Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/161

Rh no light save that cast at our feet by the flickering lanterns we seemed to be descending into a bottomless pit. It was impossible in the dim light to see where the snows ended and the mists began. All around us loomed vague shadow-mountains, whose great height but increased the awesome depths that fell away to nothingness beneath them. Fortunately the guides had tramped their steps right down into and across the plateau, to the foot of the Silberhorn, so we were able to follow the footmarks. Otherwise it might have been both difficult and dangerous to find our way with only the flickering candlelight to guide us. By 3.30 we had reached the foot of the Silberhorn. As we paused for a moment's rest, before beginning the steep ascent to the arête, the first faint streaks of dawn began to lighten the sky behind the dark mass to Mount Malte Brun. By the time we reached the arête (Silberhorn) the surrounding mountains were lit, one by one, with flashes of crimson fire. The snowy summit of the Hochstetter Dome stood out from a sky of pale sea-green, merging almost imperceptibly to blue, which deepened and deepened, until at last it reached the intense tone of the summer alpine sky.

These lovely pea-green skies, so I have been told by English people, are a peculiarity of New Zealand, and are rarely seen by them at home. Over and over again they appear at sunrise and sunset in New South Wales as well as in New Zealand. Seen at sunset they are supposed to proclaim bad weather within forty-eight hours. I have tested this theory often, and rarely found it incorrect. For sheer loveliness and purity of colour I have never seen anything to surpass snow-capped mountains outlined against a cool green sky, and when added to that you have the merest edging of a golden sunrise, the effect is superb. As we sat in the arête and fortified ourselves with a second breakfast of hot tea, biscuits and cheese, the sun streamed down upon us from a cloudless sky.