Rotorua is the
favorite place. It is the center of a rich field of lake and mountain
scenery; from Rotorua as a base the pleasure-seeker makes excursions.
The crowd of sick people is great, and growing. Rotorua is the Carlsbad
of Australasia.

It is from Auckland that the Kauri gum is shipped. For a long time now
about 8,000 tons of it have been brought into the town per year. It is
worth about $300 per ton, unassorted; assorted, the finest grades are
worth about $1,000. It goes to America, chiefly. It is in lumps, and is
hard and smooth, and looks like amber--the light-colored like new amber,
and the dark brown like rich old amber. And it has the pleasant feel of
amber, too. Some of the light-colored samples were a tolerably fair
counterfeit of uncut South African diamonds, they were so perfectly
smooth and polished and transparent. It is manufactured into varnish; a
varnish which answers for copal varnish and is cheaper.

The gum is dug up out of the ground; it has been there for ages. It is
the sap of the Kauri tree. Dr. Campbell of Auckland told me he sent a
cargo of it to England fifty years ago, but nothing came of the venture.
Nobody knew what to do with it; so it was sold at 15 a ton, to light
fires with.

November 26--3 P.M., sailed. Vast and beautiful harbor. Land all about
for hours. Tangariwa, the mountain that "has the same shape from every
point of view." That is the common belief in Auckland. And so it has
--from every point of view except thirteen. Perfect summer weather. Large
school of whales in the distance. Nothing could be daintier than the
puffs of vapor they spout up, when seen against the pink glory of the
sinking sun, or against the dark mass of an island reposing in the deep
blue shadow of a storm cloud . . . . Great Barrier rock standing up
out of the sea away to the left. Sometime ago a ship hit it full speed
in a fog--20 miles out of her course--140 lives lost; the captain
committed suicide without waiting a moment. He knew that, whether he was
to blame or not, the company owning the vessel would discharge him and
make a devotion--to--passengers' safety advertisement out of it, and his
chance to make a livelihood would be permanently gone.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Let us not be too particular. It is better to have old second-hand
diamonds than none at all.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

November 27. To-day we reached Gi