Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/371

Rh the road possesses all the ills to which a bush-road is heir. About three miles from Tauranga the road passes through the celebrated Gate Pah, where English soldiers in a panic ran away from the Maories, and left their officers to be killed. The Pah is well placed on the top of a ridge looking out over Tauranga and the sea. Almost all traces of the earthworks have now disappeared, and the cluster of gravestones in the neglected little cemetery at Tauranga will soon be the only remaining evidence of that disastrous day. About eight miles beyond the Pah we had our first experience of a New Zealand bush. It was magnificent. I can not say the same of the road. A great part of it is what is called "corduroy road," that is, trunks of trees, about eight or nine inches in diameter, were laid close together across the track, forming a kind of loose bridge over the soft places. Some of the trees, especially the rimu, a species of yew, here called a pine, were of immense size and age; in places tangled masses of red flowering creepers completely hid the trees. The tree ferns were the perfection of lightness and beauty, the dark-leaved shrubs setting them off to great advantage.

At Ohinemutu we found two small hotels; the charges were very moderate, and the attention paid to visitors is all that can be desired. The land here still belongs to the Maories, who refuse either to sell it or let it; and the hotel-keepers, who are only tenants-at-will, are naturally unwilling to spend much money in building with such an insecure tenure. One creek of Lake Rotorua, on the banks of which Ohinemutu stands, is filled with boiling springs, which heat the waters of the lake for a considerable distance. This creek is a favorite bathing-place, but, as it is dangerous in the dark, my friend and I tried a natural bath, which has been inclosed by the hotel-keeper to keep out the natives. It was as hot as we could bear it, very soft, buoyant, and bubbling, and after our long, bumpy drive, perfectly delicious. When we had got thoroughly warmed through, I thought lying in the soft bubbling water the most perfect sensuous pleasure I ever experienced.

The next morning we visited the many boiling-water and mud springs in the immediate neighborhood of the village. On a small peninsula, between our hotel and the lake, there are a great many native dwellings, called whares (pronounced worries). A whole tribe formerly lived there, but one night the end of the peninsula suddenly collapsed and disappeared in the lake, destroying, of course, all its inhabitants. There is, in the midst of the village, a large native building called the "Carved House"; its sides are covered, inside and out, with intricate carving, chiefly of grotesque human figures. By Maori law, the carved figures may only have three fingers on each hand, lest any evil-disposed persons should mistake them for caricatures of their ancestors. This native settlement owes its existence to the many hot springs with which the peninsula abounds, the boiling water standing