides.
Before us lay an immense hillock of made
ground. On reaching the top of this we
walked across a small stone-strewn pla–
teau, and came to a yawning chasm with
precipitous sides. It was apparently
about 80 yards wide at the top, and the
steepness of the sides was due to the vio-
Tent rush of water which had cut it in two.
Steam issued from countless crevices in
the bottom and sides, and it was only
now and then that glimpses of the water
channel could be obtained. Warbrick
crawled cautiously to the edge, and after
a minute examination, declared that
though there was a great risk of the sides
of the chasm falling, he would descend.
Little Toko, our native, who had stuck to
our heels like a dog, produced 130 yards
of stout rope from a kit which had
been strung across his shoulders.
Several feet back from the chasm my
stout lancewood alpen-stock was driven
deep into the mud, and the bight of the
rope being secured to it, Warbrick
lowered himself over the precipice. To .
guard against the fumes of sulphur and
other gasses which might possibly be
met with at the bottom, he tied a hand-
kerchief over his nostrils, and in another
second or two clouds of steam hid him
from the gaze of the watchers on the top.
The vibration of the rope showed that he
was still pursuing his perilous descent.
Presently the rope slackened, and a
cheery “All right’ came out of the steam.
Then the cloud cleared away for a
moment, and we caught sight of the in-
trepid half-caste standing at the bottom
of the chasm, waist deep in steaming mud.
Round him played fumaroles and mud
volcanoes, and the sight of his nonchal-
ance amidst such apparently terrifying
Surroundings, inspired me to attempt to
follow. Never shall I forget the experi-
ence. It belongs to that class of events.
which is indelibly impressed on one's
memory. In a few seconds, which seemed
like hours, I had settled down to the
hips in a warm mud bath beside the
guide, whose dusky face was beaming
with triumph at the accomplishment of a
feat which probably not one man out of
ten would have attempted. Warbrick
waded through the rushing mud-charged
waters and planted on a small pinnacle a
tutu stick, in a crack in which we placed
a piece of paper, giving the day and the
names of the members of the party who
reached the bottom. A few feet from the
stick Warbrick pointed out a shelf-like
series of mud-banks, which he surmised
to be the slime covering a portion of the
Pink Terrace. Although not unlike a
terrace in its formation, his conjec-
ture was no doubt an erroneous one.
Warbrick had just crossed the channel
when an immense avalanche of
slushy mud came rushing down. If
a second or two earlier it would
probably have terminated his career.
This narrow escape, and the increase of
steam from the fumaroles made us hasten
to ascend the chasm, and an arduous
hand-over-hand climb saw us at the top,
much to the delight of Toko, who had
been holding the rope to give it greater
strength. Being considerably, “baked'
with our climb, we proceeded slowly
along the made ground. The terrace
of volcanic mud was soft, and to walk
a mile through it is more exhausting
than a twenty-mile walk on , a good
road. In some places one sinks knee-
deep at every step for a couple of hundred
yards, and in some places that we passed
it was necessary to go on hands and
AWARROW ESCAAE OF 7A/E PARTY. 43.
knees to make any headway at all. Our
boots, socks, and trousers became so
clogged that locomotion was almost im-
possible; and first boots, then socks, and
Subsequently the legs of our trousers had
to be parted with. As the recalcitrant
Maori had the most of our drinkables, we
feared that we would be in a bad way for
want of something to quench our thirst.
Fortunately we came across some pools
filled with muddy water, which had
apparently been caused by the melting
of the frozen dew. We drank greedily, and
found the water sufficiently palatable for
thirsty men notwithstanding that it had
a strong bituminous flavour. A few
minutes later, the Maori who had funked
the approach to the chasm hove in sight.
He informed us that the great crater, at
the foot of the hill had been emitting
greatly increased quantities of steam in
our absence. On approaching the crater,
despite the warning, we went within a
few yards of the made ground surround-
ing the lake. Warbrick was proposing
a descent to the crater when we experi-
enced a heavy earthquake shock, and in
a minute we were enshrouded in dense
volumes of steam. “ Te ra!' cried the
Maoris, and sure enough they were right.
The big crater was in eruption. Columns
of jet black smoke mingled with the
Steam, and showers of stones, some
apparently much larger than a man's
head, were thrown hundreds of feet in the
air. Several peppered the mud around
us, and Warbrick's face showed that
he feared we were in a mess. The
wind, though puffy, blew towards the .
Crater or chasm, or the record of the
expedition would never have been
written. ...We made tracks with all
speed right into the wind's eye; but
progress was very slow, owing to the in-
creased softening of the mud through the
condensed steam falling on the ground
like a winter shower. After plodding
laboriously for a quarter of a mile, during
, the course of the outburst, our clothes
became wet through, the guide observed
that the wind was blowing steadily
towards the crater, and that there was
now no great danger. . We lay down in
§
e
the mud, thoroughly exhausted, and
watched the volcano for half an hour or
more. The smoke ascended a great
height, and quite obscured the sun, and out
of the crater showers of mud and stones
were thrown incessantly, accompanied by
hoarse sputtering roars. Presently a little
ray of sunlight penetrated, the cloud
above us. Then old Sol shone, out in full
light, producing a magnificent rainbow
exactly above the crater. After this rest
we pushed our journey another mile, and
reached the site of the covered Kaiwaka
Creek, up which, before the eruption,
tourists were rowed from Lake Tarawera
to Rotomahana. Here lunch was par-
taken of, and being completely knocked
up I could go no further. Warbrick
pointed out that any further attempt to
reach, the bed, of the lake during the
eruption would be utter madness. The
guide went on a mile further and placed a
flag made from a flour-bag in which we
had carried our lunch, on a peak of
newly made ground fully 200 feet high,
which has evidently come from a great
volcanic pit.
“I now purpose giving as concisely as
possible a description of the cratered lake
and its environments, so far as came
within the ken of the expedition. It will
be necessary to preface this with the
statement that so great are the altera-
tions in the face of the country, that it is
impossible to accurately locate more than
one or two of the most prominent natural
features of the lake as it was before the
eruption. The Star expedition confined
its exploration of the lake to the
western side, from , the new fumaroles
that lay at the southern end of the
lake near the outlet of the stream
which formerly flowed from Okaro to a
point a mile past the covered channel
of Kaiwaka Creek which carried off the
overflow of Rotomahana into Lake
Tarawera. The reader, by consulting a
map, will thus see that the ground
covered by the expedition embraces the
whole of the western margin of the lake,
or rather the edge of the long volcanic
abyss into which the lake has been trans-
mogrified. I qualify the statement that
44 A WEARD REGION.
the margin of the lake was traversed
advisedly; it is pure assumption that the
margin of the abyss follows even approxi-
mately the old line of the lake edge; in-
deed, as the whole of the flatland between
the base of the hills skirting the abyss
and its edge is covered with ejected mud
and ashes to an incalculable depth,
while in others the lake boundary is
at least a quarter of a mile inside the line
of the fissure. Without pictorial aid, it is
almost impossible to give the reader an
adequate conception of the appearance of
this mighty centre of volcanic action.
Let the imagination conjure an immense
cutting or ditch two and a half miles long,
and varying in breadth from half a
mile to one hundred yards, and with an
average depth of four or five hundred feet.
Conceive the sides of this cutting to be of
various grades of steepness, from the
precipitous to a comparatively easy
grade, these sides being thickly studded
with jets of steam. Then along the
centre of the cutting imagine a series of
mounds of ejected mud and stones, inter-
spersed with countless craters, also
throwing off dense masses of steam, and
occasionally stones, mud, and black
smoke. When one has organised all
these conceptions in his brain, he has a
faint idea of what Rotomahana looks
like ; but the full effect on the nerves of a
visit to the wonderful locality cannot be
conceived unless the reader can imagine
a continual trembling of the earth, with
frequent heavy shocks that almost dis-
turb one's equilibrium, and conjure up
the noise as though thousands of steam
escapes were yelling in chorus. The
desolation of destruction is on all the
surrounding landscape, and it is a stout
heart that is not awed and humbled
before this terrific scene of convulsed
nature.
“While making these observations and
reflections some natives from Kaitereria
reached the place where I was sitting.
One of them was Warbrick’s uncle. He
had observed the black smoke, and
knowing that his nephew was out feared
the worst and came to search for him.
He was overjoyed when he found we were
wera.
safe, and accompanied us back to camp.
One of the natives, however, pressed on
to Te Ariki, and brought back with him
a few sticks from the shore of Lake Tara-
It would appear that some of the
Maoris, seeing no chance of making any
further revenue out of Rotomahana, pro-
ºfess to have religious scruples, and wish
to have the whole district declared tapu,
in consequence of the number of deaths
at Te Ariki and Wairoa. The sensible
natives oppose this, and our friend's sticks
will be given to a great, tohunga who has
promised by incantations to do away with
the necessity of placing tapu over the
district. Very little remains to be told.
On reaching the top of the hill, we found
our horses waiting for us, and on getting
back to camp we packed up and arrived
at Rotorua at 7.30. We found the natives
at Ohinemutu very much alarmed for our
safety, and in a state of considerable ex-
citement because a messenger had arrived
from Te Kooti, prophesying a fresh erup-
tion. The Maoris place great reliance
in Te Kooti's prophesies, and give him
the credit of having foretold the great
eruption.”
To Mr. S. Percy Smith, the Assistant
Surveyor-General, belongs the distinction
of making the first ascent of the Tarawera
Range after the eruption. No one is
more worthy of that honour. Proceeding
to the scene of the convulsion immediately
after its occurrence, Mr. Smith made a
careful examination of the country affected
and prepared an admirable report, which
was laid before Parliament. In conjunc-
tion with Mr. J. A. Pond, Government
Analyst for Auckland, he also reviewed
the events connected with this remarkable
volcanic outbreak in a paper read before
the Auckland Institute. Returning to
the district as soon as his many duties
would permit, Mr. Smith selected
places for sowing areas of the mud-
covered land with grass-seed, when the
spring sets in, to test the fertility of
the deposit, and undertook the arduous
and perilous work of exploring the Tara-
wera Range in winter, a feat which it was
generally believed would have to be left
until the summer months. Professor
THE GREAT CAASM AT TARAWERA. 45
Thomas, some days before, had ascended
the mountain a distance of about 900 feet
at the Rotomahana end, near the great
chasm in Tarawera, but was compelled to
return to camp, reaching it late at night.
Mr. Smith, however, made two ascents to
the highest peak of the range, and made
a complete examination of the summit
from the great rift or gorge at the south
end of Mount Tarawera to Wahanga.
Mr. Spencer, photographer, of Tauranga,
accompanied Dr. Hector during his visit,
and was attached to Mr. Smith's party in
the exploration of Tarawera. Messrs.
Blythe, E. C. Goldsmith, Douglas, E. F.
