Page:Emeraldhoursinne00lowtiala.djvu/151

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THE HOKITIKA RACES AND LAKE MAHINAPUA
73

reflection were as distinctly shown in the water as those on the very edge and overhanging.

But on the lake itself we saw Aorangi again,—not as we had seen it from the main street of Hokitika, perpendicular, a well-hung picture on a sky-blue wall,—but lying on the water, an exquisite engraving, framed in the green of the forest encircling the lake.

It is only when the atmosphere is perfectly calm and clear that this phenomenon is visible; happily for us yesterday’s rains had so purified the air that the lake was like a mirror and the image perfect; too, as everyone was at the races again, there were no other launches or boats to disturb it.

We spent a long, lazy day on the water, Mrs Greendays reading or sketching while her husband fished and I photographed or wrote, and we only returned to Hokitika in time to get through the channels before the evening low tide, which would have left us stranded on the sand-banks.

Two wooden houses in the background with a wooden shed dug into the ground. There is a woman on the roof of the shed with two pigs.
A storehouse for kumara (rua).
Two ordinary whares in the background; old Maori
woman and her pigs on the earth-covered roof of the rua