Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/68

 This peculiarity is another of the mysteries of the place. Why the subterranean springs should have electric affinities for particular winds, may be known to Pan; the fauns and elves and naiads and fairies, may know all about it, but mortals cannot explain it. The fact remains—the vast cavity at the top was empty. We could walk down its frosted steeps, and gaze into the very throat of the great geyser itself. The sun had licked dry the steps of the terraces, and the whiteness was almost too intense for the human eye. To peer underneath the curling lip of some of the frosted billows of stone was a relief, and in the semi-shade—what fresh revelations of beauty? Pearly globules, clusters of gems, delicate lacework, fretted coral, fluted tracery, crystallized dew, drifted flakes, curves, webs, cones, prisms, volutes, of immaculate glory—of whiteness such as no snow could equal—a creation of unutterable loveliness. An efflorescence of wondrous purity and beauty. It seems a shame—a sacrilege—to defile such a floor with common tread. I felt as Moses may have felt in the Presence itself, when he heard the voice: "Take thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."

And then the contrasts! Look at this mass of black rock, uprearing its bulk right from the lip of the great gleaming crater. The presiding genius has tried to relieve its uncompromising blackness by a thick drapery of soft moss and vernal ferns The same green adornment brightens up the burnt scorched background of the cliff beyond. How