Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/173

Rh Between Waimangu House and Tarawera stretched enormous deposits of mud. Those running toward Tarawera had been cut by rains into innumerable gravelly furrows, of which many were from ten to twenty feet deep. They were fashioned into sharp ridges and peaks, and thousands of the gray pinnacles were topped by a big bunch of toitoi.

In following Guide Ingle from Waimangu House, we descended almost immediately into Tarawera's fissure. It soon widened into a circle, and in this rose clouds of steam and, from a yellow-white surface stained with iron and sulphur and encrusted with alum, sounds of boiling and sputtering. This was Frying-Pan Flat, and it was well named. In places its surface was so hot that it simmered and bubbled; in other places it was warm; nowhere was it cold. In such a spot it was best to step carefully. The timid among us needed no cautioning, but the rash and careless did. To right and to left were notices reading, "Trespassers on this side of the fence will be prosecuted"; and frequently the guide voiced a warning, and sometimes a command. A young man started off on a little exploration of his own. Ingle saw him, and instantly shouted: "Here, sir; you must not go there. I told you to be careful where you go."

Coming back, the disobedient one stepped on a broken surface, and sunk to his shoe-tops in fuller's-earth.

"Wash it off in that stream," directed Ingle; "it has acid in it."