Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/69

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The Maori woman described these things, and then walked on in silence, with a mean look in her eyes; she was evidently still thinking of the foolish women of her race who tattoo their lips to indicate submission to their husbands. I didn't have a very good time after the woman suffrage question came up, and was glad that we soon after reached the last sight on the list. When women look at me in that funny way indicating that I impose on them, I am thoroughly uncomfortable. So we walked back to the entrance to the geyser field, and took a carriage to Rotorua. On the way, we met dozens of other carriages containing visitors; here people are always departing for a trip, or returning from one, and when the sights are exhausted they go on to Wairakei, where there is another collection of geysers, hot springs, etc. Between trips, they take baths, and there is a great variety to choose from; no other place in the world has as many different baths as Rotorua, but the town is not easily reached, and it doesn't attract as many people as Hot Springs, Arkansas, which has only simple hot springs; no chain of lakes, no wonderful fishing, no oil baths, no geysers, and no mud baths, as has Rotorua. . . . There are only two geyser fields in the world; the other is in Yellowstone Park, in the United States. So far as I am able to judge, the geysers in Yellowstone Park are much finer. There are no terraces here, as in the Yellowstone, and in every way the Yellowstone district seems superior. But in a way, they are much alike. The geysers here are undoubtedly losing their force; citizens tell me they can see a difference from year to year. I have not seen a geyser so far more than ten