Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/125

 On our way we paused beside the Hooker River where it left the old channel in the autumn floods last year and burrowed a new course through the Muller moraine; it runs underground for about 100 yards and comes out to freedom once more with a leap and a dash. We waited about half an hour for a tottering ice pinnacle to crash down into the river, but waited in vain; however, as soon as we were a few yards away there was a resounding roar, and down it came, splitting into great blocks, which were swirled down the river, churning and grinding against the boulders with which the stream is strewn: finally it piled itself at the subterranean entrance until sufficiently melted or broken to pass through. In flood-time I have seen huge blocks large enough to hold a horse and cart come sailing smoothly down, to be checked by some unseen obstacle and turn clumsily over like a porpoise and disappear from sight, to emerge again yards away but little the worse for wear. The Hooker in flood is an awe-inspiring sight; it tears down a roaring yellow stream with ice boulders crunching and grinding so as to make it impassable for days. I never see it without thinking of Macaulay's description of the Tiber:—

At last we tore ourselves away from this fascinating spot and began scrambling up a scrubby spur of the Wakefield; hot it was, and unpleasant, but no doubt good for reducing fat. 1.30 found us on a grassy plateau with a few stunted bushes, under one of which I promptly buried my head with some faint hope of cooling down,