Adams, C. B. Turner, and H. Lundius
were also associated with the Assistant
Surveyor-General in his first or his second
ascents. Mr. Percy Smith's exploration
of Tarawera led to a number of very in-
teresting discoveries, and completes the
record of the great eruption. -
In previous pages mention has been
made of a vast chasm which was seen on
the southern side of Mount Tarawera, as
if the end of the mountain had been blown
out. It has been ascertained that, below
this gorge, and continuing from its ter-
minus near the bottom of the mountain
to within half a mile of Lake Rotoma-
hana, there is a huge fissure, three-
quarters of a mile long by an eighth of a
mile in width—its banks 150 to 200 feet
high, the upper fifty feet being of ground
built up with ejected matter. This
tremendous earth-rent has become filled
in with water, the drainage of the
mountain, and now forms a new lake,
absorbing the little lake, Rotomakariri,
the name which Mr. Smith has applied to
its more expansive successor. The water
is at present of a dirty muddy colour.
The site of the new lake, prior to the
eruption, was an easy-sloping valley, in
which lay the original Rotomakariri, a
little lake not more than an eighth of a
mile in diameter. The old features of
the country are completely obliterated by
the enormous deposit of ejected matter,
which exhibits on its surface unmistakable
evidence of having been scoured by
streams of water. Near the mountain
the grey deposit becomes thickly strewn
with stones, and at last gives way to the
black and brown scoria, which covers the
mountain.
Between the new lake and the great
chasm in the end of Tarawera, a small
green lake intervenes, divided from the
considerable sheet of water below it by a
narrow, knife-like ridge, which is too
sharp to walk across. This lake is
simply a crater, about 75 yards in
diameter, containing a considerable
quantity of water of a pretty green hue.
The crater, which from its breadth and
depth must at one time have been very
active, now exhibits no sign of disturbance.
Apparently it has been a mere vent or
“blow hole” for the steam and gasses
generated at some deep-seated source of
heat. The craters between Rotomahana
and Okaro also afford some very in-
teresting examples of the formation of
these crater lakes.
Immediately beyond, and above the
green lake, commences the great chasm
at the south end of Mount Tarawera, still
coloured round its margin with ferro- .
chlorides, which, seen at a distance, gave
rise to the early report that the fissure
was bordered with deposits of sulphur.
This vast chasm starts about 250 feet
above the level of Lake Tarawera, and
extends to the top of the mountain,
forming a deep gorge, averaging about
200 yards in width ; its walls at the
bottom are 250 feet high, and are com-
posed of black and red scoria. The floor,
which follows the upward slope of the
mountain, is also of scoria; steam and
occasionally a deep brown smoke issue
from crevices in the side and bottom.
As the adventurous explorer penetrates
this gigantic chasm, hewn in a single
night by the Vulcanian powers, its walls
increase in height until they attain an
altitude of about 8oo feet above the floor. .
The thick forest, which covered this slope
of the mountain, has been torn and
blasted by the violence of the elements;
its remnants are still visible beyond the
borders of the rift, a melancholy ruin.
It'is interesting to notice that on some
parts of the mountain the fine scoria,
compacting together with mud, has
46 A WEZRD A&EGION.
already formed a kind of breccia, making
a hard and comparatively smooth roadway
of solid rock. Huge blocks of trachytic
rock, blown out or detached during the
eruption, strew the sides of the mountain.
A strip of about a quarter of a mile
separates the great rift in the south end
of Tarawera from the deep fissure which
has torn open the top of Tarawera and
Ruawahia from one end to the other, a
distance of about a mile and a half. This
fissure has an average width of about 220
yards, and is divided by three sharp
ridges into four sections, or craters, the
central one about 600 feet deep. The
sides and bottom are composed of scoria,
from which issue steam and suffocating
gases, the odour of muriatic acid being
the most prominent. The top of the
mountain has been built up with fine
scoria ash, but on the surface of this there
are also many blocks of stone from 50 to
Ioo tons in weight, which have been ex-
pelled in the last throes of the eruption.
The yellow tint of the ferro-chlorides
shows out everywhere on the deposits,
but it is a mere transient colouring which
disappears from specimens of stone that
are carried away; on the mountain itself
in many places it has also changed to
a coffee colour by oxidisation. Other
hues also glisten under the sunlight in
the cracks which tear open the margins
of the great fissure. From the steepness
of its walls it is possible to look right
down into this dreadful chasm. The
trachytic mass of the mountain has been
torn open to afford a passage for the
incandescent rocks which were forced
from below and which have been heaped up
on the top of Ruawahia to a height of 170
feet, completely changing its outline.
There is no trace of a lava flow on the
mountain, although probably a bed of
molten rock lies beneath the deep scoria
deposit. There is, however, abundant
proof that the convulsion has not been a
mere displacement of the original con-
stituents of the mountain, but that the
rock when ejected was melted to softness.
This is not merely established by the
existence of the deep beds of scoria, but
by the perfect bombs that are found upon
the tops and sides of the mountain. The
marked difference in the character of the
unchanged rock of the old mountain and
the mass of ejected matter super-imposed
upon it also places the question beyond
conjecture. The crater divisions are
formed by steep walls rising to within 150
feet of the top of the fissure. At the gap
that separated Ruawahia from Wahanga,
there is a narrow ridge, and then the
fissure continues the full length of Wa-
hanga, being divided into three craters
by sharp ridges, the central one about
900 feet deep or 1,400 feet below the sum-
mit of Ruawahia. There are other huge
cracks on the top of Wahanga, from
which steam is still issuing. The whole
of the great gorge through the Tarawera
Range, except where the original forma-
tion of the mountain crops out, is covered
with black and brown scoria, having
the general appearance of the scoria
forming the cone of Mount Eden near
Auckland. The great fissure follows the
general south-west direction which was
noted in its extension through Roto-
mahana towards Okaro. -
The examination of Tarawera serves
to heighten rather than to lessen the first
reports of the gigantic character of the
eruption. It will be observed that the
volcanic explosions have not simply
opened two or three small craters, but
have forcibly expelled the whole centre
of the massive three-peaked mountain or
range for a length of about two and a
half miles, to a depth varying from 400
feet to 1,400 feet. Beyond this is the
enormous gorge, 600 feet wide, and from
250 to 800 feet deep, blown out of the
side of Tarawera; then the excavation of
the mass of earth and rock to form the
bed of a 1ake three-quarters of a mile
long by an eighth wide. When we add
to this the matter expelled from Roto-
mahana and the craters south of it, we no
longer feel surprise at the extent of the
deposit of mud and ash which has covered
the surrounding country.
Mr. S. Percy Smith made a careful
examination of the condition of Roto-
mahana and the southern craters. The
bed of Rotomahana is now about 250
MR. S. P. SMITH's INVESTIGATION. 47
feet below the old lake level, and is con-
siderably lower than the level of Lake
Tarawera, into which its surplus waters
formerly flowed down the Kaiwaka
Creek. Fortunately, a considerable
breadth of made ground prevents any
inflow, from the great lake upon the
Rotomahana crater, or there would be a
very lively contest between the cold
stream and the subterranean fires that
have driven out the old waters of Roto-
mahana, and are still steaming and
fuming from a hundred mouths. With
the exception of an area of about 250
yards by Ioo yards, still covered with
water, Rotomahana is now entirely com-
posed of steam-holes, or craters, some of
them 50 yards across. These are fuming
away amid a desolation of sand and mud
in flats and hillocks, the highest of these
heaps of made ground being towards the
northern end of the old lake, near the old
site of the White Terrace. On this hill,
which is about 200 feet high, Mr. Smith
found the flag planted by the Star
Exploring Expedition, and named it the
Star Hill. The ground at this end of
Rotomahana consists of heaped up masses
of ejected matter cut into by streams of
water, heavily charged with minerals.
Two streams of water, about 20 feet
wide and 6 inches deep, boiling hot,
were met with, both flowing from the
eastern side of Tarawera Range, one
falling into Rotomahana crater, and
the other into Rotomakariri. Their
direction and general appearance suggest
the probability that these streams existed
underground prior to the eruption, and
that their beds have simply been exposed
by the opening up of the fissure and the
lowering of the bed of Rotomahana.
They apparently form a part of the
drainage of Tarawera, which has acquired
a high temperature in passing through
the mountain. If these surmises are
correct, the igneous rocks from which the
thermal activity of Rotomahana was
derived, were either imbedded in the mass
of Tarawera Range, or lay at no great
depth beneath it, and probably extended
in a channel of country beneath the “bed
of the lake itself.
The members of the Star Exploring
Expedition, when they were at the bottom
of the fissure near the supposed site of the
Pink Terrace, observed that the water
was flowing towards Okaro, a direction
exactly the opposite of that taken by the
watercourses before the eruption. But
this stream merely followed the slope
caused by a local displacement of
matter, and went towards filling up one
of the deep chasms within the Rotoma-
hana crater. It is evident that if Roto-
mahana has been scooped out by the
ejectment of its bed to a great depth
below Lake Tarawera, it is equally below
the old valley of the Haumi stream, and
that the streams of water within the crater
must follow the local configuration of the
made ground, always seeking the lowest
level, and being driven off in clouds of
steam and mud, until the sources of heat
are sufficiently subdued to tolerate the
accumulation of a new lake, or until the
whole surface within the crater is dried
up. We can scarcely suppose that this
contest between the elements of hydro-
thermal action will be quickly ended, so
that Rotomahana must continue to be a
very interesting place for a long time to
come. The overflow from Lake Okaro is
already wearing a channel for itself along
its old course towards Rotomahana.
A more careful survey of the craters
between Rotomahana and Okaro proves
that the early guesses that were hazarded
with respect to the height of the Black
Crater considerably overshot the mark.
Its external height is about 400 feet, not
much more than 20 feet of it formed by
the ejected matter. The depth of the
crater is about 320 feet, and it is now
filled with water, which continues to give
off heavy clouds of steam. A little
to the southward of the Black Crater
is a small rent still actively steaming.
One of the most energetic stone-
spitters in this locality is situated
between the Black Crater and Okaro.
Some ten acres of ground around this
focus affords a very interesting field of
investigation for the geologist. It has
not built up a cone, and the hole made
by the eruption having become filled with
48 - e A WEIRD REGION.
water, covering an area of between Io and
12 acres, a perfect example is furnished of
the formation of the crater lakes with
which we are so familiar. Owing to a
singular echo which is produced in the
vicinity of this lake, it has been named
the Echo Lake Crater. The crater is still
intermittently active, sometimes throw-
ing out mud and stones, and the water, in
places, bubbles and boils continuously
and exhibits other signs of perturbation.
The lip of the crater on the northern
side is not more than twenty feet
above the level of the water, but the
ridge dividing this crater from the
Southern Crater is some two or three hun-
dred feet high. The Southern Crater has
also become the bed of a lake about three
acres in extent, which still emits clouds
of steam. The water is 3oo feet below
the lip, and the hills rise to a greater height
on the other side. The loose deposits
around are cracked, and frequently fall
into the crater. Each of these craters
has been formed in a hill, the top or side
of which was blown out, the material
being strewn around on every side.
