The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 1886. The Tarawera Eruption.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1261, 11 June 1886, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 1886. The Tarawera Eruption.

The morning of June ro, 18S6, will be a memorable one to many residents in the most extraordinary and curious district in this colony. The Hot Lakes district of New Zealand is known throughout the whole world as one of the wonders of creation, and it has been visited as such by tourists from all parts of the globe. Artists have limned its peculiarities, and scientific men have made it the subject of deep and painstaking investigation. Its boiling springs and its smoking mountains have been in turn the subject of awe and wonder to every visitor; and the aboriginal natives, from the depths of that deep religious feeling which, latent though it may be, underlies the heart of every human being whether savage or civilised, have ever placed the tapu of their superstition—the religion of their [ barbarism—«n those volcanic moun- ' tains which continually emit smoke and occasionally burst into flame. A country near the centre of volcanic activity is ever liable to be the scene of such outbreaks, as buried Pompeii and Herculaneum, seventeen centuries ago, as convulsed.the Portuguese capital in more modern times and laid it in ruins, or have struck terror into the hearts of the whole West Indian population when St Vincent spread its dark nimbus of volcanic ashes over 100 miles of land and sea. Students of geology, and men who take note of history have ever viewed the volcanic portion of New Zealand with suspicion, and to such the telegrams we have published from the NortbJlsland will occasion no surprise, but to every colonist the details of the sudden upheaval at Mount Tarawera, Ruawahia, and Naihanga, will occasion regret mingled with awe. We all know that the country just desolated by nature in wrath was entirely volcanic, but few of us feared that a scries of volcanoes were, almost without warning, to belch forth death and danger as they have done this week, and most of us fancied that Tongariro, the New Zealand burning mountain was the outlet and safety valve of the volcanic uneasiness of the colony. In this belief settlers have crept up to the fatal district of Tarawera, and the place has been a “ show land ” for the colony, and earned for itselt the title of the New Zealand sanatorium. The rude awakening from this fancied security we have received is the reverse of pleasant, accompanied as it has been with loss of life and great destruction of property. But to-day the cloud that has fallen upon us appears to be lifting, and we are told that the worst appears to be over. Probably,

as Tungatiro remains quiet the present outburst may suffice the affected country for another century, as Maori tradition informs us that no upheaval at Tarawera has been known for 120 years, and no living native remembers anything of the kind. In any case it is to be hoped that the giant has spent his wrath, and will now return to the state of comparative quiesence in which this generation has always seen him.