WAIKANAPANAPA OR THE BOILING MUD LAKE.
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VII.
WAIKANAPANAPA OR THE BOILING MUD LAKE.
AS already mentioned in the description of Rotomahana, the Waikanapanapa, in the neighbourhood of Te Takapo, is a ravine on the eastern shore of the lake, extending in a north-easterly direction for a quarter of a mile.
The entrance to this ravine, overgrown with brushwood and manuka trees, is rather difficult of access. It also requires great caution to pass through it, because of the many unsafe places, where the traveller runs danger of being swallowed up in hot mud. This may even be the fate of a dog, as Sir G. Bowen told Mr. Mundy happened to a valuable retriever of his own, which here got off the track. But the Maoris have laid brushwood for the traveller to step upon, and he must be careful in walking behind his native guide alongside the morass. The inside of the ravine is much fissured and torn; odd-looking rocky serratures, threatening every moment to break loose, loom up like dismal spectres from the red, white, and blue clay, the last remains, evidently, of decomposed rocks. The bottom of the ravine consists chiefly of mud in a fluid state, with thick, flat fragments of layers of siliceous deposit lying scattered about, like cakes of floating ice after a thaw. In one place, a big cauldron of mud is seen simmering; in another, a deep basin of boiling water is bubbling; next to this gapes a terrible hole, emitting hissing jets of steam; and farther on are numerous small mud cones, from two to five feet in height, some of which, like miniature volcanoes, throw up hot mud from their craters, with a deadened rumbling sound. Others send forth volumes of sulphurous gases. On looking into their apertures, beautiful crystals of sulphur are seen hanging from their edges.
