scale, as if weaving a shroud for the poor victim.
It is now, however, getting near lunch-time. The sun is high in the heavens; and, turning a corner, we emerge from the bush on to the terraced shore of the lake, where already in the hot springs, the prawns and potatoes are being cooked, and where our attendant Maoris are waiting, gastronomically expectant for their share of the good things in the provender baskets. "To what base uses may we not descend."
The foregoing descriptions of the hot lakes region, have been invested with a mournful interest since they were written, by reason of the awful and sudden eruption at Wairoa and Rotomahana, on the night of Wednesday, the 9th, and the morning of Thursday the 10th June, 1886. In the Appendix No. II. full extracts are given from the Australian papers, and it will be seen what an awful calamity has taken place.
The loss of life must have been appalling, and scores of the light-hearted merry Maoris, with whom we came in contact, were swallowed up in the black, blinding, stifling shower of ashes and volcanic mud. It is said the beautiful Terraces are gone, and Lake Rotomahana itself, is now a seething, hissing, quaking morass. The exquisite forest of Tikitapu lies buried ten feet deep under the deadly hail of fire. The whole face of the country for leagues around has been completely changed, so that the record of our summer holiday will form perhaps a valuable reference to many who wish to have an accurate description of what were certainly some of the most marvellous and beautiful natural phenomena on the face of our globe.
For fuller details I must refer the reader to Appendix II.
