It goes against the grain with Dixon and me to turn back beaten from a peak. Indeed De la Bêche and Aorangi are the only ones to which we have lowered the colours of our grand old school—Christ’s College Grammar School, of Christchurch, New Zealand—and the latter we have since revenged ourselves upon. The former will not run away, and we are nursing a vindictive feeling against this noble triple-topped summit.
Descending very rapidly, glissading now and then in safe places, we reached the foot and struck over the Tasman Glacier again for our camp on the Malte Brun.
Well for us that we had turned from De la Bêche, for an hour from camp, Dixon, who had been complaining of not feeling up to the mark for some days and had been lagging—an unusual thing for him—was suddenly seized with violent cramp in the stomach and thighs. We thought at the time it was only temporary, consequent upon great physical exertion and drinking too much snow-water; but unfortunately he did not seem able to shake it off, and we had some difficulty in reaching camp over the maze of crevasses which occur in the glacier just where our Malte Brun Creek enters.
Here was a nice state of affairs. One of our best men gone wrong. How about Aorangi next week?
Saturday morning found us ‘tuckerless’ and hungry, and Dixon worse rather than better.
At 9 a.m. we struck camp and started for the Ball Glacier—really only four hours distant. Whilst taking some views an hour from camp we suddenly heard shouts down the glacier, and found that it was our trusty men, Annan and Low, who, being concerned about our lengthened absence from the lower camp, had come out to look for us.
Johnson, Low, and Annan took the bulk of the swags and started independently for the Ball Glacier, whilst I stayed to follow at a more leisurely pace with Dixon and the photographer. Dixon could only walk for a few minutes at a time and required to rest very frequently, so I sent Cooper on alone, not dreaming for a moment that he could go wrong in such simple ground, where no crevasses to speak of occurred.
ICE CAVE, TASMAN GLACIER