CHAPTER XIII
ACROSS THE SOUTHERN ALPS
“A wretched invention, forsooth, for people who wish to push on is ‘a line of retreat,’ an everlasting inducement to look behind, when they should have enough to do in looking ahead.”—Nansen.
When we were on the Hochstetter Dome, and subsequently, when we climbed Haidinger and De la Bêche, we saw, far below us, the silver streaks of rivers winding seaward through the sombre forests, and cast longing eyes adown the western slopes of the Alps. The more we saw the more we wished to go over. And what better way could we go than by some unknown pass at the head of the largest and most splendid of all our glaciers?
After our ascent of De la Bêche and the Minarets it was decided to try over the Lendenfeld Saddle, and down the left-hand branch of the Wataroa River. “About twenty miles down the coast” (from the Wanganui), writes Mr. Harper in the latest work on the Southern Alps, “is the Wataroa, another large river, draining the main range at the head of the Rangitata, Godley, and Murchison Glaciers. It has many large branches in the mountains, up which, no doubt, there are considerable snowfields and some fair-sized glaciers; but except the tributary coming from the Sealy Pass at the head of the Godley Glacier, it may be said to be terra incognita.” Mr. Roberts, of the Westland Survey Department, wrote in a similar strain. There were, he stated, many legends of people who had come over different passes from Canterbury in the early digging days, and stories of others who went up into unknown valleys and never returned; but amongst all these, he had never heard of anyone who had come down the left-hand branch of the Wataroa River.
On Thursday, the 18th February, the weather was fine, and Fyfe and I shouldered our packs, and started off once more for the Tasman Glacier. Our friends at the Hermitage came out to say good-bye and wish us good luck. “Take good care of yourself,” said my wife; and I replied, laughingly, that there was little danger. Fyfe had written to his wife to say that there was “absolutely none.” It was not like climbing a mountain; it would be just a walk. Such wretches we men are! For after all there might be danger. We could not tell. As I turned my back on the Hermitage and marched off over the tussocky shingle flats to the cage in which we had to pull ourselves across the Hooker River, I fell a-wondering if we should get over the pass and down through the unexplored country in safety. But it would never do for Britons to be poor fibreless mortals and to turn tail and run just because there was a spice of danger in an adventure. So what if there were risk? We should keep our eyes and our ears open, and go through in the face of it; and no sirens of the mountains, charm they ever so sweetly, should tempt us to destruction. We were Spartans for the moment, and our packs seemed feather-weights, as we swung out over the uneven plain in fine style, bound for our old bivouac some twenty-two miles ahead.
But such an inconsistent animal is man, that by the time we got half-way over the dreary shingle flats of the Tasman, the pace had relaxed somewhat, and the feather-weight packs of an hour ago began, in some mysterious manner, to be transmuted into lead. After leaving the shingle flat behind us, we strode out bravely once more; but, while walking up the hot valley, we were met by the Goddess of Indolence. And she, in her most insinuating manner, said men were fools to toil along with heavy swags on their backs under a broiling summer sun, and talked pleasantly of “to-morrow” and the cool of another morning. So, by the time the Blue Lake was reached, we had succumbed to her blandishments, and stopped there eating and drinking, in arcadian simplicity, by the lake-shore. Then we smoked and sauntered slowly over the remaining miles of the rocky track to the comforts of the Ball Glacier hut, and, once arrived there, wild horses would not have drawn us farther that night. Thus does the Spartan morning of the mountaineer too often end in lotus-eating afternoon!
And next morning we were in no great hurry to leave our beds. There was a red dawn, and we pretended that it was going to be bad weather—
“When the morning riseth red,
Rise not thou, but keep thy bed;