have come from it. When it refilled it was found to be considerably larger and the water hotter. The water is in some places boiling, indeed, from the hot springs below and on the shore, and the entire cliff at one end is steaming, with small geysers jutting out everywhere.
Some other tourists were crossing at the same time as ourselves, and the half-caste guide in charge of the launches, a man with a maddeningly shrill voice and strong nasal twang, insisted on chattering like a monkey all the way, and interlarding his uncalled-for information with idiotic jokes and puns, with scarcely a breath between the sentences.
“Tirty-tree Maoris was killed on de night of de eruption on dat island over dere, dat geyser Lady Ranfurly soap, an’ it ’as play ever since, de wild ducks on dis lake lay hard-boiled eggs,—you not believe me, hey? you catch one and try”
“Oh, we believe you!” interrupted an American lady scathingly. “All we ask is that you should catch us a roast duckling with green peas and new potatoes tucked under its wings,—the vurry thought has made me hungry again!”
When we landed, after passing through a cloud of steam over boiling water that bubbled under the boat as if it had been the lid of a huge saucepan, we were met by an English guide named Inglis, the caretaker of Waimangu. And then came the test for shoe-leather. He led us across wet, and in some places sinking sands, up steep paths, along cindery ways under the blazing sun, in a tortuous perambulation of about two and a half miles, that seemed like twelve.
It was not Inglis’ fault that the way seemed long. He did his best to divert our attention from the discomforts to the discoveries of the way, by an unceasing flow of information,—just as if we had been a class and he a professor of seismology. He understood the whole theory of eruptions, knew exactly what caused earthquakes, and was perfectly at home in the evolution of geysers; he explained the colouring of rainbows, was eloquent on the formation of strata, and described convincingly the process that converts common men into Government guides,—and if not wholly instructive his lecture was at least amusing to everyone but himself.
Before we reached the Government Accommodation House that was the end and temporarily the object of this journey we had to cross a flat valley on a level with the bottom of the Waimangu Geyser crater, called the Frying-pan. The name exactly describes it if the words “in use” are added. The flat is apparently perforated, and the water bubbles and hisses from below just as hot oil does in a pan when anything is dropped into it. All around it there are boiling mud-holes, small geysers, and other evidences of underground activity, and as Mr Inglis had been trying experiments in the hope of reviving Waimangu, which has not played for about two years, damming up some springs and opening others, we all felt extremely glad to climb out of the weird valley to the hill above, whereon stands the Accommodation House.
