A climber in New Zealand

by Malcolm Ross

CHAPTER XVII

IN KIWI LAND—continued

“My summit calls. Its floors are shod

With rainbows laughing up to God.

But ah, the jagged ways and bleak

That give upon that lonely peak!”

Robert Haven Schauffler.

The time had now arrived for us, on this journey, to do a little climbing and some real exploration, so one morning early in May, and much too late in the season, Fyfe, Hodgkins, Kenneth, and I started off up the Cleddau River, with the object of making a first ascent of Tutoko, the highest mountain in Fiordland. The guide who convoys tourists overland to Milford from Te Anau and vice versa accompanied us. So far as we could ascertain from him, and from Sutherland, who had resided in these parts for about twenty-five years, no one had explored the head waters of this branch of the Cleddau, and the ascent to Tutoko had never even been attempted. We had three days in which to accomplish our undertaking, and as we were promised some rough travelling through the forest and over the river boulders, besides which there was the prospect of a difficult climb, we decided to push on with all haste. Our plan was to establish a camp, as far up the valley as we could the first day, climb the mountain on the second day, and on the day following return to the Sound. We started at 8 a.m., tracking through the bush behind Sutherland’s, and then skirting the right bank of the Cleddau, there a broad-flowing stream. We followed an old, disused bush-track cut by Sutherland some years previously, and then emerged on to a comparatively open piece of flat, with only a clump of trees here and there in the middle. Fyfe, who was still suffering terribly from neuralgia, could, bravely as he bore the pain, proceed no farther, and, greatly to our regret, and his own disappointment, he had to return to the Sound.

We carried, in addition to a tent, our sleeping bags, a camera, the ice-axes and Alpine rope, and provisions to last us four days. We were not likely to starve, whatever happened, as the valley abounded in game, and we had with us two dogs—Tubs, belonging to Sutherland, and Rover, belonging to the guide. Rover went about his work quietly, and in spite of our admonitions was continually bringing us kakapos he had killed. Tubs, on the other hand, roamed at large through the bush making a great noise but killing nothing—although on one occasion he very nearly succeeded in killing himself. But more of that later.

Proceeding for a mile or so over comparatively open ground, we were able to obtain a good view of our surroundings. Barren Peak, the end of the Barren Range, rose abruptly on our left, Mount Moreton towered massively in front, and on its right, up the left-hand branch of the Cleddau, we saw the mountains where it is supposed that young Quill lost his life in the attempt to discover a pass from Wakatipu to Milford Sound. His footprints were found on the brink of a precipice overlooking the left-hand branch of the Cleddau River, and, subsequently, his brothers, making search in the valley, on the Milford side, found a portion of a skull which may, or may not, have been his.

Some two and a half miles from the Sound the river forks. Turning abruptly to the left, we re-entered the forest, and then followed, for a few miles, the north branch of the river, now for seven or eight miles a foaming torrent, swollen with the rains, and hurrying seaward over its boulder-strewn granite bed. We struggled over and around these great slippery boulders, in some places balancing ourselves with difficulty, in others slipping knee-deep into pools of icy-cold water. Then, by way of variation, we would march back into the forest. On either side the trees came down to the water’s edge. The bush was wet and gloomy, and occasionally we sank to the knee in springing moss and decaying leaves. The trees were covered with moss and lichen; no sunshine penetrated, and, what with the gloom and the smell of rotting vegetation, a depressing influence is apt to steal over the stranger unused to such solitudes. All the time we heard the muffled roar of the river on our right, varied at intervals by the piercing scream of some kaka, hidden in the higher branches of the tall beech trees. Occasionally there was a loud barking from a distance. This was from Tubs, who was assisting at the death of some poor kakapo. Tubs did the barking, but Rover did the killing, and presently would turn up smiling, and looking very pleased with himself, because he had a full-sized kakapo in his mouth. Some of these birds were very fine specimens, and one old fellow, with bristling whiskers and dilapidated wings, we judged to be the patriarch of all Kakapo Land.

A number of streams that came down through the bush from the mountains on the left had cut deep channels for themselves, and, swag-laden as we were, we did not at all enjoy clambering down one steep bank and up the other. After a time we would get tired of this bush travelling, and, for the sake of variation, take to the boulders again. The nails in our boots could get no grip on the smooth wet granite, and it was sometimes entertaining to the last man to watch the peculiar gymnastic progression of those in front—albeit, if he let his eyes wander from the rock on which he was treading, he was soon, himself, providing a more entertaining exhibition. Our remarks were not frequent, but, as they might say in the parish of Drumtochty, a few purple adjectives were “aye slippin’ oot.” From the forest we could see nothing of the surrounding country: from the bed of the stream the view was superb. The coloured granite boulders, with the foaming river struggling over and around them, made a striking foreground, the graceful beech trees an exquisite middle distance, and the massive snow-clad mountains, towering high above, a noble background. We waited three-quarters of an hour for lunch and then journeyed on, as before, sometimes keeping in the river bed, at other times scrambling through the forest.

