Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/65

 *voted to boiling mud springs. There are thousands of these springs, some of them not much larger than your hand, and some of them big enough to float a ship. Imagine a loblolly of mud boiling violently, and you have the main idea. At one place there are cold and hot springs within five feet of each other. Near them is a fall of hot water from two boiling lakes. Then we drove to Blue Lake, an extinct crater filled with water of a perfect blue, and returned to the hotel at 6 , badly sunburned as a result of our trip on the lake and in the stage-coach When I tell people I had no sleep on the "Maheno" because of snoring gentlemen, they say, "Let me tell you what they did to me." And then they relate inconveniences suffered on different ships. But in spite of these uncomfortable incidents of travel, nothing can keep the people at home The stage in which we traveled today was pulled by five horses: two wheelers, and three hitched side by side ahead of them. The roads were so dusty that the driver was frequently compelled to stop, and wait until he could see his way Speaking of differences in the English language at home and abroad: opposite my room at the Grand Hotel is a livery and bait stable. Rotorua is a great place for livery and bait stables, owing to the tourist trade. From my window early ln the morning, I see men and women coming from the different bathhouses, with towels over their arms. Frequently stages drive up in front of the hotel, and passengers depart for sights quite distant from the town. There are a good many automobiles, also, and we shall travel in these quite extensively when we leave Rotorua to see the other