Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/248

224 village where we stopped for dinner there were twelve or fifteen springs of all temperatures from tepid to boiling; we bathed in one spring while the potatoes for our dinner were being boiled in another not a dozen yards away. Around the springs, and along the path by which we walked from them to the house, there were cracks and holes in the ground from which steam issued, and occasionally little jets of boiling water. It gave us an uncanny feeling to walk along this path, and we agreed that it was not a nice place for promenading in the dark.



"The proprietor of the hotel accompanied us, and said it was not safe to stray from the path, as one was liable to break through the thin crust and find his feet plunged into hot water which had accumulated beneath the surface. He showed us a pool which is the special resort of the Maoris, and where half a dozen of them were bathing, the bathers being watched by as many more of their kinsmen, who were squatted on flat stones erected over the steam-jets at the edge of the