Water was rapidly formed in all the
craters. Describing the Southern Crater,
when he examined it a few days after the
eruption, and before any rain had fallen,
Mr. Pond says:—“On reaching the edge
of this one, which was ovoid in shape,
the bottom was found to be covered with
muddy water, evidently hot and
probably deep. In the northern part
of the crater an occasional uprush
of water would take place, rising about
twenty feet in height and slowly fall-
ing back into the pool. This would
cause a wave to gradually extend, which,
reaching the sides, would wash in some
of the steep sloping earth, followed occa-
sionally by heavy slips extending to the
surface. Since our visit, Mr. Boscawen
and Mr. G. M. Main have seen these
craters, and have each witnessed the
Southern Crater, which we have stated as
dormant, suddenly and without warning,
send masses of water, mud, and stones
high into the air above the edge of the
crater, after which, Mr. Main asserts, the
activity would be followed by each of the
others in succession to the northwards.”
Since the eruption the activity of all
the craters in Rotomahana and south-
ward has steadily declined, although with
intermittent revivals of their energy, but
a new crater, situated on the site of what
is known as the Black Terrace, has broken
out, and at the latter end of August was
throwing up considerable quantities of
sand, mud, and stones. This place is
about half a mile west of Rotomahana,
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AERMANENT EAEFECT OF 7"HE ERUAETION. 49
C H A P T E R V.
Permanent Effect of the Eruption—The Thermal Springs More Active—Rotorua Sanatorium Benefited rather
than Damaged — New Geyser at Whakarewarewa — The Damage by Ejected Matter and Composition of the
‘Deposits—Possible Causes of the Outburst—Recent Seismic Disturbances on the Globe—The Probabilities of
further Outbreaks, - -
YYYHE permanent effect which the
: eruption will have upon the districts
that were directly affected by it is
a question of great importance.
Already very misleading and damaging
statements are gaining publicity, which
cannot be too soon or too widely contra-.
dicted. Mr. Stuart Cumberland, for
example, who passed through Auckland
on his way to England via San Francisco,
has contributed an account of the eruption
to the American press in which the follow-
ing sentences occur :-‘As a wonderland
the New Zealand lake district is, I fear,
a thing of the past. Doubtless fresh hot
curative springs will burst forth, and thou-
sands of curious travellers will out of
mere curiosity be drawn to the scene of
the disaster, but the terraces were un-
doubtedly the great, if not the only,
attraction of the district; and they are
gone.” It would be very difficult to com-
press into so few words a greater number
of misleading statements. Mr. Cumber-
1and did not visit the scene, and his im-
pressions, obtained from the newspaper
reports, have evidently been distorted by a
very hazy idea of what constitutes the
Thermal Springs or Lake District of New
Zealand. Mr. Cumberland may be sur-
prised to learn that so far from the future
of the Lake District as a Bethesda being
injuriously influenced by the eruption,
not one thermal spring that was
resorted to for the treatment of disease,
or that possessed a reputation for curative
virtue, has been damaged. There are
still hundreds—the term thousands might
probably be substituted — of thermal
springs of almost every variety of
medicinal property in the Lake District,
which, as we before explained, includes a
belt extending a distance of over Ioo
miles from Tongariro to the East Coast.
The great resort for invalids is Rotorua,
where the Government Sanatorium has
been established under the direction of a
resident medical officer. In this locality
alone there are nineteen large thermal
Springs having a clearly established
therapeutic action. The minor springs
are innumerable; they form the common
village cooking-pots for the natives of
Ohinemutu. The mineral properties of
these waters have been carefully analysed
and differ very widely. They are, how-
ever, divided into the following
groups — Saline : Containing chiefly
chloride of sodium. Alkaline Salzczows:
Water containing much silicic acid, but
changing rapidly on exposure to the
atmosphere, and becoming alkaline.
Hepatic or Sulphurous : Waters, the pro-
minent character of which is the presence
of sulphuretted hydrogen and sulphurous
acid. Acid waters : In which there is an
excess of mineral acids, such as hydro-
chloric and sulphuric acid. We cannot
reférin greater detail to the classes of dis-
ease which are benefitted by treatment at
these baths, but sufferers and others in-
terested will find the subject treated in a
scientific and practical manner in the
“Medical Guide to the Mineral Waters
of Rotorua,” published by Dr. T. Hope
Lewis, of Auckland, formerly Government
Resident Medical Officer at the Rotorua
Sanatorium, t
D
5o A WE/A&AD Aº EGAOAV.
t
With regard to the curative thermal
springs of the Lake District the eruption
has positively done no injury whatever.
It appears, in fact, from the official report
of Dr. Ginders, the present medical officer,
to have been beneficial. In his report to
the Government, Dr. Ginders says: “The
springs here have increased in tempera-
ture and volume since the eruption. Blue
Cauldron, average mean temperature
before eruption, 165° Fah. ; since, 180°.
Rachel Cauldron before, 175°; since, 192°.
Priest, mean temperature for March, 90°;
April, 99"; May, 97°; June 1st to Ioth,
98’; Ioth to 30th, 96°. Lake eight inches
over highest winter level, preventing free
outflow from Priest. On fall of Lake, expect
Priest's temperature to rise. Outflow
from all three springs doubled in amount.
On the whole, I consider the eruption has
benefited the springs.” The Government
have not abandoned their faith in the
permanence of Rotorua as a health resort,
nor their belief in the attractions of the
New Zealand Wonderland. The railway
is being pushed forward, and contracts
for a cold water supply sufficient to meet
the wants of a population of Io,000 people
are now in progress.
And now a word or two with reference
to the wonders of the Lake District.
It may fairly be said that the Terraces
occupied the place of a masterpiece by.
some great artist in a gallery of works of
less conspicuous merit. But to speak of
the Wonderland of New Zealand being a
thing of the past in consequence of the
destruction of the Terraces amounts to
about the same thing as saying that there
would be no National Gallery in England
if the pictures of two or three of the
Old Masters were taken out of it. The
Wonderland “a thing of the past !”
What, then, has become of the specimens
of terrace formation at Whakarewarewa,
its cauldrons, fumaroles, sulphur pools,
and active geysers, or the strange region
about the Paeroa Range and Kakaramea,
with its hot river; the terraces, caves,
and springs of Orakeikorako; the great
geyser of the Crow's Nest, propelling
its hot water fountain sometimes to a
height of one hundred feet; the many
wonders of Wairakei, and the hot springs
of Taupo both at north and south ends :
It would take a volume to describe the
thermal phenomena which lie along this
singular belt of country, and which have
not been damaged in the smallest degree
by the eruption at Tarawera. On the
contrary, the geyser action has been inten-
sified, and in the month of August four of
the finest geysers in the world, one of
thena a new one, were in play together,
without intermission, at Whakarewarewa.
But have volcanic eruptions become so
frequent on the earth that an occurrence
which offers a parallel to the famous out-
burst of Vesuvius is to be excluded from
the catalogue of the marvellous? Truly
the venerable and “much-loved Jumbo”
of the show is gone, but his place has been
taken by a more extraordinary successor.
In its attractions to tourists the district
ought assuredly to lose nothing from
changes so wonderful in their nature.
The damage done to surrounding lands
by the deposit of mud and ash has
undoubtedly been serious. In the East
Coast districts the settlers lost heavily
through the covering up of the feed for
cattle, but this injury is in no sense per-
manent; the deposit, where it is too
heavy to wash down, can be ploughed in,
and many of the settlers are confident
that their lands will be benefited. The
grass began to push its way vigorously
through the dust in the early spring. The
effect on the mud-covered country is in
doubt. Although analyses prove that
the deposit contains all the elements of a
fair soil, it may require exposure for a
generation to the action of air and
water before it can be counted as land
available for tillage. But only a belt of
land a few miles wide comes within this
category. The hills, having an angle
of 45 degrees, are now deeply furrowed
by streams of water, and will gradually
be cleared. The Kaituna and other
rivers, carrying off the overflow of the
drainage of the district, have borne vast
quantities of solid matter down to the sea.
Two circumstances—both fortunate in
themselves—have contributed to dwarf
the apparent magnitude of the disaster.
ANAZYSES OF E9ECTED MA 77 ER. 5 I
ſ
The one is the fact that there was no large
population in the vicinity, and the other
that the surrounding lands were of poor
quality and unsettled; but if the reader
will consider what the effect would have
been of the sudden opening up of a great
fissure in the crust of the earth for a
distance of eight and a half miles, and
the destruction of all life within five miles
on either side of it, he will get a better
conception of the gigantic nature of the
disturbance, and the appalling conse-
quences that would have attended its
occurrence in any populous district.
Dr. Hector reports —“As for the light
deposit of dust, which fell in a dry state,
there is very little doubt that it will be
all washed off into the soil with the first
heavy rains that come. The distance to
which this fine dust was carried was very
great, exceeding at least 120 miles from
the focus, in a direction between north
and east; and the time it remained sus-
pended in the atmosphere was at least
eighty-four hours, as we passed through
it in the Hinemoa when crossing the
Bay of Plenty on the Saturday afternoon,
as a peculiar yellowish fog, charged with
pungent acid vapour, and dust; and on
the following afternoon we recognised the
same fog-cloud still suspended in the
atmosphere towards the north-east.” The
composition of the deposits varies very
considerably in different districts. Those
to the eastward are mainly formed by the
disintegration of basic rocks and to the
westward the basis is acidic. The follow-
ing analyses of dust taken from two
widely separated points have been made
by Mr. Skey, the Colonial Analyst:
Tauranga. Hicks Bay. .
Silica 60-74 59'37
Iron oxides 11:58 Io' 18
Alumina 16:09 1796
Manganese . Trace. Traces.
Lime tº g tº ... 5'69 5'98
Magnesia ... ... '96 I'19
Phosphoric acid Trace. Traces.
Water “. 2'26 2°2 I
- Salts soluble in water Trace. Traces.
Organic matter ... Trace. "99
Alkalies tº G tº ..... 2:68 2"I 2
IOO"O IOO'O
“It may be mentioned that the hard-
ened mud (No. 5) from Wairoa afforded
62°98 per cent. of silica. Both are fine-
grained, but No. 1, from Tauranga, is the
finer-grained of the two. Free quartz is
present in both, and, as owing to their
fineness, it is impossible to separate it, I
cannot yet determine how much of the
silica in the analyses is combined; and
so I am unable to affirm exactly as to the
nature of the silicate or silicates present
in these dusts. If 20 per cent. of free
quartz be assumed to be present, the pro-
portion of combined silica is about 50 per
cent., which fixes the major part of the
compounds as zºniszlicates.” -
An analysis made by Mr. Pond shows
the differences more markedly. As a
rough guide, we may take the average
amount of silica in basic rocks as 50, in
acidic as 65.
