Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/128

108 the clay soil through which the hot sulphureous water issues, by the natives who had visited this spot for the benefit of the waters, which are considered an efficacious remedy for all cutaneous and scrofulous diseases, with which the New Zealanders are so much afflicted, that few of them are without strong marks of the latter on the glands of the throat.

The temperature of these holes varied from 150º to 80º, in proportion to the length of time they had been dug, the heat passing away gradually after exposure to the atmosphere. We had provided ourselves with the means of digging fresh holes, and these we found also to vary considerably in temperature, although quite close to each other. The hottest, of eight or ten that we dug, was 179º, and in this we cooked some eggs which we had brought with us for the purpose, and served to form part of our luncheon, although their shells were deeply stained with the sulphur. As Dr. Dieffenbach truly remarks, the surrounding country, especially to the southward, has to a singular degree the barren and desolate aspect so often observed. in places celebrated for their salubrious mineral waters. Scarcely any verdure is to be seen on the hills of the neighbourhood: it is only in the ravines that the uniform brown tint of stunted fern is interrupted by the green of some sheltered groves.

Whenever this country shall have become thickly populated with Europeans, these springs will become of equal importance to the colonists with the most