Near the head of the valley we came upon some open country, and obtained a good view of the mountains ahead, and of the ranges on either side. The mountains swept round the head of the valley in a grand amphitheatre. Straight ahead was a long, snow-filled couloir leading to a narrow col, on the right of which rose, abruptly, the serrated edge of a peak that held on its shoulder an ice-field of considerable extent. Then came another mass of rock, shelving gradually towards a larger glacier that occupied the heights to the north, and flowed low down into the valley. From the middle of this field of ice there rose a huge gendarme, or tower of rock—a landmark for miles around. On our right another narrow valley began to open out. A waterfall fell over a precipice opposite, and, a mile and a half distant, we could see a glacier leading up to the foot of a high peak with a beautifully rounded dome of snow close to it on the right. This peak we took to be Mount Tutoko, 9040 feet in height, though it was impossible to tell which was the higher of the two mountains, and only one was marked on the map. We judged that the right-hand one was the higher, as it stood farther back and carried the greater glacier, and so we made up our minds to attack it on the morrow. A critical glance at the lower portion of the glacier revealed séracs and crevasses, and it seemed as if we should have a fairly long climb. We had now to wade through the river, which we did with some difficulty. Then, crossing the flat, we followed the bed of a mountain torrent that came from the ice-field which we named the Age Glacier. We were less than a mile from the ice, but it took us a good hour, tired as we now were, to accomplish that distance. The bed of the stream got rougher and rougher as we proceeded, and at last we were forced to the bush, through which the leader proceeded, bill-hook in hand, slashing every few steps at some sapling or branch that barred the way. It seemed strange to be carrying ice-axes in such a place. The last bit of the journey was over an old moraine covered with dense forest. At length, shortly after sunset, we emerged from the bush, and, with a sigh of relief, threw off our swags, for our day’s work was happily at an end.

While two of us went on to reconnoitre the lower part of the route, the other two pitched the tent and boiled the billy. After supper we partially dried our wet clothing, and then turned into our sleeping bags for the night. We were too tired to talk; but I listened for a time to the crackling of the camp fire, the murmur of the stream, and the strange cries of the night birds that were now wandering through the forest in search of food. Kiwis and kakapos appeared to be about us in plenty, but more especially the latter. The kakapo breeds every second year, three or four young ones being found in each nest; but the kiwi lays only one egg. As if to compensate for this difference, the little kiwi is a very independent fellow, while Master Kakapo, on the other hand, requires a considerable amount of attention before he can shift for himself. The kiwi is out of the nest almost as soon as he is out of his shell. There are four species of kiwi, but, so far as I know, only one kind of kakapo. Both birds are easily tamed, and make interesting pets, the kakapo in particular being a very affectionate fellow. A professor friend of mine—when he lived in a hut on the wild West Coast, in the days before he was a professor—had one that became very much attached to him. They are practically blind in the daytime, and, on our return, we caught one on the track in the Clinton Valley. He was staggering about, and bumping up against the trees just as if he had been out all night and was coming home with the milk. Lying in my sleeping bag there, I could hear also the strange whistle of the weka, that other curious, flightless bird with his strange feathers, his long beak, and his rudimentary wings. He is distributed over a very wide area in New Zealand, and is so fearless a bird that he will come right into your tent and even eat out of your hand. He is, however, an inveterate thief, and particularly fond of walking off with any little bright thing that you may happen to leave lying about the camp. He is very fat and oily under the skin, and if, by any chance, you require to use him as food, you must boil him before you grill him. He has, however, such a friendly, confidential, inquisitive way with him that you would never dream of killing him unless you were hard put to it in the matter of provisions. He is not found in large numbers about Milford Sound. Perhaps the climate is too damp for him.

One of the handsomest birds found in the sounds and on the southern lakes is the crested grebe, which builds its nest under scrub or overhanging bushes near the water’s edge. These beautiful birds are much rarer than either the kakapo or the kiwi. The kea—in some localities so destructive of sheep—is also to be met with in the Alpine parts of Fiordland; but in these localities he knows nothing of sheep, and is still a vegetarian. He comes into this story elsewhere, and, of all the New Zealand birds, he is the one that is most fascinating to the mountaineer. Duck of various species are met with, the most interesting being the blue mountain duck, who has a peculiar whistling note, and who seems almost to have lost the use of his wings.

