Page:Emeraldhoursinne00lowtiala.djvu/43

Rh life out of it, thereafter taking its place, upheld by the still-standing trunk of its victim. It has a very gorgeous scarlet flower in its season, which varies according to locality, and it then lends such beauty to the landscape that its ugly idiosyncracy is forgotten or forgiven.

Presently we came to a clearing in the forest, where there was a sawmill, in the centre of a little village of workmen’s cottages, with a school and tiny church. And soon after that we saw lying far below us, and looking exactly like a land-girt sea, the waters of Roto-rua.*

It was girded with blue hills, fringed with green bush, edged with silver sand. Gay little summer clouds had alighted here and there on its surface for a bath, and it lay shimmering in the afternoon sunshine like liquid sapphires at the bottom of a deep Sevres bowl.

We had just time for a glimpse of it before the train turned a corner and shut it in from view until we had run some miles down the hill to its level.

Then we stopped at a siding, and were immediately besieged by a crowd of Maori children offering little baskets of hand-woven flax for sale. Such funny mites they were, in all shades of brown and pale yellow. There were tiny brown piccaninnies with yellow hair that looked as if it had been dyed, and sherry-coloured eyes; yellow imps with dark brown hair and eyes of brown velvet; and creamy-tinted maidens with fuzzy masses of bronzy hair coquettishly tied at the neck, or hanging in a tangled but glistening mass on their shoulders. When the train started off again they were tumbling over one another in their eagerness to catch a possible customer, and we leaned out of the window to watch them.

But insidiously an odour of extreme nastiness was creeping upon us, and with one accord we drew in our heads and exchanged eloquent glances. Just then the guard came in to take our tickets and seeing our expression of disgust he laughed and said:

“Oh, you must not mind that, ladies,—it is only sulphur, and you will be quite accustomed to it before you leave Rotorua!”