Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/149

Rh of the Southern Alps; one after another they cut the blue sky, Mount Cook's great eastern face crowning them all. Beside it Mount Tasman's beautiful arête sweeps up in spotless purity, rivalling the monarch in beauty of line. Then sturdy, square-topped Hardinger, so distinctive in shape as to be prominent at any angle, even among the surrounding giants; one after another they make up an endless chain. Sharp rock peaks like the jagged teeth of some sleeping monster, or rounded snow cones of indescribable softness and beauty, their slopes shining in the sunlight or inky blue in the shadows, they march onward to lose themselves in a jumble of peaks at the head of the glacier. Ever and anon the silence is broken by the roar of an avalanche, and a spurt of silvery spray shoots over some rocky ledge and flings itself down to the valley, to pile up another heap of chaotic debris at the mountain's scarred base. Glacier after glacier streams down the mountain sides, to add its portion to the mighty crawling river beneath, which is one of the finest glaciers in the world. Eighteen miles long by two broad at its widest point, it moves at the rate of eighteen inches a day. Switzerland has nothing to compare with it; for that you must go to the Himalayas or the mighty wastes of the Arctic regions. Small wonder, then, that we of the great mountainless continent gaze with awe and reverence on these wonders of our little island neighbour; and not we alone. From near and far come restless tourists, whose admiration is expressed in tongues as diverse as those spoken in the Tower of Babel. Slowly the New Zealanders are waking to the knowledge of their beautiful inheritance; too slowly in many cases, for year by year tourist and climber alike are turned away from the mountains because there is not sufficient accommodation. To the enthusiast, selfish in his love of the peace and beauty of the place, this is only another attraction; he looks forward with horror to the day when a snorting