Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/254

230 imagination. Description by words is out of the question, and I must fall back on the picture which I send with this.

"The boiling lake at the top of the White Terraces is a pool perhaps a hundred feet in diameter, and varying in height from time to time. Curiously enough, it changes with the wind, though why the wind should affect it I am unable to guess. It is boiling, boiling, boiling all the while, though more furiously at some times than at others. The water is a beautiful turquoise blue, and so intense is the blue that it reflects upon the cloud of steam that rises from the lake. In fact, nearly all the hot springs in this region are blue, and the color is perceptible at very slight depths.

"We wanted to spend a whole day here; but time pressed, and we descended to the lake again and crossed to the Pink Terraces. The lake is a tiny one, only a mile in length by half a mile in width. "The Pink Terraces are smaller and lower than the White Terraces, and the spaces between the pools, or bathing-tubs, are not so finely wrought. The Pink Terraces are really not pink at all, but salmon-colored; the White Terraces have a tint of salmon, but it is less pronounced than in the other. The formation is the same in both, and having described one, it is hardly necessary that I should describe the other. We were eager for the promised bath, and were not long in getting at it. And such a bath!

"We undressed on the rocks a short distance from the foot of the terrace, and then entered one of the pools. The water was tepid, almost too warm for thorough enjoyment, but we did not pay much attention to it. The tub, or pool, was large enough for six or eight persons to bathe in and have plenty of room, and we splashed and played there like dolphins—at least as far as our limited abilities would allow us. What surprised us most was the wonderful smoothness of the rock. It was soft to the foot when we stood upon it, and soft to the hands when we pressed them on the sides of the bath. We dashed our bodies with no light force against the rock, and somehow it seemed to yield, or at all events it did not hurt us. We went from one bath to another, and kept ascending till the warmth was more than we could endure. We sat on the edges of some of these great shell-like baths, and looked down upon the little lake and over to the White Terraces on the other side. It was a remarkable sight, and I certainly never heard of any other bathing-tub where there was so much scenery and so much enjoyment.

"At the top of the Pink Terraces there is a lake similar to the one