Other interesting birds frequently met with on our journey were the kaka (a tree parrot), the wood pigeon, the New Zealand thrush, and the orange-wattle crow. The Notornis Mantelli, of which there are only four specimens in existence, once inhabited this region, but is now, to all intents and purposes, extinct. No specimen has ever been taken alive. The last one found was killed by a guide’s dog in the vicinity of Lake Te Anau, and was sold to the Dunedin Museum for quite a large sum. A good specimen would now fetch as much as £500. As a matter of fact an agent, acting for Lord Rothschild, wanted to buy the last one found, and offered a sum considerably larger than was offered by the New Zealand authorities; but the guide, being a patriotic New Zealander, accepted a much smaller sum rather than let the specimen go out of the country. It is just possible that a very few more specimens of this handsome bird may be found in the unexplored wilds of Fiordland; but there cannot be very many more left. The gigantic moa, which once wandered over the upland plains of Lakeland, is, of a surety, extinct. If one specimen could be found, it would be a prize indeed. At present the birds of Fiordland have few if any natural enemies, and none of the commoner kinds are likely to become extinct for years to come, unless through the ravages of ferrets, stoats, weasels, and cats that have been introduced into the neighbouring country with a view to keeping down the rabbits on the sheep runs—a kind of acclimatization that is almost criminal.

But in following the birds I have wandered off the track, so, now, let us return to our mountain. Next morning the old familiar clink of the ice-axes on the rocks of the moraine sent a thrill of pleasure through us, while a sniff of the keen mountain air, and the prospect of a stiff climb, cheered us onward, as, leaving behind the depressing gloom of the dark, trackless forest, we resolutely strode forward to attack our peak.

We could not help remarking on the purity of the glacier, and the almost complete absence of moraine, owing, no doubt, to the hardness of the granite rock of which the mountains in this region are composed. In similar situations in the vicinity of Mount Cook there would be long slopes of scree on the mountain sides, and the snout of the glacier would be buried under a morainic accumulation. Here the clear ice flowed, unencumbered, to the terminal face. As we climbed the rocky buttresses above our camp we observed on this glacier—of which we were the discoverers—a fine mass of sérac ice from which blocks came crashing down on to the lower part of the glacier. A great deal of this broken ice had fallen at one time or another, and, while we were scrutinizing the glacier for a safer route, a splendid avalanche thundered down. The glacier was steep, and the ice hard, so that there would have been much arduous step-cutting by that route, even if we could have avoided the ice-fall. We therefore kept to the rocks, and made our way upwards, zigzagging, by ledges, through a series of precipices.

Homeward Bound.

On leaving the old lateral moraine, we crossed a stream that issued from an enormous cleft in the granite. We then commenced the ascent proper. The rock, except where it was absolutely precipitous, or actually overhung, was clothed with a slippery grass, alternating with Alpine plants and shrubs, and, though this vegetation seemed to give good hold, we, not being used to it, did not care to trust it too much, so that at first our motto was “Slow but sure.” One or two vertical bits of rock gave us some little trouble at the start, and the dogs soon had to give the ascent best. The irrepressible Tubbs had a narrow escape here, tumbling over backwards, but managing to pull himself up just in the nick of time on the verge of an awful precipice, thus escaping certain and ignominious death, as it were, by the skin of his teeth. Our guide, at this point, apparently, thought discretion the better part of valour, and returned to the camp. From an upper ledge we shouted instructions to him to have a soft bed and a good supper ready for us on our return, but not to be alarmed if we did not come back that day, for, if the peak were worth doing, and should prove difficult, we might spend the night out on the rocks.

After some time we reached the crest of a ridge overlooking the ice-fall, and saw, stretching away before us, a beautiful snow slope that led, in gentle undulations, to the steeper ice slope that barred the way to the final peak. We progressed rapidly over this plateau, the snow being just soft enough to permit of our getting a good grip with the nails in our boots. The peculiarity of the glacier was its purity. Not a stone of any kind was to be seen on its surface. Our route now lay plainly before us. By making a slight detour we could easily avoid the bergschrunds and crevasses that extended from the ice-fall almost to the head of the plateau. From that point there was the slope of frozen snow, up which we should have to cut steps to the final rocks. These rocks might afford us half an hour’s scramble, and then, heigh presto! Tutoko would be conquered. Already we counted our victory won. We were confident of topping the peak by 2 p.m. at the latest. Alas! we were never more mistaken in our lives.

We stopped in the middle of the plateau for a morsel of lunch, and divested ourselves of our superfluous clothing, which, under such circumstances is always a mistake, and for which we were heartily sorry afterwards. Close at hand on our right rose a splendid rock peak, with a steep snow couloir leading up to a shattered pinnacle—

“The fretwork of some earthquake—where the clouds

Pause to repose themselves in passing by.”

This we thought of attacking on our return, so confident were we of gaining an easy victory over Tutoko.

