Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/66

 sights in the district. On an average, there are fifteen hundred visitors in Rotorua, and a resident population of 2,500. The great watering-places in Europe are insignificant compared with this place, because of the variety of natural baths procurable here. The government has spent $200,000 on a bathhouse, and surrounded it with a very beautiful garden in which sweet peas are now in bloom. This is also the home of the gladioli; I see these flowers everywhere in splendid profusion. In the park surrounding the government bathhouse are several spouting geysers, steam whistlers, sulphur springs, etc. Outside the park grounds may be seen many sanitariums, with invalids on the porches. There is nothing as effective in restoring health as natural hot springs, and the variety is so great here that I wonder the visiting population is not much larger than fifteen hundred.

—The Maoris, or native inhabitants of New Zealand, look very much like our Indians, and have most of their characteristics. They are lazy and shiftless, but good fighters, which will be generally recognized as a trait of the North-American Indians. At the photograph galleries we see pictures of beautiful Maori girls, but none are to be seen in the native villages, two of which are located near Rotorua. In both of these are hot springs, and the natives use them for cooking, heating their houses, and for bathing. In the hot springs are placed pots containing meat and vegetables, and the springs are then covered over with old gunny-sacks until the cooking is complete.