On either hand fresh beauties opened out; De la Bêche on our left presenting the most wonderful face of sérac ice, streaked here and there with avalanche slopes, whilst on the right Mount Malte Brun—the Matterhorn of New Zealand—reared his great red precipices heavenwards, and further on the Darwin Glacier and Mount Darwin showed in a glorious light their magic splendour.
Now on our left we passed Mount Green, a fine precipitous cone of rocks and ice, and then we rose faster and faster as we edged on to the slopes of the great Hochstetter Dome on our right, whilst opposite, Mount Elie de Beaumont showered down his ice streams to join the Tasman.
Taking turns at leading, at last we came to what looked like the final rise. An exclamation broke from Johnson as he espied the new moon appear over the saddle ahead. It was a small matter, but it seemed to revive our failing energy and to call us on to victory to see the silver crescent apparently awaiting us on the snow ridge. Then a distant peak appeared—a wild cheer broke from us; another peak, and yet one more, followed by groups of twos and threes, dozens, hundreds—glaciers! forest! a river! the sea! the boundless ocean! ‘Hurrah!’ we shouted, ‘our tramp has not been in vain.’
Here we were in the heart of Nature’s solitudes, where only once before the foot of man had trodden the eternal snows.
We spent forty-five minutes refreshing the inner man and drinking in the glorious view, consulting maps, and reading the aneroid. The saddle was 8,600 feet high; the Dome was but 9,315 feet. Should we try it? Yes, we would.
At it we went, cutting many steps and crossing several awkward bergschrunds, until we reached a level plateau. Crossing this field we attacked the final slopes. It was terrific work, and the last pinch required 280 steps, all cut with the spike of the axe and deeply graven, as a slip in such a place would probably have meant the loss of the entire party in one of the crevasses in the slope below.
My hands were blistered with the axe work, but at 3 p.m. we were able to walk on the fast rounding-off slopes without steps, and soon we were on the summit, happy and flushed with victory. The mountain has a double top and we were on the western and slightly lower one.
What shall I say of the view from the Hochstetter Dome? It is comprehensive and wonderful. The whole country lay like a map before us. Westwards Elie de Beaumont and the western ocean, at our feet the Whymper Glacier, from which flowed the Wataroa River, threading its way through forest-and glacier-clad mountains to the sea, twenty miles away. Northwards and eastwards extended in glorious and shining array the magnificent chain of the Alps; glacier upon glacier, peak upon peak, range upon range of splendid mountains. Eastwards a fine rocky peak without a name and Mount Darwin, and looking south-westwards down the Tasman Glacier, from whence we had toiled our laborious way, the eye could follow the course of the great ice stream for twelve or thirteen miles, flanked by the grand mountains which sent down their tributary ice streams to join the mass in the valley below.
We gave three hearty cheers for her Majesty, and three for our proud little colony, and commenced the descent, going down backwards in the steps, and taking firm hold with our axes at every movement.