The snow on the plateau was so hard, and the crevasses and schrunds were so marked, that we never dreamt of putting on the rope till Kenneth, who was leading, cut a step or two up a short, steep, curving slope, and found himself on the edge of a yawning bergschrund. The mountaineering authorities define a bergschrund as a big crevasse with its upper edge higher than its lower edge. Here, however, was a schrund that, paradoxical as it may seem, had a curving lower lip that rose above its upper edge, and so it happened that as we were proceeding up the glacier we found ourselves on dangerous ground before we were aware of it. But the snow was so hard that even this thin overhanging lip would have held the whole party safely. We deemed it wise, however, at this stage, to put on the rope, and we bore away to the right to avoid other schrunds, eventually reaching the crest of the range and overlooking a pass that led down into the Holyford. Here there were some most remarkable pinnacles of rock, and the radiation of the heat from one of the larger buttresses had melted the ice of the plateau, which stood back from it in a beautiful amphitheatre some forty or fifty feet thick. This we named the Colosseum. The ice at the top was a pure white, but gradually merged into beautiful tints of bluish green lower down, where, owing to the greater pressure, it was more compact. The bold granite battlements, rising above the delicately tinted Colosseum ice, half in sunshine, half in shadow, and the broad expanse of the plateau combined to make as effective an Alpine picture as could well be imagined, and we now longed for the camera which our tired shoulders had rebelled against carrying beyond the head of the valley. Cameras were heavy in those days.

From the Colosseum to the final snow slope was but a few hundred yards, and up to this point we were well satisfied with our progress. Now, however, our troubles began. The névé was so hard that every step had to be cut with the pick end of the axe. Midway up the slope was an overhanging wall of ice, and up to this we cut steps, only to find, when too late, that we could not surmount the obstacle, so we turned abruptly to the right and made a traverse to where the wall ran out. Then we made a more difficult traverse back again, above the wall, and, ascending gradually, after a good deal of left-handed step-cutting, we gained the final rocks. These, to our dismay, we found glazed with ice. It was the penalty we paid for coming so late into these low latitudes.

At the point where we first gained the rocks, they were so steep and so glazed with ice that it was practically impossible to get on to them. There was nothing for it but to make a traverse along the slope for some distance in the hope of finding an easier place at which to attack them. Kenneth led round here, the step-cutting being arduous. Sometimes he was out of sight round a corner, and while he was chipping away, we held on with our axes and stood firmly in the steps till he called to us to move on a step or two. The ice chips went swishing down the slope over the ice wall and into a bergschrund at the top of the plateau. Occasionally we were able to hook the rope over a projecting knob of rock, but, for the most part, the rocks afforded no hold. Kenneth, however, made the steps wide and deep, and, so long as we moved one at a time, managed the rope skilfully, and kept our heads half as cool as our feet were, the danger was practically nil, for everything above was frozen, and there could be neither avalanche nor falling rock to fear. Still the situation was sufficiently exhilarating, and Hodgkins afterwards informed us that on mature reflection he had come to the conclusion that the pictures in the Badminton book on mountaineering, instead of being, as he had at one time imagined, greatly exaggerated, were wonderfully true to nature.

With this sort of work hour after hour slipped by, and still our peak looked down defiantly on us. At length, when we did get on to the rocks, progress was slower than ever, and, eventually, we had to turn back from the line of route we had selected and take to an ice-filled couloir that was both steep and slippery, with smooth slabs of rock showing through, in places, just under the ice. Up this we slowly hacked our way and gained some broken rocks above, where the climbing was still difficult. In one place the rocks were perpendicular, and, owing to the ice and the nature of the rock, the holds were few and far between. The ice had to be chipped off the rocks, and it rained down on the heads and hands of those below with rather unpleasant force, till at length we reached the highest rocks, and called a halt. The views were splendid. On the one hand was the valley of the Holyford, on the other that of the Cleddau. Inland, we looked over a wilderness of peaks rising, near at hand, in savage grandeur, and farther away mingling and fading in the dim haze of distance. But all the while

“the broad sun

Was sinking down in his tranquillity,”

and, as we had spent hours on those rocks and ice slopes where we only expected to spend minutes, it behoved us to think of the descent. There was a further pinnacle of the peak above us, and, earlier in the season, with the rocks in good condition, we should have waltzed up it in quick time. But now, with the rocks in this frozen state, it was clear that there would be step-cutting—and difficult step-cutting at that—all the way, and not only step-cutting but the uncovering of the rock itself, so that if we wished to get off the mountain in daylight, it was already high time to think about the descent. We took one last look around, and, then, very slowly, and cautiously, with our faces to the mountain, we climbed down, the last man, when opportunity offered, hitching the rope around some pinnacle, so that the others might descend more safely. We had turned none too soon, for just as we reached the foot of the rocks the sun, in a blaze of golden glory, pushed his rosy rim behind a bank of westering cloud, and all the choicest and most delicate tints from Nature’s palette seemed blended in the evening sky above the far away mountain-tops. Someone has wisely said, or written, that if you must have a sunset in your book, by all means have it, but let it be a short one; and in this case we must perforce follow such excellent advice, for we had scarce time to notice detail, though we could not help every now and then stealing a glance from our icy staircase to the glowing west beyond.