* As to the causes of the eruption, there
is necessarily ample room for much diver-
sity of opinion. In a paper read before
the Auckland Institute, Messrs. S. Percy
Smith and Pond, after alluding to the fact
that at twenty minutes past ten o’clock
on the eve of the eruption, an occultation

of Mars by the moon occurred, and that
it was high water on the East Coast near
Maketu about that time, remark:—“We
do not give much importance to these
facts, but it is worthy of note that the
well-known theory of the tides assumes
that the waters of the ocean are, at high
water, piled up, as it were, on that par-
ticular portion of the earth’s surface which
is just under the moon, but through
friction and the counter attraction of the
sun that the tidal wave lags after the time
of passing of the moon over any particular
rheridian. It is equally a part of this
theory that the solid materials of the earth
are at the same moment subject to a wave,
much more limited in extent, but still
appreciable; and it is well known that
an atmospheric wave passes round the
earth at two o'clock each day. Hence,
the crust of the earth being in a state of
tension, if there is any predisposing cause
tending to a fracture about the period of
this earth wave, it is a natural inference
that the conditions are then most favour-
52 A WE/R/O REGION,
able for the production of such a fracture.
The attraction of the planet Mars added
to that of the moon may be, and no doubt
is, very slight; but the fact remains, that
whatever influence the moon may exert
at any particular moment, it happened to
be greater by the sum of her own and the
planet's very shortly before the eruption.”
They then show, from calculations of the
amount of solid matter carried out by the
action of the thermal springs around
Rotomahana—which represented many
thousands of tons every year—that
the heavy mass of Tarawera Range,
2,600 feet above the lake level, had pro-
bably been undermined, and was in a
condition which favoured subsidence;
that presuming such a subsidence to have
occurred it would set in motion the
imprisoned forces within, which were
before kept under by tremendous pres-
Sure, and would lead to such a series of
explosions and earth rents as those
which constituted the phenomena of the
eruption. This theory agrees with Dr.
Hochstetter's opinion, that the thermal
phenomena on the borders of the lakes
are local in the sense of being kept
active by percolation in the vicinity
rather than from continuous streams
along underground channels, passing
from one section of the thermal springs
district to another. Dr. Hector also
hazards the conjecture that the solfatara
action around Rotomahana was fed from
streams heated by passage over the molten
rocks within or beneath Tarawera Range.
The recent discovery of hot water streams
of considerable volume flowing from the
eastward — evidently the drainage of
Tarawera Range—and discharging into
Rotomahana crater, lends this theory a
very strong support. It may fairly be as-
sumed that beneath Rotomahana, though
at greater depths, and along the whole
line of earth weakness, which is defined
by the development of thermal pheno-
mena, there are masses of igneous rock
at no great distance from the surface.
If we conceive, therefore, the liberation of
the imprisoned forces within Tarawera,
either through subsidence or shrinkage
of the cooling rocks, or the accumulation
of the imprisoned forces beyond the re-
sisting power of the walls of the chamber
in which they were confined, or by any
deep-seated movement in the earth
crust, the sequence of events admits of
simple explanation. The violent convul-
sion by which the great fissure was rent
open through Rotomahana would let the
waters of that lake down upon the heated
rocks below, producing the phenomena
which are still in very active play there.
The eruption upon Tarawera ceased more
rapidly because having found vent for
the confined vapours, there was no mass
of water above to keep up the contest
between the antagonistic elements. It
must, however, be admitted that the ap-
parent quiescence of Lake Rotomakariri,
formed in the fissure from Tarawera
towards Rotomahana, offers a difficulty
in the acceptance of this theory, and at
any rate seems to indicate that the igneous
rocks are very unequally distributed.
Another theory takes a wider view,
and associates the eruption with some
deep - seated and extensive changes
in the condition of the earth’s crust,
specially manifested along those recog-
nised belts or apparent lines of fault upon
which volcanoes are distributed. In
support of this theory, there certainly
seems to be a mass of evidence indicating
an abnormal seismic and volcanic activity
during the last three or four years. In
November, 1882, Karabetow Mountain, in
the Caucasus, which was not known as a
volcano, broke into eruption, and the
lava stream from its crater flowed a
distance of half a mile; in December,
1882, the island of Santorin, in the
Grecian Archipelago, was the scene of
new volcanic disturbance, and a sub-
marine volcano broke out near Misso-
longhi. In the beginning of January,
1883, and later on in the year, the Peak of
Teneriffe emitted volumes of steam. On
May 22nd the volcano of Karang, in the
island of Krakatoa, Straits of Sunda,
burst into eruption after a period of
perfect quiescence during at least two
centuries. About the middle of June,
enormous fissures were opened around the
base of a mountain near Czernovitz, in
A&ECENT SEVSMIC ZOISTURBANCE.S. - 53
the Bukowina, Austria, accompanied by
great disturbances and the overthrow of
a village. In the same month a terrible
volcanic disaster occurred at the island of
Omatepec, Lake Nicaragua, which was
devastated by the outpouring of lava from
several new craters. On July 28th, over
4,000 persons were killed by earthquakes
at Casamicciola, in Ischia, a catastrophe
which is partly attributed to the under-
mining effects of hot springs, although it
was accompanied by an eruption of Vesu-
vius and earthquake disturbances were
felt at a considerable distance from the
focus. On the 17th of August, 1883, the
great eruption of Krakatoa, which had
been intermittently disturbed since its
first outburst in May, caused widespread
ruin and an appalling loss of life. The
cloud of volcanic dust from this eruption
was borne extraordinary distances, and
Smothered adjacent islands. Detonating
reports were also heard hundreds of miles
away. Vast floes of pumice and dust,
encountered in regions far removed from
the seas which would be affected by the
drift of Krakatoa, have given rise to the
opinion that submarine eruptions oc-
curred in conjunction with the outburst
in the Straits of Sunda. The island of
Krakatoa, after the great explosion, sank
beneath the sea, producing a tidal wave
100 feet high, which destroyed thousands
of lives along the shores of adjacent
lands, and caused tidal irregularities
which were observed at points so widely
Separated as the shores of New Zealand
and the coast of South Africa. On October
17th of the same year, the town of Cheme,
in Asia Minor, was destroyed with a loss
of 1,000 lives. Mount Augustin, in
Alaska, and one of the Iceland volcanoes
were in active eruption, Vesuvius and
Etna poured out streams of lava at in-
tervals throughout the year, and scarcely
any part of the world was exempted from
seismic visitation. In 1884, an earth-
quake of unusual severity did consider-
able damage at Colchester, England.
Violent movements in the earth's crust
were felt in many parts of Europe and
Asia, resulting in the destruction of
twelves villages in the Persian Gulf with
great loss of life, and reducing the sea-
port of Massowah to ruins. On Christmas
Day, 3,000 people were killed by the
overthrow of buildings over a wide area
in Spain by a succession of severe earth-
quake shocks. In April, 1885, a new
volcano burst out near Ielna, in Russia,
and in the same month the volcano of
Smeru, in Java, suddenly sent forth
showers of ashes and poured out streams
of lava, which devastated the country for
many miles around. In May, 3,000
people were killed, and 75,000 dwellings
thrown down in Cashmere by earth-
quakes. Chasms, from which sulphurous
gases and hot ashes issued, opened in the
ground and destroyed several villages,
with great loss of life. In July, Coto-
paxi broke into violent eruption,
the lava, ashes, and stones ejected
partly destroying Chimbo. In Octo-
ber a new submarine volcano opened
in the Friendly. Islands, fourteen
miles from the nearest land, and con-
tinued to throw out showers of cinders
until a circular island, 230 feet high and
a mile and a half in width, was built up.
Great loss of life was caused in Central
Asia by earthquake shocks, and earth
tremblings, more or less severe, were
experienced in nearly every country of
Europe and many parts of America and
Australasia. In 1886 the record of dis-
aster from the operation of the seismic
forces will also be very serious. The
Greek Coast and Charleston, U.S., and
other towns on the Atlantic seaboard have
been visited by destructive earthquakes.
The centres of volcanic activity are also
abnormally active. The eruption at Etna
early in the year assumed a very violent
phase, and Vesuvius acted in sympathy.
Klauea, after a period of quiescence, gave
signs of disturbance again early in July,
a serious eruption has occurred at Galita,
near Tunis, and the outburst at Tarawera
will certainly be classed as one of the
most remarkable of modern times.
This record, which has only enumerated
the most destructive movements of the
earth crust during the last three years,
furnishes an ample basis of fact for those
who contend that the eruption at Tarawera
54 A WZZRZO A&AEG/OAV.
is not an isolated and purely local pheno-
menon, but must be counted as one of a
series of manifestations of volcanic force
which have a deeper origin and wider
significance. That the eruption at Tara-
wera was accompanied by simultaneous
disturbances of a minor character in the
thermal springs of Rotorua, Rotoiti, and
Roto Ehu is easily demonstrable, but in
determining the degree of significance
that should be attached to these pheno-
mena, weight must be given to the pro-
bable increase in the volume of the springs
consequent upon the rains of the 8th and
9th of June, after a long season of dry
weather. At the same time, heavy rain
had fallen in the previous week without
producing any noticeable effect, and the
increased temperature of the springs is
altogether without precedent. It is still
at issue between scientific visitors to the
district whether there has not been a con-
siderable alteration in the 1evel of Lake
Rotorua. The Assistant Surveyor-Gene-
ral, however, to whose opinion we attach
the greatest weight, believes that this
alteration is not established, and that the
preponderance of evidence goes against
the supposition, although, by pegs placed
on the margin of the lake at Sulphur
Point, Rotorua, it is shown that there has
unmistakably been a local subsidence,
which may probably be attributed to the
effect of the earth tremors acting upon
ground honey-combed and undermined
by thermal springs. It is indeed remark-
able that more serious consequences did
not follow these violent and long-con-
tinued shakes, the district having many
features in common with Casamicciola,
where earthquakes, not of extraordinary
severity, caused a disastrous subsidence
and laid the whole town in ruins. -
In considering the causes of the Tara-
wera eruption, there are two or three
circumstances that deserve some atten-
tion. The mountain stands not merely
in a direct line between Tongariro and
White Island, the extreme points of the
belt of thermal activity, but it is nearly
the central point of that line, and was also
the most active. Nor must we overlook
the fact noted by Messrs. Percy Smith
and Pond in their paper read before the
Auckland Institute, that the eruption
occurred on the night when the attractive
power of the moon was increased by that
of the planet Mars. It is now held
to be well established that the eruptions
of Vesuvius exhibit increased violence
at full moon ; and the first and second
outbursts of Krakatoa occurred soon after
full moon. The thermal springs of New
Zealand are materially influenced by
weather conditions, decreasing in volume
after a long dry season, and being also :
affected by the direction of the wind.
