I had seen the Himalayas and the Alps, the Blue Mountains of Tartary, the Rocky Mountains, and the Sierra Nevadas--all these were ponderously grand and awe-inspiring. I had sailed over the principal lakes of Europe and America, floated down the Nile, the Ganges, the Yangtze Kiang, the Missouri, and the Mississippi, through the thousand islands of the St. Lawrence, and up and down innumerable other rivers, all fair and beautiful. I had beheld the giant marvels of the Yosemite, and stood by the thrilling waters of Niagara; but for delicate, unique beauty, for chaste design, and sublime detail of construction never had I gazed upon so wonderful a sight as Te Tarata. It seemed as if Nature had created the wonders of the lakes and mountains of this fair region with all the marvels of fire and water after the most enchanting design of earthly beauty, and had then gone into the realms of fable and romance, and thrown in a piece of Fairyland to complete the picture; or as if the gods, when they called these sublime works into being, had fashioned Te Tarata as a throne to recline upon whilst they gazed in admiration upon the beauties of their wondrous creations. As we looked upwards the whole outline of the terrace assumed a semicircular form, which spread out at its base in a graceful curve of many hundreds of feet, as it sloped gently down to the margin of the lake. Then broad, flat, rounded steps of pure white silica rose tier above tier, white and smooth as Parian marble, and above them terrace after terrace mounted upward, rounded and semicircular in form, as if designed by the hand of man, guided by the inspiration of the Divine Architect. All were formed out of a delicate tracery of silica which appeared like lacework congealed into alabaster of the purest hue. Each lamination, or fold, of this beautiful design was clearly and marvellously defined, and as the glittering warm water came rippling over them in a continuous flow, Te Tarata sparkled beneath the sun as if bedecked with diamonds and myriads of other precious gems. Crystal pools, shaped as if to resemble the form of shells and leaves, and filled to their brims with water, blue and shining as liquid turquoise, charmed the eye as we mounted to every step, while around the edges the bright crystals of silica had formed encrustations which made them appear as if set in a margin of miniature pearls. Every successive terrace seemed to spring up in grander proportions from the one immediately below it as we approached the summit, not in formal angular-shaped steps, but in flat-topped elevations, with rounded edges and sweeping curves, from which the wet, glittering silica hung in the shape of sparkling stalactites, which, interlacing themselves and mingling together, formed a delicate and almost transparent fringe which looked like a fantastic network of icicles, so exquisitely beautiful in appearance and so delicately formed as to appear as if fashioned by the magic touch of a fairy hand.