But there was no time to stop. The keen air and the gathering gloom warned us to get off those steep and slippery ice slopes before dark. But it would have been dangerous to hurry, so down we went, faces to the wall, with no sound to break the silence save the clink! clink! clink! of our axes in the ice, and an occasional admonition from Kenneth to the plucky Hodgkins to take the steps faster. But Kenneth’s legs are long and Hodgkins’s legs are short, and, as the steps had been made at intervals to suit the former, it was not so easy for the latter to comply with the request. Still we made good progress, considering the difficulties, and at length emerged from the shadow of the peak into the moonlight which now gleamed on the final slope just above the plateau. Here we had adventures. The temptation to indulge in a glissade was too strong to be resisted, so, unfastening myself from the rope, I made a traverse across the slope so as to evade the bergschrund below, and started off on a standing glissade. But the slope was steeper, and the snow harder, than I imagined, and, though I used my axe as a brake with all the skill I could, I quickly lost control, and went whirling down at an alarming speed. Away went my hat and away went my axe, but I just managed to keep my feet till, with strange gyrations of arms and legs, I landed, breathless with excitement, on the gentler slopes of the plateau, 300 or 400 feet below. The others, profiting by my experience, came down more slowly, trusting simply to the hold they obtained with their axes, for we had made no steps here in going up. All went well till Kenneth suddenly found Hodgkins whizzing past him down the slope in the direction of the bergschrund. Kenneth, however, was equal to the emergency, for, quick as thought, he clutched the slack of the rope with one hand, and dug his axe into the slope with the other, bringing his companion up with a round turn a few feet below him. Once off these slopes the strain of the past few hours was at an end, and we ran down the plateau in the moonlight to where we had left our coats in the morning. Here we hastily donned them, and then continued our race across the plateau. On the last snow slopes we had to slow down, as the gradient was steeper, and the snow was now frozen quite hard. The ice fall was a glorious sight in the clear moonlight.

Once off the snow, it was not an easy matter to keep to our route, and, lower down, in the shadow of the valley, the difficulty was increased. All things considered, however, we managed to hit off the route wonderfully well; but, at last, in the darkness, we were completely stuck up at a point not more than 2000 feet above our camp. There was only one way by which we could descend, but all our efforts to find the exact spot were unavailing. I tried to the right in several places, making an awkward traverse across a steep and slippery wall of granite, and, eventually, on finding myself hanging over the face of an awesome precipice above the glacier, I gave up the search. On rejoining my companions we held a short council of war, with the result that, rather than risk an accident, we decided to stand the night out on the mountain. There was no shelter where we were, nor any dry grass nor fern with which to make a comfortable bivouac, but, luckily, the night was fine. The temperature fell quickly, and the provoking part of the situation was that, only some 2000 feet below, we could see the glimmer of our camp fire—so near and yet so far. We shouted and jodelled to our guide in hopes that he would hear us, come up to the foot of the cliff, and give us a clue to the route; but all our shouting and jodelling were in vain. The only answer was the rumble of an avalanche from the séracs opposite, and visions of the soft bed and the hot supper that we had been longing for quickly faded away. We were none too warmly clad, and we had but a limited stock of provisions—three small scones and the scrapings of a tin of jam, which we now disposed of, washing the crumbs down with a drink of icy cold water from a little pool in a rock close at hand.

The temperature continued to fall till by ten o’clock it was several degrees below freezing-point, and the pool of water on the rock became a frozen mass. We selected a spot where there was a comparatively flat rock about a dozen yards long, on which we might promenade at intervals to keep up the circulation. The stars shone in a wonderfully clear sky, star beyond star, until they seemed to melt or mingle into a pale glow in the realms of illimitable space.

“No one,” says Stevenson, “knows the stars who has not slept, as the French say, à la belle étoile. He may know all their names and distances and magnitudes, and yet be ignorant of what alone concerns mankind—their serene and gladsome influence on the mind.” There is a great deal of truth, though not, perhaps, the whole truth in this bit of Stevensonian philosophy. But, at any rate, it is in such bivouacs as these that one realizes to the full the wondrous beauty of the Southern constellations: not of the Southern Cross itself—which, one might almost say, is a feeble thing as compared with the regal radiance of those seven resplendent suns of The Great Bear that have scarce changed their positions since the days of Ptolemy, two thousand years ago—but of the Southern firmament as a whole. I have heard English-men profess their disappointment with their first view of the Cross and its attendant constellations; but let them sail to the far South, or camp, in late autumn, in the high mountains, or even go out on one of our clearer winter nights, and they will begin to understand our pæan. One can easily comprehend their first disappointment, for, in the same way was I, too, disappointed, when, sailing through tropic seas, I first saw The Bear, and, also, later, in England. But soon it began to dawn upon me that neither the haze of smoky London nor the moist summer air of southern England was the medium through which one should search for the beauty of the heavens; and, finally, one clear, dark night, in the Isle of Arran, I began to form a higher estimate of the beauty and magnitude of the Northern constellations—an estimate that was more than justified, when, later in the year, after witnessing the most gorgeous sunset imaginable from the summit of a pass in the High Carpathians, I descended into the darksome valley, and saw The Great Bear, in all his glory, with his two pointers leading the eye on to the Pole Star, serene and immovable in his place in the Northern sky. Nevertheless, I must still hold that our Southern firmament bears the palm, and more especially that part of the Milky Way—invisible in the North—that is strewn with millions of bright stars, and that glows with the nebulous mingled haze of still more distant myriad suns.

