It is a thousand pities that the ennobling pursuit of mountaineering is so neglected in this wonderland of peaks and glaciers. Such advantages as we enjoy surely cannot exist much longer without calling out the spirit which lies dormant in hundreds of the lovers of adventure and worshippers of the beautiful in Nature, who live on in our midst from day to day in a conventional and monotonous round.
There are pleasures in the pursuit of adventure amongst the great snow-fields and glaciers which only those who are initiated can thoroughly enjoy.
Ask the man who goes climbing what these pleasures are, and he cannot tell you, he cannot define them—yet he feels them, and they are ever luring him on. They are indefinite, inexpressible; but there is a sort of ‘mountain fever’ which comes when one has once ‘lost one’s heart to the great mountains.’ In the work all a man’s best physical, and many of his mental, powers are brought out and strengthened. There is the energy, perseverance, and patience to last through a long day’s swagging, the pluck to face all sorts of dangers amongst the snow, ice, and rocks, combined with the prudence to know when, for the safety of oneself and the party, to give in and restrain enthusiasm. There are the qualities of organisation and system, for which plenty of exercise is found; indeed, one cannot overrate the benefits which accrue.
Let any who have indulged in different branches of athletics put their swags on their backs and go for a mountain climb, and I venture to say that there are greater opportunities for bringing their frames into good going order and testing their muscular abilities than can be met with in any school of athletics.
I have known men in England who have revelled in all our great national games, but who invariably put mountaineering at the head of the list after once having tasted the sweets of climbing and been captivated by the charms of the world above the snow-line.
To the artistic what do not the mountains offer? To the botanist, the geologist, the naturalist, the athlete, and even to the invalid? The strange new world one enters in sub-Alpine regions, the ‘foretaste of heaven’ one seems to get above the snow-line.
In out-of-the-way New Zealand we have all these benefits at hand, and yet we leave the opening out and exploration of our great glacier systems to foreigners and to visitors from distant lands.
But this is digressive, and I must tell the story of our third visit to the Tasman Glacier.
On the evening of March 23, 1889, the visitors at the Hermitage were suddenly moved to compassion, mingled with no small amount of amusement, in beholding through the fast-falling snow-flakes the arrival of a dog-cart and tandem.
The leader of the team, a big chestnut draught-mare, seemed to be doing all the work, and pulling along wheeler, cart and all. The travel-worn and weary occupants of the vehicle were Mr. M. J. Dixon and myself, and we had taken French leave for Mr. Huddleston’s chestnut at Birch Hill, six miles down the road from the Hermitage, our leader having almost given in after a 250-mile journey from Christchurch.