That the weight of the atmosphere does
affect the resistance offered by the earth's
crust to any expansive or explosive force
imprisoned within it is not merely theo-
retically obvious, but has been established
by many observations; it is recorded that
the fishermen living in the vicinity of
the volcano Stromboli watch the moun-
tain as if it were a leviathan barometer,
and obtain from its phases reliable
weather indications. The barometrical
readings at Rotorua during the Tarawera
eruption, however, afford no evidence of
abnormal disturbance. As self-registered
on the instrument kept at the Govern-
ment Sanatorium, the fluctuations were
thus shown:—
Reduced to
º Rotorua. Sea Line.
June 8th, midnight ... 29.28 3oo8
, 9th, 6 a.m. ... 29.23 .30-03
, 9th, Io a.m. . ... 29' 17 29'97
, 9th, noon... 29' 12 29'90
, 9th, 6 p.m. 29'OO 29'80
,, 9th, midnight 29'O3 3ool
, Ioth, 2 a.m. (hour
of eruption)... 29'03 3ool
, Ioth, 4 a.m. . 29'O4 3O'O2
, Ioth, 6 a.m. ... 29'O5 3O'O3
, Ioth, noon... 29'OS 3O'O3
Leaving these speculations with regard
to the causes of the outburst for future
discussion and elucidation, a word must
be said upon the probability of renewed
activity in the closed up craters of Tara-
wera. While the causes of the first out-
burst are obscure, nothing can be affirmed
with confidence on this subject. After
the eruption of Vesuvius in B.C. 79 (the
account of which, as told by the younger
SPECULA TVON.S. 55
Pliny, shows that the attendant phenomena
were very similar to those connected with
the outburst at Tarawera), 125 years
elapsed before the volcano again burst
forth. Subsequently there were several
eruptions at long intervals, but after a
violent outbreak in 1136, the volcano
once more became to all outward seeming
extinct for a period of 500 years. When
it again broke out in 1631, the crater was
Overgrown with venerable oaks and
chestnut trees. There was no lava flow
from Vesuvius for 1,000 years after the
eruption in B.C. 79; Pompeii and Hercu-
laneum were buried in mud and ashes.
Mount Tarawera was formerly a volcano,
though probably of the same class as
some of the trachytic cones of Central
France, without craters; but it has
been at peace for hundreds of
years, and may go to rest again for
hundreds more. On the other hand,
while the first eruption of Krakatoa
occurred on the 20th of May, 1883, the
volcano was comparatively quiet,
although with intermittent activity, until
August 26th of the same year, when the
great outburst which annihilated the
island eccurred. The vast mass of molten
Scoria piled up en the top of Mount
Tarawera gives indubitable evidence
that the eruption, apart from the hydro-
thermal phenomena attending it, was
volcanic in the strictest sense, and not,
as was at first supposed, purely hydro-
thermal, accepting that somewhat
ambiguous phrase as signifying merely
an explosion of confined steam, unatten-
ded by the expulsion of molten rock.
Further disturbances within the volcano
may therefore at any moment lead to
a new eruption proceeding on to an over-
flow of lava from the centres of heat
which are now covered up by the deposits
of scoria. Should this occur, there is no
reason to anticipate such a violent con-
vulsion as that which attended the
bursting open of the sealed up mountain
summit. While a revival of the eruption
is thus a possible and it may even be
said a probable contingency, it is more
likely that, escape having been found for
the pent-up forces, the mountain will
lapse back into its former condition of
quietude. º
These opinions are not advanced with
the wish that they should be accepted as
authoritative in any sense, but are merely
offered as a contribution towards the dis-
cussion of a subject which opens a
wide door for speculation. The chief
endeavour of the writer has been to set
down in order and with accuracy the
facts connected with an occurrence that
is without parallel in the history of
Australasia, and not to champion any
particular set of theories. If he has
succeeded in doing that, and has sus-
tained the interest of his readers, the
object which he had in view when
entering upon the work will have been
fully attained.
56 A WEZRD AºEG/ON.
cFIAPT E R v I.
The New Wonderland—A Steaming Mountain—The view from Maungaongaonga—The Pink Cauldron—The
White Terrace of Wai-o-tapu-The Alum Lake—The Coloured Lakes of Wai-o-tapu.
White Terraces at Rotomahana
and the substitution by Nature
of the terrific for the beautiful,
has led to the opening to the tourist
of the wondrous valley of Wai-o-tapu,
which in many respects is more at-
tractive than any other portion of the
Lake District. A recent visitor writes
of it:—“I doubt whether in the whole of
New Zealand's Wonderland is there a spot
to be found which can rival this remark-
able valley in the number and variety of
its hot springs, the exquisite colouring of
its lakes, the beauty and fascinating
weirdness of its geyser-terraced cauld-
rons, the Satanic horrors of its innumer-
able fumaroles seething and screeching,
the dazzling loveliness of its silicious
deposits, or the fantastic forms which
they assume. Looking down on this
Strange and wondrous scene, where for
ages the mysterious forces of Nature, in
the gloomy grandeur of her own soli-
tude, have been labouring with ceaseless
energy, building up new beauties here,
heaping up fresh horrors there, one is
filled with awe, and impressed with a
sense of man’s feebleness when pitted
against the fiery furies of the earth. He
§ HE destruction of the Pink and
grºw
can draw the lightning from the skies,
and lull the sea when the waves are
lashed to anger, but his control stops at
the threshold of Thermalia. The violence
of Vulcan is beyond his power to cope
with. When the earth is in travail he is
as helpless as the meanest creature that
walks its surface, and he and his marvels
pass away like blazing flax before the
scorching breath of its raging anger.
The valley of Wai-o-tapu has charms for
the contemplative as well as for the mere
sightseer in search of the strange and
curious. How many centuries have
elapsed since the first spark was kindled
*
of the subterranean fires which glow
in their hidden caverns far below the
surface of the valley—who can say?
It may have been when the world was
young, and the morning stars sang
together; and for me there was fascina-
tion in the thought that the steaming
valley down which I looked may have
been steaming before the Pyramids were
built, before the foundations of the
Eternal City were laid, and when the
Celts lived in the caves and worshipped
in the woods of Old England.”
The Wai-o-tapu Valley extends from
Lake Ngahewa, where the Wai-o-tapu
River has its source, to Ohako, and lies
between the Kaingaroa Plain on the east
and the Paeroa Range on the west. A
rude but practicable horse track connects
it with Rotorua, from which centre it is
about 20 miles distant. The northern
entrance to the valley is guarded by
two mountains—Maungaongaonga and
Maungakakaramea — which raise their
fantastic rugged outlines to a height
of close on three thousand feet, All
around the entrance to the valley are
steam jets bursting forth from numerous
fumaroles, while an immense steaming
cauldron throws up his giant bubbles of
scalding water with the noise of a steam
hammer. Maungakakaramea (the “sweet
smelling mountain”) is one of the most
remarkable mountains in the world. It
is clad with steam from base to sum-
mit, its steep slopes are deeply fissured,
and its rocks through the operation
of the sulphurous vapours and steam
are tinged with gorgeous hues, which
under the sunlight when the breeze
has momentarily lifted the steam wreaths,
have a most remarkable effect. There
is vegetation on its summit, which
owing to the heat and moisture of the
ground flourishes with tropical luxuri-
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ZAZE COZOO RAE ZO ZAA E.S. 57
ance. On the northern side of this
uncanny mountain is an extinct crater
partly filled with water, while on the
Southern side is a large volcanic rift, the
yellow pumaceous sides of which, boiled
by the steam, are constantly falling in.
There are thermal cavities all over the
mountain, and great care has to be
exercised to avoid going through the
thin crust. In a cave on the mountain
side, according to Maori tradition, there
Once lived a taniwha named Hapakitu-
rangi. Becoming enraged one day at the
mortals, he caused a large portion of the
valley to sink and filled it with water.
This depression is Lake Ngahewa.
A magnificent view is obtainable from
the Scarped summit of Maungaongaonga.
At the spectator's feet lies the broad
valley, with its 34 visible lakes, abound-
ing in natural wonders, the prospect
stretching southward until obstructed
by Tauhara mountain (the “lone lover”).
Further south there is a fair view of
the pellucid water of Lake Taupo,
which like a plate of burnished silver,
glitters in the sun, and beyond all,
their lower portions melting into shadowy
blue in the distance, but their eternal
snow clad peaks clearly defined against
the sky, are Tongariro and Ruapehu.
The view of these twin giants, so vast, so
immaculately pure, has an effect on the
imagination that it is difficult to describe.
Away to the eastward stretch the Kain-
garoa Plains, full fifteen miles of level
plateaux, strangely channelled with
valleys. On the west, bounding the
Niho-o-te-Kiore Plain, are the even
rampart-like ridges of the Paeroa Range.
The greatest wonder of the Wai-o-tapu
Valley is the Pink Cauldron, which lies
at the foot of the south-eastern side of
Maungaongaonga. It is a deep depres–
sion in the mountain side. It is coated
with strangely hued silica, pink, how-
ever, being the prevailing tint. White,
green, cream, and yellow are also visible.
At one corner of the basin is a boiling
pool, and on the upper side are three
geysers rising one above the other, and
forming a terrace which in the course of
ages may rival in size and beauty the
lost glories of Rotomahana. The water,
which is of cerulean blue, flows over
beautiful incrustations of white and pink
silica.
Mr. T. Ryan, the well-known New
Zealandfootballer, who visited Wai-o-tapu
in November, 1887, says that the Terrace
is differently shaped to those at Rotoma-
hana. Its gradual slope is covered with
thousands of little cup-like depressions.
The water in the basin at the top of the
terrace effervesces violently when stirred
with a stick. The length of the terrace
from the basin to the foot is about 1oo
yards, with a breadth varying from 20 to
50 yards. At the base of the terrace
there is a beautiful sulphur lake of
brilliant yellow colour. The outlet from
this runs round the base of the terrace
and, tumbling pell mell over a precipice,
forms what are called the Primrose Falls.
Not far from the cauldron is a beautiful
lakelet embowered in foliage. Its waters,
which are tepid and taste strongly of
alum, are of unfathomable depth. One
hundred yards distant from the Alum
, Lake is one of the sights of the valley—a
mud volcano, the crater of which is 90
feet in circumference and 12 feet high.
It is constantly ejecting blueish mud.
Along the edge of the stream which
flows through the valley are numerous
natural baths, and about four miles from
the entrance to the valley is a large
steaming lake, resting on a basin of milk
white silica, the incrustations of which
have assumed a variety of fantastic
shapes, reminding one strongly of Te
Tarata, , at Rotomahana. There are
numerous other lakelets in the valley of
different colours and degrees of tempera-
ture, the most remarkable of which is
Rotowherowhero, or Green Lake, the
colour of which is a brilliant emerald,
and where numbers of wild ducks may
always be seen. There is also a boiling
Blue Lake, and the waters flowing from it
are remarkable for their petrifying
properties. The tourist in visiting this
wonderful spot should be accompanied by
a competent guide—Alfred Warbrick for
instance—as there are several elements of
danger to the unaccompanied visitor.