One begins then to realize that

“To other worlds that spin in space

Our world looks just a shining star.”

But, perhaps, I shall be told that one whose ignorance of astronomy is in inverse ratio to his knowledge of mountains cannot be trusted to make comparisons; and I quite agree that it is as futile to attempt comparisons between groups of stars as between groups of mountains, for each has a beauty and a grandeur that cannot be justly estimated the one against the other. And, moreover, no author, however obscure, can afford to have a charge of parochialism levelled at his head in regard to the firmament, though, mind you, there are people quite ready to take up this attitude, as I myself know, for I once heard a young lady clinch an argument with an acquaintance, about the relative beauties of their cities, with this triumphant assertion, tacked on to an admission—“Well, your harbour may be beautiful; but, you should see the moon we have in Auckland!”

But I have been drawn, by this dissertation on the stars, from the matter in hand. We certainly had full opportunity of studying the beauty of the Southern stars that night. A cold wind began to sigh through the rocks, and it was not long before we commenced to tramp resolutely up and down our rocky platform, marking time to a song sung, or a tune whistled. This got somewhat monotonous after about half an hour, and, for a change, we lay down in the lee of some detached rocks near our platform and tried to sleep. But granite rock is not exactly a feather mattress, and the Milky Way makes rather a cool counterpane, so it was not long before we had resumed our platform march. Then we coiled up once more in the shelter of the rocks. At first it was “one man one rock,” but experience, which teaches many things, subsequently taught us that “three men one rock” resulted in a greater conservation of bodily warmth, albeit the outside man got somewhat the worst of the bargain, and was always the first to resume the march. However, we were sufficiently magnanimous to take turn about on the outside, and in this way we did fairly well, and some of us even managed to sleep. We spent the night in half-hours under the rock trying to sleep, and half-hours perambulating the narrow platform, singing songs, telling stories, making speeches, and trying to get warm again. But the hours passed so slowly that after a time we were afraid to look at our watches. For once we thought an autumn night unnecessarily long; and, truth to tell, we would willingly have exchanged all the glories of the Southern Cross for a hot supper, our warm sleeping bags, and a glowing camp fire. I tried to console myself with the fact that this cold, autumn bivouac was better than our midsummer one on Aorangi on that terrible night when the snow, drifting higher and higher every hour, threatened to overwhelm us, when the lightning played around us, and the incessant thunder shook the tottering ridge. We had endured all that with a Mark Tapleyan philosophy and some pretence of jollity, so that now, when the elements were propitious, we were not so much inclined to grumble, but rather cheered ourselves with the thought that when morning dawned one should have gained a new experience. And so we talked and joked and sang; and had anyone chanced that way an hour after midnight he would have been amused, and mayhap astonished, to see three yawning and shivering mountaineers, with hands deep in pockets and hats tied down over ears, solemnly marking time on the rock to the strains of a weird melody from Kenneth’s répertoire.

But notwithstanding all our inventions the night seemed long. Some kola wine which we doled out at intervals in small doses kept away hunger and, we imagined, had a sustaining effect. And, somehow, the hours did pass. The stars began to lose their lustre and fade slowly away, till only one dim twinkling orb was left—

“And east and west, without a breath,

Mixt their dim lights, twixt life and death,

To broaden into boundless day.”

With the first streak of dawn I set about the putting on of my boots, which I had discarded during the night for tennis shoes; but I now found them hard frozen. However, by sitting on them, one at a time, for ten or fifteen minutes, I thawed them out sufficiently to permit of my getting my feet into them.

With the daylight we saw our route clearly enough—not fifty yards from where we had spent the night. We were not long in hurrying down to the tent. Once again beside the cheery camp fire we felt happy, and not one jot the worse for our strange experience and our five-and-twenty hours on the mountain, though inclined to agree with one of Crockett’s characters that “a reeking dish of porridge is the delightsomest of scenery to a famished man.”

After breakfast we lost little time in packing up, and then we marched back down the valley through the forest primeval to Milford Sound. From there we commenced the long trudge back over the pass and down the Clinton Valley to Lake Te Anau. The weather, which had been remarkably fine for the past three or four days, showed signs of breaking, and by the time we had crossed Lake Ada we saw we were in for a drenching. We had very hard work getting the big boat back up the Arthur River to the upper landing, and at several places in the rapids the four rowers had to get out and push, waist-deep in water. Once or twice we thought we should have to abandon our task altogether, but eventually perseverance and determination won the day. A gentle rain had begun to fall, so we hurried on to the Beech Huts, where we arrived in a rather moist condition early in the afternoon.

