One of the most remarkable wonders of this singular region was Te Ana Taipo, or the "Devil's Hole," a deep, circular aperture in the rocky gorge, about forty feet in diameter, from which a column of transparent steam burst from a small aperture at the bottom of the deep, funnel-shaped hole with a deafening screeching sound, like the voices of a thousand fiends. Never had I heard anything so wild and so dismal as the human-like wailings of Te Ana Taipo, and, as the thrilling noise went echoing over the hills, one expected to see an army of evil spirits spring up around, headed by his Satanic Majesty himself. Near to this was Kakariki, a boiling geyser which, beneath a cloud of steam, lashed its hot waves about and foamed with a furious sound in a rock-bound basin about sixty feet in diameter, while in close proximity Te Whatapohu, or "Pain in the Belly," a noisy intermittent spring, sent up its seething waters with a rumbling sound, which seemed to suggest that even the "bowels of the earth" had their pains and trials sometimes. Scattered over a greater portion of this fiery wilderness were innumerable _fumaroles_, all hard at work shooting out steam and vomiting black streams of liquid mud. Some of these were round, some flat, and others cup-shaped, while not a few assumed the form of a miniature volcanoes. One of the latter formation, known as Te Huka, spewed up a soapy kind of clay, which the natives eat as _kai_, and pronounce it to be very good, both as an ordinary article of diet and as a medicine in cases of diarrhoea, and I was solemnly informed by Sophia that a native in want of a meal would make a splendid repast from it. I tasted some of it off the end of a stick, and if one ground up a slate pencil, mixed it with water to the consistency of thick pap, and threw in a dash of sulphur and a little cinder grit, one would have a very good idea of what Te Huka _kai_ is like. When we had seen the wonders of the fiery region of Waikanapanapa we came back to Te Takapo, a kind of platform of silicious rock which bathed its white feet in the dark-green waters of Rotomahana. It was a very picturesque spot, dotted about with springs, some tepid, some hot, some boiling, and fringed with _manuka_ scrub. Here the natives had constructed small baths, and there were rude seats formed of slabs of rock where they could take their _siestas_ in comfort, after undergoing the soothing effects of the warm mineral water. At this point we embarked in a canoe, and headed across the lake in the direction of the Pink Terrace.