We went down to look at the hot springs, but though we felt sorely tempted to try the water we thought it wiser not to risk chills, since we had the long drive back to do. Captain Greendays naturally wanted to stay and fish, but as we had brought no luggage this could not be allowed, and we started on the return journey almost immediately after luncheon.
It was about four o’clock when we found ourselves close to a saw-mill in the forest, so we stopped, set the chauffeur preparing tea by the aid of Colonel Deane’s invaluable basket, and went in to see the operations inside. But it made me feel depressed, though it was intensely interesting and very wonderful to see the great saw cut, shrieking, through the tree-trunks. We watched each process, though, saw first the rough giant trunk sawn in two, then the heart of another tree cut still finer, and others finally planed smooth. And I vowed that never again would I regard irreverently a wooden house after seeing the tortures that the tree is subjected to before it can be turned into a “centre of the universe” for some all unrecking man.
Instead of going on the lake to-night Mrs Greendays and I left Captain Greendays to fish alone while we revived ourselves after the long day’s motoring by an “electric massage” with Rachel water.
Wednesday, 7th.—More mud-pools and sulphur. The whole morning we spent in Ohinemutu and the Government Reserve, under Warbrick’s guidance as usual, for it is not safe to venture by oneself among the hot springs; new ones are constantly appearing, and one might very easily take a false step unawares. The ground underfoot is like a hot crust, and by poking a stick into it one can make steam rise anywhere.
This afternoon we visited the curio shops and bought a lot of photographs and Maori curios and greenstone. And to-night we saw a “Poi” dance in the Sanatorium grounds. It is a very graceful dance and rather pretty; it was danced on a platform by a number of young Maori girls to a strange and mournful air very slowly played.
Thursday, 8th.—A lake picnic, and a very hot but heavenly day. We started early, in a motor-launch, and in crossing Rotorua called at Mokoia Island, the scene of so many romances. It was the desire to take Mokoia and, literally, “eat up” the tribe that lived on it that made Hongi, the Maori warrior chief, perform the greatest of all his wondrous feats. Hongi was a very Napoleon among the Maoris, and the history of his devastating progress through the country is every bit as thrilling as that of his European counterpart on the Continent. But this particular story of how he sprang a surprise on the Rotorua natives by making his slaves drag a fleet of immense war-canoes capable of carrying between sixty and seventy men each, and very heavy, for thirty miles inland through the bush from the coast, is the finest incident of all.
And then there is the vastly different tale of Hinemoa and Tutanekai, that inspired the poet-Premier and many another poet before and since. Everyone who visits Rotorua should try to hear that story from the lips of a Maori. It