Next morning we again shouldered the inexorable swag, and started off up the pass. Before we quitted the huts we had a “cleaning-up,” and left the place in as orderly a condition as we could. It was raining heavily as we commenced to climb the steep incline into the bush—heavily and hopelessly, and not even the Mark Tapley of our party could prophesy a change for the better. The mountains had shrouded themselves, and the waterfalls were riotous. But above us, in the branches of the trees, undeterred by rain or storm, the birds sang cheerily, and now and again a kakapo blundered across the track, blinded by the daylight. Before we had gone far we were soaked to the skin, and the track was naturally heavier and more difficult to climb. Soon we got out of the forest into the low scrub. Then came the steep pull up the tussocky slopes, down which, ten days before, some of us had attempted to glissade. Now there was no remnant of the snow that then lay so thickly on the pass, but the foot sank deep in the marshy ground, and numberless little noisy streams bore witness to the heavy rains and melting snow.

On the top of the pass a strong wind was blowing, ruffling the sullenly grey surface of the tarns, and whistling through the tussocks. Near the cairn built there we went to the edge of the great wall of granite which falls sheer to the valley below. Far down lay the Mintaro Lake and hut, mere specks in the misty distance. The mountains in front of us loomed up through the mist, that, lifting a little, gave us a glimpse of the spun silver of a waterfall or the rugged grandeur of a granite peak. But there was still some distance to go before we reached our little haven, and on we trudged, serenely conscious that by this time it was quite impossible to get any wetter. A little care was necessary in the descent, but soon the Clinton River was waded, and the Mintaro Hut reached. There, before a blazing fire, a council of war was held as to the advisability of going on farther that day. It was urged that the next hut was more comfortable and drier, and could easily be reached by dusk; so, after some hot tea, we took up our swags and plodded on down the Clinton Valley, now a wonderful sight with countless waterfalls streaming over the dark rocks. Wet and a little tired with the heavy walking, we reached the half-way hut at 6 p.m.

There is a delicious feeling of virtuous well-being when—after a weary tramp—clothes are changed, and, pannikins in hand, all gather round the huge log fire that crackles so cheerily up the great wooden chimney. No tea—even be it the finest Pekoe, enriched with the thickest of cream and sipped from the daintiest Dresden—tastes like “billy” tea. We had quite a festive appearance as we sat round the fire that evening. One man especially, who sported a white “sweater,” gave a gala air to the proceedings, and my wife’s pink-and-white dressing-gown was, at any rate, a piquant contrast to her “business suit” in which she had climbed the pass, waded the swollen streams, and cheerily held her own in the long day’s march. Tea over and the dishes washed—lately we had hit upon the idea of this being taken in alphabetical order—four of us settled down to whist. The others read, smoked, talked, or lounged in their bunks. For the labour was all but over. To-morrow was a mere afternoon stroll: to a certain extent our ambitions had been realized, and our expectations fulfilled, and though the rain continued and the jealous mists still hid everything up and down the valley from us, we were happy. Hot cocoa and then early to bed was voted the correct thing, and all slept soundly that night.

In the morning the rain was still steadily falling, and there was little hope of its clearing. We waited two or three hours, and then started for Te Anau. On the way down I stopped to take a photograph of Quintin MacKinnon’s Hut, standing lonely and tenantless amid the tall beech trees on the picturesque banks of the Clinton River. As we neared the lake we heard the steamer’s whistle echoing up amongst the mountain heights, and a few minutes later, with a fervent “Thank Heaven!” we slung our swags on the floor of the hut at the head of Lake Te Anau.

This being our last night in the wilds,—for to-morrow we should be, winds and waters concurring, in the comfortable hotel at the foot of the lake,—we resolved to have a concert—a smoking concert. After a substantial tea, and the usual whist contest, seats were taken on the bunks, the table, and a bench, which had an amusing habit—amusing, at least, to the onlookers—of tipping up suddenly unless it were evenly balanced. Everyone had to sing, no excuse being taken. Medical certificates, physical disabilities, were of no avail; each was to give one verse, to which was to be appended—by the whole company—the rousing refrain of “Rule Britannia!” One could scarcely imagine a more unmusical set than we were, taken as a whole, but everyone did his best. One warbled a love ditty in a voice that was perhaps tremulous with emotion; another—from a dim corner, where he blushed unseen—a sailor’s song; while the last man, when it came to his turn, made a hasty retreat to the door, only to be brought back forcibly by his coat-tails. When he again took his seat, he brought down the house by a spirited rendering of “The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo,” displaying a talent which none of us had ever given him the credit for possessing. An encore was insisted on, and by the time we had all sung again we were certain of at least one thing—the refrain of “Rule Britannia.” The captain and the engineer, who were in the steamer, had been asked up to join in our convivialities, but they did not put in an appearance. Away down in the dim shadows one could now and then catch the notes of the latter’s flute, and I have no doubt they could hear something of our so-called musical attempts. To finish up our concert, Kenneth was called upon for “The Wild Colonial Boy,” as sung by him on Mount Tutoko. I can see him now, his handsome bronzed face and dark eyes lit up by the firelight, waving his pipe backwards and forwards in time to the tune, and singing the lawless ditty with the greatest vigour, while all of us, in a delightfully promiscuous way, shouted the refrain—

“We’ll gallop o’er yon mountains,

And roa-m o’er yon plains,

And scorn to die in slave-ry,

Bound down in i-ron chains.”

