"When we get near this place," the Tongariro's engineer told me, "we can't get a word out of our Maori passengers."
Taupo is by far the largest lake in New Zealand, having an area of about two hundred and forty square miles and an extreme length of twenty-five miles. Its surface is twelve hundred feet above the sea; its greatest depth is five hundred and thirty-four feet. On the east and the north it laves pumice cliffs which in one place are three hundred feet high; on the west it beats against lofty cliffs of lava and agglomerate in alternate layers. The greatest of these are the gray bluffs of Karangahape, rising eleven hundred feet above the lake and extending four hundred feet beneath its surface. The lake is a popular fishing-ground, and at Taupo Wharf I saw many large trout swimming far below in the clear depths near its outlet, the Waikato River.
At the lake's southern end is Tokaanu, a pakeha-Maori village in the midst of hot springs and warm baths. Tokaanu's baths are needed by the traveler from the south, for the village is the northern terminus of one of the dustiest coaching-routes in Maoriland.
It is not often that a park can be classed as an inferno; yet, to a great extent, such is Tongariro National Park, a gift of burning mountains. This large scenic reserve was given to New Zealand by Chief Te Heuheu Tukino, and at any moment it may be swept by molten lava, as in other days. In this recreation ground are ice-bound Ruapehu, lashing into fury a hot lake in a frozen funnel;