58 - A WEIRD AºEGION.
CHAPTER VII.
-
z
Rotorua, the Olympus of the Pacific–Tutanekai's lute in the Auckland Library—The Legend of Hinemoa—
The giantess Kurangi-tuku and the chief Hatupatu-Taniwhas—Capture of a Tanlwha at Kaingafea Plains,
ſ? ESIDES the natural beauties and
§ wonders of the Thermal Spring
District, the fact that within its
confines are laid the scenes of
many of the most beautiful and remarkable
of the tales of old Maori legendary
lore, renders the locality of additional
interest to the tourist, whose fancy
permits his mind to soar from material
things to the fairy realms of the unreal.
This is especially true of Rotorua, which is
a region peopled by fancy—the veritable
Olympus of the Pacific.
Amongst the most treasured articles
in the wonderful collection of Maori curios
presented by Sir George Grey to the
citizens of Auckland, and which may be
seen in the Public Library of that city, is
a richly-carved musical instrument of
undoubted age, known as “Tutanekai's
flute.” This article, with the beautiful
scenery of Lake Rotorua, are the sole
connecting links between the prosaic
present and a romantic Maori fairy tale of
eld. Beit known then, that Tutanekai, a
young Maori chieftain, and Hinemoa,
his faithful Maori maiden, occupy the
same place in the traditions of New
Zealand, as do Hero and Leander in the
Grecian legends. Hinemoa-how lim-
pidly sweet the name!—was forbidden to
see her lover, who lived on the picturesque
island of Mokoia, which rests as grace-
fully on the placid waters of Lake
Rotorua as though it were a huza.
Hinemoa's stern old parent—we fancy
we can see him, a grand old rangitira, no
doubt, who could count the generation of
his high descent back to Maui and the
demigods—forbade all intercoursebetween
the lovers, and to prevent Hinemoa from
disobeying his behests, he secured his
“Ancestral grand canoe.”
For a while the lovers were nonplussed,
but “love laughs at locksmiths.”
Tutanekai had previously advised his
lady that the music of his flute should be
the signal of his presence, and when she
heard the sweet cadences of some old
wazała, older, no doubt, than the migration
from Hawaiki, come borne by the breath
of even across the moonlit lake, she
determined at all hazards to join her
lover. -
At last, says the legend,” she reflected
in her heart, saying, “How can I then
contrive to cross the lake to the island of
Mokoia It can plainly be seen that my
friends suspect what I am going to do ;”
So she sat upon the ground to rest, and
then the soft measures reached her from
the trumpet of Tutanekai, and the young
and beautiful chieftainess felt as if an
earthquake shook her to make her go to
the beloved of her heart; and then arose
the recollection that there was no canoe.
At last she thought, perhaps I might be
able to swim across. So she took six
large, dry, empty gourds, as floats, lest
she should sink in the water, three of them
for each side, and she went out upon a
rock which is named Iri-iri-kapua, and
from thence to the edge of the water to
the spot called Wai-rere-wai, and there
she threw off her clothes and cast herself
into the water, and reached the stump of
a sunken tree which used to stand in the
lake, and was called Hinewhata, and
* See “Polynesian Mythology,” pp 148, 149, by Sir
George Grey. Second Edition, published by H. Brett,
Auckland. - -
A LOVE LEGEND OF LAKELAND. & 59
clung to it with her hands and rested to
take breath; and when she had eased the
weariness of her shoulders she swam on
again, and whenever she was exhausted
she swam with the current of the lake,
supported by the gourds, and after
recovering strength she swam on again;
but she could not distinguish in
which direction she should go, from the
darkness of the night; her only guide was
the soft measure from the instrument of
Tutanekai; that was the mark by which
she swam straight to Waikiintua, for just
above that hot spring was the village of
Tutanekai, and swimming at last she
reached the island of Mokoia.
And then the legend goes on to relate
that, having warmed herself in a spring,
known to this day as Hinemoa's bath,
“She rose from the water beautiful as a wild hawk,
And stepped on the edge of the bath as graceful as
the shy white crane,”
a nd how Tutanekai threw his mantle
of finely woven flax over her dripping
body, and they proceeded to his house
and reposed there, and thenceforth,
according to the ancient laws of the
Maori, they were man and wife. Such
then, is the legend of Hinemoa, and to
this day her descendants, as with
measured time they dip their paddles
into the lake, perpetuate the prowess of
their ancestress in song and story.
But all the legends of Lake-land do not
treat of romantic. love stories; on the
contrary, the stock-in-trade of the Maori
story-telleris usually replete with marrow-
freezing tales of man-eating taniwhas,
pitiless giants, and malicious wizards, in
comparison with whom Merlin, or even
the wicked magician in the Arabic
romance of Aladdin, were novices. If the
tourist travels from Rotorua to Tarawera
by the land route, his Maori guide will
not fail to show him a spot where, prior
to the Eruption, at anyrate, were some
parallel scratches in the solid rock on
the sheer hillside, and will tell him that
they are the finger-marks of the giantess
Kurangi-tuku. The race to which this
woman belonged were said to be spirits
who had occupied New Zealand before the
migration from Hawaiki. They lived on
the hilltops and clothed themselves in mist,
and as they did not tattoo their faces and
bore their children in their arms, and not
“pick-a-back ’’ as is the Maori custom,
they were thought to be very uncanny
beings indeed.
One day, an Arawa chief named
Hatupatu was out in the forest near
Tarawera Lake spearing pigeons, when
he was seen by Kurangi-tuku. She
was thirty feet high, and had long,
sharp finger-nails with which she speared
her game. Hatupatu tried to escape, but
stretching out her long arm she captured
him. It was the first time she had seen
a human being, and as she was an ardent
student of natural history, she decided
not to kill him, but to keep him as a pet
and observe his habits. So she carried
him to her house and treated him very
kindly. Hatupatu, however, did not
relish his confinement, and one day he
induced his captor to journey a long
distance to get him some special kind of
food.
Hatupatu was left locked in the
house, but during the absence of the
giantess, he found means of opening the
door, taking the precaution first of all to
fill up the crevices in the house, so that
none of the birds kept by his mistress
should escape, and, following her, inform
her of his departure. The chief then
journeyed with all speed to Ohinemutu.
In the meantime one of the birds left in
the whare made its escape through a
small hole in the wall, and flew straight
to its mistress chirping “Riro-riro !”
(Gone gone !) This little bird thus
derived the name by which it is known to
this day. The giantess being warned,
returned in hot haste, and catight sight
of Hatupatu just as he was approaching
a steep cliff. Very much alarmed, the
chieftain hastily uttered a charm which
had been taught him by his grandmother,
and immediately the rocks split asunder
in obedience to his words, and having
received him, closed up again. Kurangai-
tuku arrived immediately afterwards, but
was much puzzled at his mysterious
disappearance. She searched for him and
6o
A WE/RA) REGAOAV.
* 16Wa. -
scratched the rocks with her nails,
making the marks already referred to.
Hatupatu, thinking that she had gone,
came out of the earth at some little
distance from the point at which he had
entered. The quick-sighted giantess, how-
ever, saw him and gave chase, but he
evaded capture by again having recourse
to his grandmother's spell. He came
out near a boiling spring at Ohinemutu,
and Kurangi-tuku, stepping on the
treacherous crust of earth to grasp him,
the ground gave way under her weight,
and the unfortunate giantess was boiled
to death. The pool in which this
tragedy occurred is called Wakarewa-
The taniwhas are, however, the most
terrible of the myths of the Lake natives.
These monsters lived in the bottom of
the lakes, and were as large as whales,
and shaped like lizards. They could
ascend trees, and where a quicksand
appeared at the base of a cliff, causing it
to slip, there was sure to be one of these
monsters at the bottom of the mischief.
The terrible accident which engulfed Te
Heuheu and his tribe is popularly believed
to have been caused by a taniwha. A
story of the capture of a taniwha on
Kaingaroa Plains, as related by the Rev.
Richard Taylor, may fittingly conclude
this chapter:—“At Kapenga, on the
Kaingaroa Plains, there formerly lived a
taniwha named Hotu-puku. After having
devoured great numbers of people, he was
at last destroyed by a party of brave men
from Rotorua ; they made strong ropes
and formed a large circular snare, station-
ing a party at each end of the rope, and
sending another to entice the monster out
of his den. As soon as he smelt the scent
of men he came out of his den and pursued
them; they retreated through the snare,
he followed, and when the two parties
who laid in ambush on either side of the
road saw that his head and shoulders had
entered, they immediately pulled the
ropes tight. The monster struggled very
hard, therefore,they drove strong stakes
into the ground, to which they made fast
the ropes, when the entire party united
and attacked the taniwha, and at last
despatched him. He was of enormous
size, being described by the Maori narra-
tor as he pºke £uke whenzua, a mountain,
and when he was dead he was as large as
a great whale, but covered with scales
and with large spikes on his back. When
they opened him they found the remains
of a great number of persons, with
weapons, greenstone ornaments, etc., of
all kinds, so that his stomach resembled
the armoury of Maui.”
TUHOTU'S RESURFAECTION. 6 I
TARAWERA; OR, THE CURSE OF TUHOTU.
BY J. L. KELLY.
I.
Cubotu'3 TRegurrection.
1.
CENES of horror, sounds of wailing,
Wild confusion, woe, and dread;
Earth abysmal, yawning, rocking ;
Flames and smoke in heaven o'erhead.
2.
Mountains reeling, thunders ling,
Mixed with roarings from º
Lightnings flashing, tempests crashing,
Surges dashing to o'erflow !
3.
Tarawera's triple mountain,
Bellowing, belching balls of fire,
Streams of lava, showers of ashes,
Smoke from Nature's funeral pyre ſ
*(1)
4.
Children, women, men in terror,
Fleeing, shrieking, seeking aid;
Others stricken helpless, lifeless—
On a fiery bier low laid.
w
5.
Starving cattle, seeking vainly
Leaf of tree or blade of grass;
Such the scene at fair Wairoa (2)
(Fair no longer now, alas !)
6.
When we rescued from his whare, (3)
”Whelmed in fiery lava's tide,
Old Tuhotu, as he crouched there,
With his Bible by his side 1
7.
Old Tuhotu, famed tohunga— (4)
Priest and prophet—wooed, yet feared,
With the snows of five-score winters (5)
Gleaming on his head and beard
8,
Strangely stared he when he saw us,
Yet not vacant was his look;
Words of prayer we heard him mutter,
Firmly clasping still the Book.
9.
** Hasten l’’ cried we. “Fire-bolts threaten ;
Flee for safety while you may ’’ -
“Nay,” he answered, “leave me, leave me ;
God is angry; I would pray !”
10.
Forth we dragged him, still resisting,
From his four days’ vigil lone—
Four days buried, darkling, fasting,
'Neath a drift of mud and stone
11.
