OCEANA.
247
CHAPTER XVI.
Road to the Terraces.—The Blue Lake.—Wairoa.—An Evening Walk.—The rival Guides.—Native Entertainments.—Tarawara Lake.— A Maori Girl.—The White Terrace.—Geysers.—Volcanic Mud-heaps.—A hot Lake.—A Canoe Ferry.—Kate andMarileha.—The Pink Terrace.—A Bath.—A boiling Pool.— Beauty of Colour.—Return to Wairoa and Ohinemutu.
Ohinemutu was so novel a scene that I could have stayed there indefinitely, and have found something every day new and entertaining to look at. In fact, we meant to stay till we could hear from Sir George Grey about our introduction to the copper-coloured King; but our immediate business was to visit the famous Terraces, the eighth wonder of the world. The natural man resents and rejects extravagant descriptions. He conceives it more likely that describers should exaggerate than that nature should produce anything entirely anomalous. What all the fools in the country professed to admire could not, I thought, be really admirable, and I had made up my mind to be disappointed. However, we were bound to go. The requisite arrangements were made by our hostess, and were rather complicated. The Terraces themselves were twenty-four miles off. We were to drive first through the mountains to a native village which had once been a famous missionary station, called Wairoa. There we were to sleep at an establishment affiliated to the Lake Hotel, and the next day a native boat would take us across Tarawara Lake, a piece of water as Rotorua, at the extremity of which the miracle of nature was to be found. We had brought a letter of introduction from Sir George Grey to the chief Wairoa—a very great chief, we learnt afterwards, who declines allegiance to the King. It was to his tribe that the Terraces belonged, and to them we were to be indebted for boat and crew and permission to see the place. The sum exacted varied with the number of the party. There were three of us, and we should have four pounds to pay. The tariff is fixed, to limit extortion; the money goes to the villagers, who make a night of it and get drunk after each expedition. A native guide, a lady, would attend us and show off the wonders. There was a choice of