We each dressed as lightly as possible, and provided ourselves with stout pine staffs to assist us in climbing and feeling our way over dangerous localities. Each of us carried a parcel of bread and meat, and a small flask of spirits was taken for use only in case of urgent necessity.
An expedition of this kind is always attended with danger. Travelling through deep snow is exceedingly tiring, and the glare and glistening from its surface tends to induce sleepiness. Many a man has lost his life from these causes combined when but a short distance from safety.
Seeking Sheep in the Snow.
We started in Indian file, the foremost man breaking the snow and the others placing their feet in his tracks. When the leader, whose work was naturally the heaviest, got tired, he stepped aside, and the next in file took up the breaking, while the former fell into the rear of all, which is, of course, the easiest.
Proceeding thus, we went on steadily for some hours, our route being by no means straight, as we had to utilise our knowledge of the ground and avoid dangerous and suspicious places. The aspect of a piece of country considerably changes in surface appearance under a heavy covering of snow where deep and extensive drifts have formed.
Notwithstanding our deviations and undulating course, we made the summit of the great spur at midday. Such a scene as here opened out before us is difficult to describe. If it had been a flat plain with the usual domestic accessories there would be only a dreary circumscribed and more or less familiar picture, but here we were among the silent mountains untouched by the hand of man, in the clearest atmosphere in the universe, with magnificent and varying panoramas stretching away from us on every side. To the north we could see far into the upper gorge of the Rangitata, with its precipices and promontories receding point by point in bold outline to the towering peaks forty miles beyond, and below it the wide flats of the great river, with its broad bed and streams so rapid that they could not be frozen over. On the east the low undulating downs stretching away towards the plains, while westward they ran in huge spurs to the foot of the Alpine range, towering 13,000 feet above us. Turning southward was seen the lower gorge, with its hills almost meeting in huge precipitous spurs, with stretches of pine forests clothing their slopes.
Turn where we would over those immense panoramas all was white, pure, dazzling, glittering white, with a deathlike stillness over all. No life, no colour, save a streak of grey-blue on the broad river bed, and the shadow thrown by the mountains in the depths of their frowning gorges. The cold grey cloudless sky itself was scarcely any contrast. It was a magnificent wilderness of snow, and we viewed it spell-bound till our eyes ached with the glare and we felt a strange desire to lie down and sleep.
Such is invariably the attendant sensations under these circumstances, whence the danger. If one once gives way to the drowsiness and longing for rest, he is gone. The sleep comes quickly, but it is a sleep from which there is no awakening—hence the precautions taken on such an expedition to have as large a party of strong men as possible to assist each other in case of failure. The need for such caution was fully verified in our case.