Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/174

108 Next a woman ventured alone toward the crumbling verge of Waimangu Basin. "Hey!" shouted Bob; "come away from there, confound it!" Frying-Pan Flat was the playground of thousands of small, hot bubbles that rose and broke with a roar every minute of the day and at a very rapid rate. They varied in diameter from a quarter of an inch to an inch, and many threw up tiny drops of clear water from one inch to four inches high. One of these sputtering areas was called the Gridiron. Across its surface were several cracks, caused by an overflow of water from a cold creek in the fissure, and all along these fractures were hot bubbles. The greatest activity on this broken silica crust was at the foot of Gibraltar, a rhyolite cliff one hundred feet high. In miniature it had a rough resemblance to England's fortified Rock; but not in form only was this similarity traceable. The cliff's face was perforated with steaming vents that reminded me of belching cannon. Into this agitated area we hesitatingly ventured. Stifling steam clouds that filled our lungs with sulphurous fumes enveloped us and caused us to gasp for breath. It was worse than Tikitere, and two or three of the pupils started to retreat. "Come on," shouted Ingle. "Follow me and you will be all right."

We all dived through, and getting to windward of the vapor, we reached the verge of the "frying" boiler.