Guide to the Health Resorts in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. Centennial edition / edited and compiled by Ludwig Bruck.

Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Guide to the Health Resorts in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. Centennial edition / edited and compiled by Ludwig Bruck. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    brawling in rapids and eddying in reaches for a few miles, is suddenly pent in between perpendicular walls of rock some 51' or 60 feet high, and not ten paces apart. Between these the whole descending river rushes for a distance of two or three hundred yards, churned into a mass of snow-white foam, and roaring with the hoarse voice with which great cataracts are gifted, till, the confining walls suddenly receding, it shoots forth as if out of the barrel of a gigantic gun, and plunges in a solid white mass into a dark-green pool that lies waiting for it below at a depth of 50 feet perpendicular. A party of up- wards of seventy Whanganui Natives, on a visit to Taupo, are said to have challenged the resident natives of Tapuaeharuru to descend the Huka in canoes. The residents thought dis- cretion the better part of valour; but the Whanganuis, in a fit of bravado, made the attempt. Their canoe was sucked under the moment it reached the foaming gorge, and only one native who leaped ashore, was ever seen again. The next group of springs worthy of notice is at Orakei- korako, about twenty miles down the Waikato River. It presents one of the most remarkable groups of hot springs and fumaroles in the Lake Country, or anywhere in the world, and is capable of varied adaptation to sanatory purposes. The banks of the river for several miles, both above and below; consist of steep and broken terraces, from every part of which, at a distance of only a few yards from each other, there burst out jets of steam or runlets of hot water. Hochstetter, when there, counted seventy-six steam jets at one glance of the eye, and at some seasons of the year more may be seen. The principal open waiariki or bath is a very remarkable one. It lies immediately beneath a Native village, which crests the high bank on the top of extensive old fortifications. A strong geyser, some 100 yards back from the river, has created a silicious terrace, called by the Natives Pahu lvowliatu, con- structed in much the same manner as those in Lake