a witness assured me that she did not appear to suffer pain long: the nervous system was killed by the shock. Near Roto-rua a bather with a weak heart was picked up dead. He had heedlessly plunged into a pool the fumes and chemical action of which are too strong for a weak man. And a certain young English tourist sitting in the pool nicknamed Painkiller was half-poisoned by mephitic vapour, and only saved by the quickness of a Maori guide. That was a generation ago: nowadays the traveller need run no risks. Guides and good medical advice are to be had by all who will use them. No sensible person need incur any danger whatever. Among stories of the boiling pools the most pathetic I can recall is of a collie dog. His master, a shepherd of the Taupo plateau, stood one day on the banks of a certain cauldron idly watching the white steam curling over the bubbling surface. His well-loved dog lay stretched on the mud crust beside him. In a thoughtless moment the shepherd flung a stick into the clear blue pool. In a flash the dog had sprung after it into the water of death. Maddened by the poor creature’s yell of pain, his master rushed to the brink, mechanically tearing off his coat as he ran. In another instant he too would have flung himself to destruction. Fortunately an athletic Maori who was standing by caught the poor man round the knees, threw him on to his back and held him down till all was over with the dog. [Illustration: IN A HOT POOL] Near a well-known lake and in a _wharé_ so surrounded by boiling mud, scalding steam, hot water, and burning sulphur as to be difficult of approach, there lived many years ago two friends. One was a teetotaller and a deeply religious man--characteristics not universal in the Hot Lakes district at that precise epoch. The other inhabitant was more nearly normal in tastes and beliefs. The serious-minded friend became noted for having--unpaid, and with his own hands--built a chapel in the wilderness. Yet, unhappily, returning home on a thick rainy evening he slipped and fell into a boiling pool, where next day he was found--dead, of course. In vain the oldest inhabitants of the district sought to warn the survivor. He declined to be terrified, or to change either his dangerous abode or his path thereto. He persisted in walking home late at night whenever it suited him to do so. The “old hands” of the district shook their heads and prophesied that there could be but one end to such recklessness. And, sure enough, on a stormy night the genial and defiant Johnnie slipped in his turn and fell headlong into the pool which had boiled his mate. One wild shout he gave, and men who were within earshot tore to the spot--“Poor old Johnnie! Gone at last! We always said he would!” Out of the darkness and steam, however, they were greeted with a sound of vigorous splashing and of expressions couched in strong vernacular. “Why, Johnnie man, aren’t you dead? Aren’t you boiled to death?”