Long in one place she will not stay,
Back from your brow she brushes the curls,
Kisses you quick, then runs away.
But Madam Bad Luck, she soberly comes,
No fancy has she for flitting,
Snatches of strange, sad songs she sings,
Sits by your side and brings her knitting.”
Good Luck had walked with us over the pass and down the valley; but at this point of the journey she must have either outdistanced our lagging footsteps or returned the way she came. Anyhow, she left us, and our troubles began. When we halted the warm sun had left the narrow valley, and before we could get a fire going the chill air began to search out the very marrow in our bones. The dryness of the eastern side of the range had given place to the humidity of the west, and every bit of wood or plant was either green or sodden with moisture. Finally, when we did get a fire going it was a very smoky one, and gave little heat except what was required for the boiling of the “billy.” We ate a frugal meal of tinned meat, bread, and tea, made mattresses of damp green branches and ferns cut with our pocket-knives, crept into our sleeping bags, lit our pipes, talked over the events of the day and the prospects of the morrow, and then tried to sleep. Fyfe’s leg was beginning to trouble him; but he said little about it. The mere fact of his mentioning it at all was, however, sufficient to give me some concern, for Fyfe was never a man to make a mountain out of a mole-hill. We spent a miserable night in our sleeping bags, and when we awoke at five o’clock next morning were cold and stiff. Tea was made from compressed tabloids, and sweetened with saccharine. In this compressed form it is possible to carry in one’s waistcoat pocket enough tea and sugar for an expedition lasting several days. Saccharine, however, does not seem to be a good substitute for sugar, as there is no nourishment in it, and tea in tabloid form is an invention of the devil.
At 6 a.m., shouldering our packs once more, we started down the valley. Cold and stiff as we were, there was no buoyancy in our stride, and I could not fail to see that Fyfe was limping badly, though he toiled bravely on.
It was Sunday morning, and a clear sky gave promise of another glorious day. The valley was densely wooded, the forest coming down the steep hillsides right to the water’s edge. There was scarcely a scrap of level ground anywhere, and the river was a seething torrent. It was necessary to shout to make our voices heard above its everlasting roar. We proceeded for a little way along the side of the stream, and then took to the bush, but returned to the edge of the river again a little farther on. The boulders were very large, and had we not both been rock-climbers they would have troubled us considerably. As it was, however, we lost but little time, for whoever happened to be leading tackled the difficulties without hesitation, selecting the route, and quickly noting the best hand-grips as he went up one side of some great boulder that blocked the way and down the other. After an hour or two’s scrambling we found our progress barred by a gorge in the river, and we had to climb through the bush on the hillside. Here Fyfe had the misfortune to strike his leg twice in rapid succession on sharp angular rocks—the débris of an ancient moraine that lay hidden under a luxuriant growth of the most exquisite mosses and ferns. In each case the blow was severe, and very painful because of the already inflamed wound on the leg, and, though we were still in the cool shade of the forest, the pain was so intense that the perspiration came out in beads on his forehead. We struggled on in rather a gloomy frame of mind, till, at 10 a.m., we came to a second gorge in which the scenery was very grand. A rocky plateau, worn smooth by flood water, fringed the left bank of the stream at a considerable height above. Pools of water lay here and there in the hollows of the rocks. Along this plateau we proceeded. Across the stream the rocks rose straight from the water’s edge, clothed with ferns and mosses, and fringed above with trees, amongst which the scarlet blaze of the rata blossom made a glorious contrast with the sombre green. The scarcity of bird life in such a beautiful wood seemed strange. At times we could hear the beating of a wood-pigeon’s wings in the air, and, on looking up, would see a solitary, grey-plumaged bird flying across the narrow valley. Or we would hear the whistle of the kaka—a bush parrot—and note the flashing scarlet of his under-wings as he went from one branch to another, eyeing the strange intruders into his domain with that insatiable curiosity that is such a feature of his character, and that, alas! so often leads to his destruction.