Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/39

, looking more like flame than blossom. The air was filled with perfume and the eye with colour till sight and senses swam, and I turned almost with relief to the cooling crystal stream flowing over grey waterworn pebbles, its banks fringed with the tender green of osier willows. On we dashed over the narrow bridge and up the winding road to the little hamlet of Burk's Pass, where we paused to deliver the daily mail. Then away down the other side and across the long stretches of brown tussock grass, which undulate for mile after mile. Slowly we crept up the shifting sand-hills, and at last gained the crest of the ridge. Eagerly I strained my eyes for the first glimpse of the mountains. Clearly they rose up before me, a long silvery line of snow-clad peaks, breaking the blue of the distant horizon. Rapidly we descended again, and presently Lake Tekapo lay before us, a turquoise in its setting of brown plains, and rivalling in colour the blue sky overhead.

Morning tea was served at the little hotel on the borders of the lake. Through the open window, looking on to a garden gay with poppies and cornflowers, the beds edged with a brilliant border of tulips, and sweet with the scent of two great bushes of lilac, drifted the peaceful lap, lap of the lake, and the swish of swaying pine-boughs that fringed its margin.

On leaving Lake Tekapo the road makes a detour of 30 miles to avoid the Tasman River, whose great expanse is too costly to bridge. It runs through mile after mile of sun-scorched tussock grass, the brown expanse of which is broken here and there by plantations of willows and poplars which shelter some lonely homestead. Sheep browsed beside the road, and scattered with wild leaps and bounds at the sound of the approaching motor, which stopped at the paddock gate to deliver the daily mail—often to some shy country girl sitting gracefully astride her horse waiting for the five minutes' chat which links up the lonely station with the world beyond. About lunch-time we