Imagine, if you can, basins of white and pink marble rising one above
another, filled with water of the deepest blue, by a warm stream which kept
flowing over them in a constant cascade. You would have enjoyed a bath
there, I am sure, and would have been interested to see the country-people
cooking their food in some of the neighbouring springs where the water came
from so great a depth that it was always boiling.
But this lovely place was full of hidden dangers; for miles around these
lakes the ground was hot and crumbling, and in many places so thin that if
you did not tread very carefully, you might find yourself sinking into hot
mud.
It was in June, which you know is winter-time in New Zealand, in the year
1885, that the people of Wairoa, a beautiful place where some missionaries
had settled that they might teach the Maoris, were awakened at midnight by
a heavy shock of earthquake, accompanied by a fearful roar, which made them
rush out of their houses in terror. The sight which greeted them was grand
but awful. Ernest has a picture of it in his room; but I suppose it would
not be possible for any picture to give an idea of what the poor frightened
people saw. Mount Tarawera had been asleep for a hundred and twenty years,
so that it was supposed to have burnt itself out, and to be no longer
dangerous. But it was awake now: the fearful roar which had aroused the
sleepers was caused by its having suddenly burst into flame; and it
continued to throw high into the sky fire and mud and stones, while the
inhabitants of the peaceful little village saved what they could carry, and
then fled away in their night-dresses.
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