And some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.”
Down the river in the boats that we found there, across Lake Ada with its sunken forest, and again on down the woodland track we rowed and marched till we reached the lower boat landing. There we found a boat and a small flat-bottomed punt. We baled them out and embarked—four in the boat and three in the “flatty”—for Milford Sound. The valley broadened out a little, and the rapids of the river had given place to quiet tidal reaches. We seemed to be floating down into fairyland over mountain-tops that were mirrored beneath us. Kenneth, Fyfe, and I were in the “flatty,” and we had to bale for dear life; but often we would halt in our work and gaze admiringly upon the beautiful scenes that a bountiful Creator had spread about us with such lavish hand.
No wind stirred the waters, and no sound vexed the hushed air save the plash of our oars and the swish from the baler’s can. It all seemed unreal—a pleasant dreamland, a land in “which it seemed always afternoon.”
“We saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land; far off, three mountain tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset flushed; and, dewed with showery drops,
Up clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.”