Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/38

 of golden gorse and protected by breakwinds of slender poplars standing like sentinels against the sky-line. Then a wide, grey river-bed, with silvery streams, curling and twisting through its great expanse; here and there shone patches of vivid gold, where broom and gorse turned the grey wilderness to a patch of burning colour. The miles flew past, and through the window was wafted the unmistakable salt savour of the sea; marshes stretched on either hand leading to the curved grey beach and vivid emerald waters of the little seaport of Timaru, where a long, straight breakwater stretches out into the ocean, affording sole protection to all the vessels rocking so peacefully at the wharves. After half an hour's wait at Timaru we were transferred into the little train that conveyed us to the end of the railway at Fairlie. A peaceful, placid little train this, which pursued its way with many pauses through fertile hills and valleys—hills so steep that one wondered how the ploughman guided his team and prepared the land for the wheat, oats, and clover that waved on either hand.

Fairlie was reached in the gathering darkness, and as I stepped on to the platform I was greeted with the first keen breath of mountain air.

Eight o'clock next morning saw the start for the final stage of the journey, a motor drive of 90 miles. Perched on the box-seat and tingling with joyous excitement, I left behind me all the worries of everyday life and felt free and irresponsible as the wind that stung my cheek. A sudden turn in the road, an elbow cut out of the hill, with a stream winding below, disclosed a beauty that made me catch my breath. A wall of broom, pure gleaming, glistening gold, towered above me till it met the blue sky. Those "streets of pure gold," the wonders of the New Jerusalem, that used to capture my childish imagination, faded suddenly to something dead and sordid before this wonder of living bloom. It scintillated and burned against its blue