I rode through this settlement about one year after the arrival of the settlers. There were a certain number of huts, intended finally to be homesteads, in the course of being built. A few tracks formed the so-called roads. Some of the bracken was disappearing. But the ready money which the settlers, or some of them, had brought out with them had been spent, and the outlook was anything but cheerful. Further, the necessary conditions for the survey of the allotments--as required by the Government--had not been fulfilled. Consequently the settlers were unable to borrow any funds on their property, unless they applied to the Jews. This is many years ago, and, though I have not been there lately, I believe that it is now a most prosperous district. But how many of those courageous original settlers or their families are there now?
In connexion with the eruption at Ohinemutu there was an incident which it is worth while to record. Should it occur again, the record should act as a sure warning to the residents at Rotorua. Situated some thirty miles from the coast, to the eastwards of Tauranga, there is an island. It rises in the shape of a conical hill clean out of the sea. It was then known as Sulphur Island, or perhaps better as White Island. As a matter of fact it was an old volcano, though never quite extinct. On landing at this island you would have found that the conical hill was absolutely hollow, and that on its base, in the inside, level with the sea, lay a lake, whose waters were of the dark blue hue that only sulphur lakes can show. The specific gravity of the water is very heavy, much the same as that of the blue lake in the Mount Gambier district, in South Australia, at the top edge of which Adam Lindsay Gordon made his famous jump over a high fence. From both the inner and the outer crust of this shell mountain continually poured sulphur deposits, practically pure sulphur. On the outward side of the mountain this sulphur accumulated on the base, towards the beach. It was indeed a glorious sight, on a moonlight night, to look at this peak rising majestically from amidst the waves of mid-ocean, white as a sugar-loaf, as the rays of the moon bathed it with its silvery light.