Him we bore to Rotorua– (6)
Rescued from a living tomb—
"Mid a rain of fiery ashes,
Earthquake shocks, and sounds of doom 1
12.
Tall of stature, grave of feature,
Graver, sadder, seemed he now ;
Marks of lonely, long communing
Sat upon his stately brow.
13.
Quailed the Maoris, at his glances,
Trembling, fled they from his sight,
Crying “Wizard . Wherefore come you
Back from realms of Death and Night 2
14.
“See your doing ! Fire and ruin,
Buried village, pasture burned 1
Is your vengeance not yet sated,
That to curse us you've returned f"
15.
Gently tended we Tuhotu,
Rest and viands bade him take,
Then, in answer to our questions,
Slowly, sadly, thus he spake :
* (1) This and succeeding figures are references to Notes attached to the Poem.
.62 - - A WEIRD REGION.
II.
(ſubotu made a Yakeba.
Whº have ye brought me hither? Why
did ye braak my trance,
When I ocunmune held with spirits on Reinga's
shadowy shore ? (
You say ’twas the Atua led you,-there is no
such thing as chance. (8)
{}ood 1 'Tis the will of the Father: I will
complain no more 1
Sad is my heart for my pedple, o'ertaken by
fiery Fate ;
Sadder still for the living, whose souls refuse
the light,
Who curse me, revile me, disown me, and thrust
me forth from their gate,
As a foul and fell magician, in league with
the Powers of Night.
Outcast, despised, and friendless, why should I
live alone 2 -
Sure 'tis the curse of Knowledge, –but a wise
man should be brave;
And Christ, earth’s greatest Prophet, was hated
and killed by His own.
But He rose, like me, in triumph, from darkness
and the gravel
Yes; 'tis the curse of Knowledge — to know of
impending wrath,
To see o'er a sinful people uplifted the hand
of God,
To know that, despite all warning, not one will
forsake the path
Till all shall be crushed to powder beneath the
avenging rod ~
Wizard, the people call me; they would kill me
did they dare–
But they said He had a devil when Love was
His golden rule tº e
Should I not deem it an honour His deep dis-
honour to share ? tº º
Only the wise know wisdom, 'tis folly alone to
the fool 4.
Fools To believe , that I willed it, when I
warned them of coming doom
'Tis well that they have disowned me; a pakeha
henceforth I. 8
The pakeha's God was with me as I lay in my
living tomb,
And He sent you to my rescue that I might
not in darkness die. -
Gone are the people to judgment ; of their
blood my i. are clean ;
I will leave them to God's great mercy, and
dry my useless tears.
Let me tell you the vision I saw of the awful
final scene,
And the warning I long since uttered in vain
to idle ears.
III.
Qºbe Cutge.
1,
Wor to the seekers of pleasure 1
Woe to the Maori race .
Woe to this time and place 1
For filled is the wrathful measure,
And Vengeance cometh apace;
Only a little space,
And a man will give all his treasure
To be hid from the angry face
Of a justly-incensed God!
The earth shall quake at His nod,
And the hills dissolve in fire
Before His enkindled ire
2
Woe to Wairoa the gay !
I see her, at close of day
Go, like a child, to sleep ;
I see her, ere morning breaks,
Wake, as a madman wakes
From a dream of the nethermost deep
3.
The earth is rent asunder,
The heavens are black as a pall;
The bright flames rise and fall ;
Deep rumblings come from under,
While high in air,
"Mid the lightning's glare,
Bellows the angry thunder
Wairoa is gone—is fled—
The wicked ones all are dead Î
4.
Woe to Ariki the proud 1 (9)
Humbled shall be her pride.
She smiles on the fair hillside;
But I see the gathering cloud—
I hear the mutterings loud.
O God the cloud has burst
In a rain of living fire
I see Ariki expire,
By sloth and sin accurst
5.
Woe unto Moura, woe I (9)
She is dreaming of peace and rest,
Like a bird in its quiet nest,
While the blue lake lies below.
Her sons to folly wander ;
The stranger's gold they claim ;
To the stranger's vice they pander—
They sell her daughters' shamel
God stamps. His foot in anger,
The earth's foundations shake;
For Moura weep,
She lieth deep
In Tarawera's lake
TUHOTU”.S. VISION. - 63
6.
Waitangi, thy waters of wailing (9)
Are lamenting, unavailing,
Too late to avert thy doom ;
Too late doth thy conscience waken,
For, in sin and shame o’ertaken,
Thy glory shall sink in gloom 1
Mourn, ye weeping waters,
The fate of your sons and daughters
Who sleep in a nameless tomb
7. ,
Deep and eternal shame,
Bitter and endless woe,
To each tribe of ancient name !
They shall perish in vengeful flame,
And sink to the realm of Po 1 (10)
Weep, Ngatitoi, Tuhourangi, (11)
Weep for Wairoa, Waitangi,
Ariki, and Moura the fair;
They have drunk of the wine of Pleasure,
And now they must drain a measure
Of Sorrow and dire Despair ;
They have heard with scoffs and scorning
The voice of solemn warning ;
God striketh, and will not spare I
IV.
§uper8tition ano ireligion.
E ended, and sudden a murmur
Arose in the street without ;
The murmur grew to a tumult;
From the tumult there came the shout
Of a hundred angry voices, -
Joined in one vengeful cry—
“Death to the hated wizard
Who has made our people die
** Death to the fierce Tuhotu
Who has stirred up Maui's ire, (12)
And 'whelmed our homes and pastures
In a flood of sacred fire—
The fire from Hawaiiki, (13)
Brought to our chief of old,
Great Ngatoroirangi,
When perishing with cold ! (14)
“The fire that came as a blessing,
Tuhotu has made a curse; -
He is fit to live no longer,
His wicked plans to nurse !
Many have died and suffered
By the spell of his evil eye; (15)
We appeal to the law of Moses, (16)
Which says that he must die
“Give us the grey old wizard
Who has wrought us so much ill;
No mortal man may harm him—
No human hand may kill;
But we’ll bear him to Tarawera ;
He must enter the pit of fire,
And appease the unquiet spirits
Whom he roused to vengeance dire . "
—x—
Then we heard, in gentle accents,
A voice persuasive speak,
Telling that God's was vengeance,
And the earth was for the meek ;
That One who was greater than Moses
A better law had given—
To forgive an erring brother
To seventy times seven :
And the Maoris, as they listened
To the missionary priest,
Were shamed from their wild intention,
And the angry tumult ceased. . . .
And Tuhotu, who ne'er had trembled,
Or quailed his fearless glance,
Told of the vision of ruin
He saw in his four days' trance.
V.
(ſubotu’3 l)igion.
1.
THE night had fallen soft and calm,
Wairoa lay in slumber deep;
I_sang in peace my evening psalm,
But something said I must not sleep.
2.
Wrapped in my rug, I sat and read
From Jeremiah's warning €,
Nor knew, the midnight hour had fled,
So closely did the theme engage.
- 3.
O'er Israel's pictured woes I wept,
And sadness o'er my soul held sway,
And yearning feelings o'er me crept,
For brethren in this later day;
I know not if I waked or elept—
If hours or moments passed away
4. *
The spirits of the mighty dead
Who sleep on Tarawera hill, (17)
Innumerous, hovered round my head;
I knew their presence boded ill;
But One was by my side who said
To my heart-throbbings—“Peace, be still "
5.
I felt this visit was the
Of trouble in these sinful years;
But, in an ecstacy divine,
I soon forgot earth’s cares and fears.
- 6. .
Communing with my visitants,
No more my fearful bosom pants;
My eyes are tipped with heavenly light
And clear as day appears the night.
“Come forth with us,” the Spirits say,
A WE/RD AºEGION.
And in spirit I haste with them away !
Out *::: the clear and star-lit sky,
With the villages flººrully
On the marge of Tarawera Lake,
Our way through the pure mid-air we take.
7.
With one consent we stay our flight
And gaze, as from a mountain height,
Down on Mahana's steaming flood, (18)
Near that enchanted spot where stood
Those terraced pathways to the sky—
Twin stairways that the gods might mount-
Te Kupuarangi's cloudy fount, (19)
Tarata's pure white tracery : (20)
8
Mahana's Lake, this night of June, (21)
Lies placid 'neath the crescent moon,
Save in the central part, where sleeps
The taniwha, in troubled dreams, (22)
And, ever restless turning, seems
To agitate the boiling deeps 1
See, how he tosses and tumbles, . .
Hark, how he mutters and grumbles,
And shakes his clanking chain
Wild is the dream he is dreaming,
For the lake is boiling and steaming,
And hissing and spitting amain :
9
A fiercer struggle and stronger
His bonds contain him no longer;
From his dream the monster wakes—
Wakes with a thunderous roar,
Leaps with a force that shakes
The lake's firm bottom and shore
Through the earth, quick cleft in twain,
He sinks to his fiery home ;
The water follows amain—
There’s a rushing and gleaming of foam,
And Mahana's Lake so blue
Has vanished like morning dew (23)
10.
Yes; the beauteous lake has for ever fled:
Where its waters smiled there rise instead
Thick clouds of smoke, white wreaths of steam,
While in the midst the red flames gleam.
11.
A moment's silence, and once more
Earth trembles to the monster's roar,
As, bursting from his den,
He cleaves high Tarawera Hill
To wreak his wild and evil will
On weak and sinful men
12.
Bursts Tarawera, Wº:
Bursts Ruawahia’s height
Into flames that illumine the night ;
The earth, as in fits of anger,
Vomits, with terrible clangour,
Mud, and lava, and rocks,
While, answering to the shocks,
The heavens re-bellow in might !
(24)
13,
I see men wake from their sleeping
To praying and cursing and weeping 1
O Heaven the strong man falls,
Struck down in the throes of death ;
The child to the mother calls,
Poor mother her last faint breath
Is spent in a fruitless prayer
For the son of her love and care
The sire and the daughter he cherished—
The chief and the crouching slave—
The strong and the weak – have perished,
And sleep in one common grave
14.
How sad was Rangiheua's fate 1 (25)
(Oft did he boast, with mien elate, –
Toll-taking at the Terrace gate—
Of all his wealth and power 1)
On Puwai’s Isle I saw him slee (26)
When hell broke from the placid deep ;
For Ngatitoi lament and weep !— . (27)
All perished in that hour,
When tepid bath and terraced steep
Were 'whelmed in fiery shower
15.
Fell Ruin wraps each dwelling place
Of people of my tribe and race;
A hundred of my kinsmen die
In fear and mortal agony—
Some gulfed in waves that boil and hiss,
Some slain by bolts of living fire,
Some plunged into a dark abyss,
While some of Terror's pangs expire I
16
I gaze upon a little hut
here thickest fall the mud and rocks;
Within is one whose eyes are shut,
Who takes no note of earthquake shocks,
Nor seems to heed the fearful rain
That on the groaning roof-tree beats,
But something to himself repeats,
As one who wanders in his brain :
17.
