PEEPS AT ROTORUA.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1678, 19 February 1913, Page 3

PEEPS AT ROTORUA.

LAND OF LOTUS-EATERS. LANGUID ARCADIANS, (Br Mere Mere.) 1 " ' One day hare is like another in tho quiet Jays of summer—ere the "season" proper for tho tourist sets in. Easter, with its carnival, is tho period of tho year when the visiting list is exceptionally full, and to this period the Yulotide rush is comparatively mild. As to the real globe-trotter, the Eotorua "permauonts" will tell you that at present the species seem to bo seeking tures of novelty—even unto Uganda! The sun is kind day after day, and one is glad that tho place is not overrun by. persons in the December-January days in a fever to "do" everything in a minimum of time. A Maori in a football jersey, scything along tho bowling green in tho Sanatorium grounds, is quite oblivious of the grandeur of Nature, and joins in the sighs of two comrades who' are manoeuvring with a heavy roller. A honeymooning couple, with clasped hands, gaze sympathetically at those whose-lot is so hard in these halcyon days. Telepathy does its work,' and the labourers in tuis held of State control "down tools" and stroll to a shady shrub for a laze and a smoke-oh! Tuo throbbing of a motor-driven lawn-mower; and tho croaking of tho frogs in tho water lily pond, provide the overture to the arrival of the orchestra, at the tea house. By this time the garden scats, plentifully dotted about, have fully a dozen occupants, while a lover and his lass, who are playing tennis a few degrees below Davis Cup form, contest the energy prize with the busy Halfrcy geysers. Such is the morning scene these hnc summer days in Kotorua's place of carnival. .

Seeking a Culprit, v ■ And who is to blame for the absence of the maddinj crowd in the early summer-timei\ Tho'.' secret is out; tracked down" by a local journal. "The relaxation in the volume of the' New Zealand tourist traffic may safely bo put down to want of advertising," it says. "Fifty years ago other countries realised this; the Dominion is just beginning to do so. .... The Tourist Department may have reasons for not-advertising Eotorua, but ono cannot but feel that in tho case of what is admittedly., the nation's spa, money spent in making it better known to the-outsido world would be anything but wasted.' Now the reason is apparent why the local Tourist Office has a small cannon of the lato H.M.S. Osprcy handily in position under tho front window;'but what' means of defence against this onslaught will .the authorities in, Wellington make? Some attention ought to be given to a Department which makes such dark t hints of suicidal intentions Possible- ■ Reports: from Whakarowarcwa are to the effect that the geysers arc still quiescent and doubtless they aro more determined than the Sanatorium orchestra and in their disgust decline to. play to comparatively empty benches. Mention of WhaKarowarowa reminds me that I went thero the other day. A friend, "Perkins," and I wero engaged discussing wars and w.arriors with a Maori and. a decadent pakcha, when .- a rumbling coach camo along and in reply to Hire* shrill blasts from a whistle tootled, by the driver we boarded it. It was a timely escape as tho. white.gentleman, who said that. he served at Woolwich Arsenal goodness knows how many years ago, and even now favoured the Armstrong guns to modern artillery, had just asked mo, as a student of gunnery, if I was aboard a warship going at fourteen knots an hour and wanted to hit a vessel travelling twenty, knots wbat defection would I allow? 'Yes, I was glad to leave Mm. • .

"Whaka" While You Wait, ■ . ,-'.' 'j ."You should see our domain," the proud." residont.of.the.inland country town- will t-ell you., v An<l nftcr- gazing rapturously at tlio town clock,, and admiring its chimes—onoo every quarter of an hour— you proceed to do so. Tho Rotorua citizen, as lie 1 languidly stifles a yawn, will remark that you should certainly- seo Whakarowarewa. And my haven from tho faded gunnery expert had this microcosm ,of Wonderland as its destination.' The stage-coach of Eotorua . township wanders around from boardihghonso to boardinghouso in search of tho gadding tourist, and a passenger is gtmerally given tho opportunity to see the whole of the main portion of the town before the driver sets his horses in tho direction of the sights. There was a lady passenger who was evidently making the trip to Eotorua with.feelings of trepidation and the travellers' tales' of the district which a party of three were indulging in very. visibly- alarmed her. When the coach stopped at Whakarowarewa the.sight of the clouds of steam' over tho volcanic area was quite enough for her, and she was well content to stand on tho' bridge at tho cntranco to the pa and watch a bevy of finely-proportion-ed Maori. girls, clad in the regulation bathing suit, dive for the "tixpenny." Many of the coins thrown aro nimbly caught, although.a great splash of makebelieve ensues to dispel that idea. It was a quiet day at Whaka—nothing doing at all in theway of big displays. A quarter of a mile square.is about the area of this notable snowplaco'of thermal activity. .

Perils for the Careless. ' - ".' The eccentricities of the more. noted pools are symbolised in their names— "porridge pots" and "cauldrons." In the absence of a l geys«r'9 stately column the "Cauldron," with its awesome mouth of. fiercely bubbling .water, some yards wide, took "Perkins's" photographic fancy, and i with camera focussed he was stepping down into the rocky basin'for a picture when an official appeared. Without any direct reference to "Perkins" ho pointed out where the solid rock ceased and the volcanic crust commenced, on which "he himself would not even venture." There were occasionally somo young men who, probably not realising tho quickly boiling properties of the pools, stamped round the crust "just to seo." "Some day one of them will Eee," said the official sen-' tentiously. "Perkins" then took his picture from a safer point, and his camera had barely snapped, when there was some commotion at a neighbouring pool. Heedless of tho many notice-boards roundabout asking visitors to keep to the paths, a lady had ventured too far, and her foot had slipped into a boiling pool. A severe fright preceded tho discovery that the injury was only 6light,and by then coach-time had'arrived, and we found that. on that day wo had practically drawn a blank in the wonderworld. "I can't understand why 'Pohutu' is not playing," one man remarked. I asked Perkins," and he said he could not either, so there was no need to inquire any-further. _ The Maori Dotes on Pictures. Whakarowarewa, it is saddening to say, is modernising. A picture show tells its melodramatic stories to wildly-enthused Natives weekly. Eotorua has two picture shows at prices rather staggering to city folk who dre' learning to take their kineriiatograph in threepenny doses. Tho European may travel weary miles to see geysers and such-like, but I think the Maori would outdo him .in distance in order to see a picture show. The Maori guide is a numerous quantity at "Whaka," about thirty all told, but they do not have to work eight hours a day just at present. When tho caretaker advises Eotorua, from his kraal-like office, that the geysers are busy, then the quickly responsive influx of sight-seers makes the guides busier. . (To bo continued.)