foil to the wonders of Nature, the toil is healthy for the men as well as useful to the country. From the vast extent of the pumice and clay layers it would seem that, uneasy as the thermal territory now is, it has, for all its geysers, steaming cones, and innumerable springs, become but a fretful display of slowly dying forces. So say those who look upon the great catastrophe of 1886 as merely the flicker of a dying flame. [Illustration: HUKA FALLS] As already said, the volcanic zone is a land of lakes, many and beautiful. Four of the most interesting--Roto-rua, Roto-iti, Roto-ehu, and Roto-ma--lie in a chain, like pieces of silver loosely strung together. South of these Tarawera sleeps in sight of its terrible mountain, and south again of Tarawera the hot springs of Roto-mahana still draw sight-seers, though its renowned terraces are no longer there. Lake Okataina is near, resting amid unspoiled forest: and there is Roto-kakahi, the green lake, and, hard by, Tikitapu, the blue lake, beautiful by contrast. But, of course, among all the waters Taupo easily overpeers the rest. “The Sea” the Maori call it; and indeed it is so large, and its whole expanse so easily viewed at once from many heights, that it may well be taken to be greater than it is. It covers 242 square miles, but the first white travellers who saw it and wrote about it guessed it to be between three and five hundred. Hold a fair-sized map of the district with the eastern side uppermost and you will note that the shape of Taupo is that of an ass’s head with the ears laid back. This may seem an irreverent simile for the great crater lake, with its deep waters and frowning cliffs, held so sacred and mysterious by the Maori of old. Seldom is its surface flecked by any sail, and only one island of any size breaks the wide expanse. The glory of Taupo--apart from the noble view of the volcanoes southward of it--is a long rampart of cliffs that almost without a break hems in its western side mile after mile. At their highest they reach 1100 feet. So steep are they that in flood-time cascades will make a clean leap from their summits into the lake; and the sheer descent of the wall continues below the surface, for, within a boat’s length of the overhanging cliff, sounding-leads have gone down 400 feet. Many are the waterfalls which in the stormier months of the year seam the rocky faces with white thread-like courses. On a finer scale than the others are the falls called Mokau, which, dashing through a leafy cleft, pour into the deep with a sounding plunge, and, even from a distance, look something broader and stronger than the usual white riband.