'Tis weirdly strange; but, as I look
On him who sits and clasps his book,
My own the form and features seem ;
The hut is mine ; yet am not I
Out 'neath the lurid, burning sky?
Am I awake, or do I dream :
18.
My mind is dark; I cannot say
If Fact or Fantasy held sway.
I fain would tell the wondrous lore
That Arawa's grey fathers told
To me on Reinga's awful shore ;
All that shall be, and was before,
Was to my vision clear unrolled.
19.
I live, the last of all my tribe, (29)
And must not lock within my breast
The things they gave me to describe.—
But ieave me now, for I would rest,
MoTES ON 7:HE POEM. 65
VI.
(Ibe ire3t is $5ilence.
1.
ENDERLY we nursed Tuhotu,
But his soul seemed far away;
Earth no longer seemed to claim him ;
Weaker grew he, day by day,
2.
Till his spirit burst its prison,
And with features glorified,
As beholding some grand vision,
With a Christian's faith he died.
3.
None of all his race or kindred
Raised the tangi’s mournful cry;
In the green churchyard we laid him,
And his secrets with him lie
4.
Thus the last of the tohungas
Perished, with his wondrous lore—
Passed away to join his fathers
On Te Reinga's blessed shore.
5.
Still, at lovély Rotorua,
Smiles the lake and shines the sun;
But from frowning Tarawera
Ever rise the vapours dun,
6
Towering in a cloudy pillar,
Bidding men their sins forsake,
Telling them of old Tuhotu,
And the fearful curse he spake.
N O T E s.
(1) “Tarawera's Triple Mountain.”– Mount Tara-
wera, which is about 2,000 feet high, was, prior to the
eruption, flat-shaped on top ; but there were three
distinct peaks or summits, separated from each other
by deep rocky ravines. The word “Tarawera"
signifies “burnt cliffs,” and as Maori names are all
descriptive, it would seem to indicate that the natives
were aware of the volcanic origin of the mountain.
(2) “Fair Wairoa.”—This village, half European
and half Maori, was the largest and most populous
settlement destroyed by the eruption.
(3) Whare.—Maori for house.
h
The word is pro-
nounced “whah-ri.”
. (4) The tohunga, or priest, was in ancient days held
in great veneration by the Maoris, and noted occu-
º of the office were almost worshipped as demi-
gods.
(5) “The snows of five-score winters.”—Tuhotu
was said to be over 100 years old, but this is doubtful.
At any rate, he was extremely old.
(6) Rotorua, where the Government offices and
Sanatorium are situated, is some eight or nine miles
from Wairoa. The eruption was heard and seen from
here, and caused great alarm, on account of the
frequency of earthquake shocks : but the residents
did not give way to panic, and were able to
render valuable assistance in rescuing those in danger
and succouring refugees from the devastated villages.
(7) “Reinga's shadowy shore.”—Te Reinga, a cape
at the most northerly part of New Zealand, was, in
Maori mythology, the spot from which the spirits of
the dead took their departure for the other world; it
is sometimes referred to as the abode of spirits.
(8) Pakeha —White man, or European.
(9) Moura, Te Ariki, and Waitangi.-Three villages
which, with Wairoa, were destroyed by the eruption.
The name “Waitangi” signifies “Water of Lamen-
tation.”
(10) “The realm of Po.”—Po, darkness.
(11) “Ngatitoi’’ were a hapu, or sub-tribe, of the
Tuhourangi tribe. By the eruption, Ngatitoi were
rendered extinct, and Tuhourangi nearly so.
(12) “Maui.”—The creator or “grandfather ” of
New Zealand. He is said to have fished the islands
out of the sea, whence they were called “Te Ika a
Maui.’”—Maui's Fish I
(13) “Hawaiiki.”—This is the name given by the
Maoris to the land from which they migrated to New
Zealand. They describe it as “an island of the
great sea, standing towards the north.” On account
of the devastating wars in that country, Ngahue made
a voyage of discovery, and finding New Zealand a
desirable place to dwell in, chiefly on account of the
plentiful supply of flesh food to be got by killing the
moa, he advised his people to come. Six large canoes
were accordingly built, and, laden with human beings,
food, seeds, and domestic animals, made the long
voyage in safety. Hawaiiki has been by different
writers identified with Hawaii (Sandwich Islands),
Savaii (Samoan Group), or Haapai (Tongan Group),
these and other islands in the Pacific Ocean being
inhabited by people of the Maori race and language.
The nearest place from which they could have come
is over a thousand miles from New Zealand.
(14) Ngatoro, or Ngatoro-i-Rangi, “The Runner of
the Sky,” was the navigator of the Arawa canoe—
one of the six that brought the Maoris from Hawaiiki.
From the occupants of the Arawa canoe are descended
all the Maoris in the Hot Lakes district. Tradition
has it that Ngatoro, on landing, set forth to explore
the country, and, penetrating to the great mountains
of Tongariro, Ruapehu,and Ngauruhoe, was astonished
at beholding their snow-clad peaks. Ascending the
first-named mountain to ascertain the nature of the
unknown white substance, he was benumbed with the
intense cold, and called upon his sisters, Hangaroa
and Kuiwai, to fetch him fire quickly. The sisters,
who were fishing at White Island (an active volcano off
the East Coast, near the place where the Arawa canoe
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68 A WE/A&AED A&EG/OAV.
touched land), at once dived in the sea, and traversing
the passage under the earth emerged from the top of
Tongariro, with the sacred fire-stick from Hawaiiki,
in time to save their brother's life. Till this day (say
the Maoris) the fire burns on Tongariro, and along
the path which the sisters traversed there are also
fires showing where the sacred stick had touched. In
point of fact, from White Island to Tongariro is a
continuous line of volcanic activity, the Hot Lakes
district being about mid-way between the two
extremities.
(15) “The spell of his evil eye.”—Many Maoris to
the present day firmly believe in witchcraft. In 1887
two natives were sentenced to imprisonment for life
at Gisborne for murdering a companion whom they
accused of bewitching people. Many deaths are
attributed by natives to the evil eye
(16) “The law of Moses.”—The dusky Maoris,
like a certain Old Gentleman of sable complexion, are
very apt at quoting Scripture to suit their own
purposes.
(17) Mount Tarawera was strictly tapu (sacred or
forbidden) on account of the summit of the hill being
the burial place of the chiefs of the Arawa tribe.
(18) “Mahana's steaming flood.”—A reference to a
stream of warm water which flowed from Rotomahana
(roto—lake, and mahana—hot) into the large coldwater
Lake Tarawera. This hot stream was a little ove
six feet wide and about a mile long. -
(19) Te Kupwarangi, “The Fountain of the Clouded
Sky"—better known as the Pink Terrace—was a
marvellously beautiful work of Nature—the product
of centuries of deposits of silicious matter from a gey-
ser or boiling cauldron at the summit. The hot water,
overflowing from the natural basin, formed many
pools in its descent, which made delicious hot baths.
This terrace, which had a delicate pink hue through-
out, was 80 feet high, and the Maori name is most
poetically descriptive of its appearance.
(20) Te Tarata—the White Terrace—was situated
close to Rotomahana, and was larger, and in some
respects more beautiful than Te Kupuarangi. It had
50 steps, ranging in breadth from one to two feet, and
the appearance presented was that of a structure of
beautifully-fashioned white marble, with tiny cascades
falling over it.
(21) Rotomahana —now a thing of the past—was
one of the smallest lakes of the group, being a mile
long by about a quarter of a mile broad. It was
1088 feet above the sea level, its waters were hot,
steaming, and frequently disturbed by subterranean
forces.
(22) “The taniwha " was a mythical monster some-
what akin to a dragon, but usually inhabiting lakes
and rivers. It is described in Maori traditions as
being the size of a large sperm whale, but shaped
like a lizard, and covered with scales, while his back
was studded with spines. This monster was car-
nivorous, and was held in superstitious dread by the
Maoris. There is no evidence that such an animal
ever existed in New Zealand, and the traditions of it
are probably exaggerated alligator stories handed
down by the tropic-dwelling ancestors of the Maori
race. When the waters of Rotomahana showed more
than ordinary ebullition the natives were wont to
say, “The taniwha is turning in his sleep 1" Other
natives of a more practical turn of mind tell tourists
who cross Lake Tarawera that there is a danger of
the taniwha becoming enraged and swamping their
canoe; and the traveller, to humour the guileless (?)
Savage, usually leaves a coin on a rock in the centre
of the lake to appease the monster 1 4
(23) Scientists agree that the eruption started with
a great earth-fracture, which passed through Roto-
mahana, and the waters of the lake, descending into
the heated region beneath, generated the mighty
forces which burst forth as volcanoes. .
(24) Tarawera, Wahanga, and Ruawahia were the
names given distinctively to the three separate moun-
tain peaks, frequently alluded to as one mountain
under the name of Tarawera.
(25 and 26) Rangiheua, the chief of Te Ariki
village, had gone to live on the island of Puwai—one
of the two islets in Rotomahana—a few days before
the fatal 10th of June, 1886. This island was used as
a health resort by the natives, and on this occasion
Rangiheua was accompanied by seven of his tribe.
The island was in the very centre, of the original
outburst, and these natives must have been overtaken
by sudden and awful death in the first fury of the
great convulsion of Nature. Rangiheua, an old man,
used to say with pride that he was the owner of Te
Tarata and Te Kupuarangi, and holding the ap-
proaches thereto, he exacted toll from every visitor.
Both the terraces were demolished by the eruption,
but Tuhotu makes no lament for their loss, as the
Maoris had no special regard for them, and Tuhotu,
instead of deploring their destruction, would rather
be inclined to rejoice that the Maoris were deprived
of a means of degeneracy and demoralisation in the
funds which these terraces provided.
(27) “Ngatitoi.”—Rangiheua was chief of this
hapu, and the whole settlement being destroyed by
the eruption, the sub-tribe became extinct.
(28) “My mind is dark.”—A phrase used by the
Maoris to express perplexity or doubt.
(29) “I live, the last of all my tribe.”—Tuhotu’s
language here is not strictly correct, unless it be
applied to his hapu only. He is reputed to have
been a lineal descendant of Ngatoroirangi, and Te
Heuheu, the present chief of Taupo district, is also
a direct descendant of that great rangatira and
tohunga.
(30) The tangi is the funeral song, or lamentation,
usually taken part in by all the relatives of the de-
ceased. Like the Irish “wake,” the tangi of modern
days has degenerated into an occasion of ceremonious
weeping, feasting, and , drinking. Regarding
Tuhotu's interment, the following was stated in
an Auckland newspaper:—“It was understood that
Tuhotu should be buried in the Rotorua cemetery,
in the portion reserved for natives. The Maoris
seemed desirous of having as little to do with the
affair as possible, as their belief was that he was a
wizard.”
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