WAITING FOR SUNRISE.
It was only a few minutes past midnight when our tent blew away, and we therefore had to pass six hours under the boulder before sunrise. The thermometer now indicated six degrees of frost, which was just six degrees less than we had experienced on the previous night, but then we had no wind, and we were now 2200 feet higher than then. Unpleasant as our situation was, it had its attractions. Looking down upon the surrounding country from the great height upon which we were placed (6200 feet above the sea), a weird and curious picture presented itself to the gaze. Immediately below us, and far and wide around, in front and to the right and to the left, rolled an apparently endless expanse of boulder-strewn scoria ridges, tossed about like the wild, chaotic waves of a frozen sea, and covered with a complete network of dark hues, which marked the winding course of gullies and ravines. Still further in front, and stretching in a broad expanse far below us, was a flat, white surface, like a snowy sheet of ice. This was the Rangipo Table-land, covered with a thick coating of frost. Beyond, again, rose a dark, frowning barrier, whose rugged outline lost itself in the distance as it stretched away to the north and to the south. These were the Kaimanawa Mountains, mantled in a cloud of mist. From the broad, white plain deep down to the left rose the dark, majestic form of Tongariro, around the summit of which its white steam-cloud coiled in a feathery circle, looking like a silvery diadem beneath the light of the moon, which shone with a glittering lustre upon the snows of Ruapehu, whose lofty summit seemed to touch the star-lit canopy above, while a magnificent aurora australis, the most brilliant I had ever beheld, shot across the heavens from the southward, and lit up the sky with its tongue of silvery fire. It was worth all the hardships we had undergone to gaze on this grand sight alone and to commune, as it were, with the colossal wonders of nature, wrapped in the stillness and beauty of night.
The whole scene, and the peculiar circumstances under which we viewed it, was one never to be forgotten, while it brought, as all grand and impressive sights will, the most vivid associations before the mind. I pictured to myself the many and extraordinary changes this wild region had gone through to arrive at the condition under which we beheld it. What singular and stupendous results had been brought about by forces and agencies now almost extinct! Time was when the colossal mountain on whose fire-scorched sides we were crouching, was made desolate by tremendous volcanic eruptions, which sent forth clouds of smoke and sulphurous gases, showers of rocks and ashes, and streams and rivers of lava. Then lurid flames lit up the hills for miles around, and darkening clouds of fiery sand swept far and wide over the surrounding country. Then a line of volcanic vents, like beacon-fires, illuminated the rocky headlands of the great mountains around, and every towering fastness rose hot and quaking with subterranean heat. Then a change came about—one of those mysterious convulsions of which we only dream—the volcanic fires ceased, and the yawning craters were filled with snow and the peaks crowned with ice, and, as the earth gradually cooled down, a glorious vegetation, moulded in the most beautiful and varied forms of the creation, spread itself far and wide over the country, and nature smiled in all her radiance upon this magnificent and romantic land.
At five o'clock in the morning the thermometer indicated seven degrees of frost, and the wind still blew in fitful gusts, which covered us with sand. The cold now was intense, and, as the moon had set, the wide scope of country around us looked unpleasantly dismal beneath its pall of darkness. Our outlook was towards the east, and as the time for daylight approached we watched anxiously for the first streak of dawn.
Just before six the thermometer went down half a degree, and a damp, chilly feeling pervaded the air. Darker, colder, and more dismal it grew, until suddenly, as if by enchantment, the black clouds opened in the east, and a fiery streak shot upward, bathing with its golden hues the darkened sky. At first everything around—the sky, the mountains, and the plains, the valleys, the rivers, and the lakes, the shining glaciers and the frozen snows—appeared one uniform creation of brilliant light, so brightly dazzling that the eye could scarcely bear the splendour, but as the clouds of night rolled swiftly away the glow became still more vivid, and as the blue mists rose in the valleys the tops of the distant mountains looked like islands rising from a vapoury ocean—an archipelago in a sea of gold. By degrees the bright lustre of the sun was softened with tints, first of red, and then light transparent crimson, changing through different hues, until the sky assumed a deep pure blue, which merged towards the east into glowing violet. The towering summit of Ruapehu took the colour from these changes, and every portion on which the varied tints fell appeared more beautiful than it had ever appeared before. The whole aspect of this sudden transformation from night into day was indescribably grand, and as the glowing sun warmed our nearly frozen limbs we seemed to gain fresh life and energy from the fact that another glorious day had dawned upon the earth.
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
RUAPEHU.
(Second Day.)
ASCENT OF THE GREAT PEAK.
The start—A lava bluff—Last signs of vegetation—Wall of conglomerate rock—The Giant Rocks—Ancient crater—Difficult climbing—A frightful precipice—The ice crown—Cutting our way over the ice—The summit—Peaks and crater—A grand coup d'œil—The surrounding country—Taking landmarks—Point Victoria.
As soon as we had made a hearty but very light breakfast, we started at once to make the ascent of the great peak, whose steep, snow-clad sides rose up at the end of the spur on which we had been camped. We got ourselves up as warmly as circumstances would allow. Our boots were stout, and capable of withstanding snow and ice; we wore thick overcoats belted round the waist, thick comforters round the neck, fur caps with flaps to protect the ears, while alpenstocks with flagstaff, and tomahawks to cut our way over the ice, completed our accoutrements.