The centre of this region is Lake Rotorua, calm and cold, while all around on its banks are hot springs, geysers and boiling mud-holes. Here, where a few years ago was only bush, or primitive village, a fine modern town has sprung up for the 42 benefit of the tourist in search of beautiful scenery, or the invalid coming to the health-giving waters. Not far away is another lake, Rotomahana, in a huge basin formed by the eruption 43 which destroyed the famous terraces. Here we may enjoy the strange experience of boating on boiling water, with the geysers working all around us. Volcanic activity is everywhere in this wonderful country, and it is only natural that round it have gathered countless Maori legends. We can easily understand the fondness of the Maoris for the water. They were a race of islanders and fishermen, never really happy unless their houses were built close to the water’s edge. This determined their mode of settlement; they only took to the dry land of the interior as a refuge from their enemies. So we found them, when first we entered the island, scattered along the narrow part of the Fish, where are bays and inlets in abundance, and along the coasts of the Bay of Plenty and the Taranaki Bight. Lake, river, and marsh were their dwelling places; and when we find them established of their own will in the interior, it is on the banks of Lake Taupo, a small sea in their eyes. The white settler wanted, in the main, the drier districts for his farms and cattle, that is, the parts of least value to the Maori; but none the less, settlement was not effected without a generation of trouble and a long period of petty warfare. [Illustration: _Copyright._) (_See page 105._ OLD GOVERNMENT HOUSE: WELLINGTON.] [Illustration: _Copyright._) (_See page 116._ RAPIDS ON THE WAIKATO.] [Illustration: _Copyright._) (_See page 108._ GREAT WAIRAKEI GEYSER.] [Illustration: _Copyright._) (_See page 111._ A CHIEF’S DAUGHTER.]