It was a song, with endless verses, of the old bush-ranging days in Australia. The exploits of the gang were belauded, and they themselves were made out to be great heroes, whereas, as a matter of law and justice, they should all have been hanged! However, this perversion of sentiment did not detract from the merits of the song as a song, and so we all vigorously demanded an encore, which was promptly given.

Someone says that there is a certain pain always in doing anything for the last time, and certainly as we said “Good-night” on this our last day in the Clinton Valley, most of us must have wished ourselves able to put Time’s dial-hand back. The merry evening in that hut will be among our many pleasant memories of the trip—a trip in which one and all worked heartily, often in the face of impediments and dangers, from the beginning to the end. Fyfe and Kenneth had laboured under difficulties, the former suffering terribly from neuralgia, and the latter having, from the second day out, a heel on which there was a section of raw flesh the size of a two-shilling piece. How he managed to climb at all under such circumstances was often a puzzle to me. Hodgkins, who was comparatively new to such rough work, did remarkably well; while the good-natured Ziele was invaluable in camp. My brother John surprised us with the cool manner in which he threw another man’s camera in addition to his own heavy swag over his shoulders, lit his pipe, and strolled without apparent effort, smoking all the time, to the top of the pass; and last, but not least, my wife was all times, I think, the cheeriest and the pluckiest of the party.

Next morning there was a big flood in the Clinton, and the river had overflowed its bounds to such an extent that it was no easy matter getting to the steamer. The men waded out with the swags and cameras and afterwards pushed a boat up the edge of the stream for my wife and me. Into this we got, and once fairly out in the current we were shot down like a cork into the quieter and safer waters of the lake.

And now shall I attempt to describe our sail down the wonderful lake? I am afraid I can do it but scant justice. There was no gale to vex the waters through which our little craft cut her way. The rain had ceased, and the heavy pall of ashen grey was slowly but surely resolving itself into noble piles of cumuli. Peak after peak came out, here black with overhanging precipice, yonder, where less steep, snow-flecked. And ever and anon the cloud masses that were slowly rent asunder would, more slowly still, with ever-varying change, heal themselves up again and softly drape the beetling crags. Now a peak would be hidden completely; then the clouds would break, revealing with startling suddenness some rocky pinnacle high in heaven. Farther down the sun came out, and the mists formed themselves in bands athwart the lower hills. The high mountains at the head of the lake slowly recede. On our right a purple cone flecked with new snow rises above the mists and then is cloaked as with a thick veil. A black promontory, with tree-serrated edge, clear cut against a bank of sunlit mist, juts out ahead. Mists and high snow-capped mountains on the right, trees and the low land on the left; away up the North Fiord a patch of blue sky; and southward gleams of green. Below us the dark waters of the great lake; and yonder, on Lone Island, standing out against the sombre trees, left by some long-melted glacier, a granite obelisk—MacKinnon’s monument. Our journey is coming to an end, and in the gloom of this restful autumn evening a feeling in which there is a tinge of sadness steals over those of us who are such barbarians as to enjoy a taste of the nomad’s existence. And ever I find my thoughts recurring to the fate of the lost explorers of Fiordland—Mainwaring Brown, William Quill, and Quintin MacKinnon. Widely different in temperament, in character, and in education, each had the same love of undefiled nature, and each had felt the fascinating spell of the great unexplored mountain region.

“Gone to Lake Gertrude Saddle, and trying to get down to Cleddau Valley.—Will Quill, 15/1/91, 7 a.m.” Thus ran the last words of Quill’s diary, written on a paper bag and left in the tent at the foot of Homer’s Pass. In endeavouring to find a way to Milford he probably slipped and fell over a precipice. Mainwaring Brown perished, no one knows how, in endeavouring to find a pass from Manapouri to Hall’s Arm; and poor MacKinnon, who had gone through many adventures by flood and field, was no doubt knocked off his boat by the boom in some sudden squall, and drowned in the lake. Brave fellows all of them. Of the manner of their going hence we know little, but of this we may be sure, that when the time came for them to leave for that other country,

“Where ends our dark, uncertain travel;

Where lie those happy hills and meadows low,”

there would be no flinching nor bemoaning, but that bravely and unmurmuringly they would depart. The charm of the unexplored, of the sombre forests, of the beautiful rivers, and of the giant mountains seemed to beckon them on—on to unknown graves.