Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/40

34 arrived at Lake Pukaki. The wonderful chalky blue of this great lake comes as a revelation in colour to those who are unaccustomed to snow-fed waters. Peak after peak rises into the sky at its head, and miles of brilliant blue water merges in places to sheets of rippled silver under the sun's rays. Just above our stopping-place the water swirled under a bridge, foaming in fierce rapids over the boulders that broke its course; farther down it formed into a basin, on one side of which is a steep clay wall past which the stream rushes in a series of rapids. Away to the left it widens to a shallow, where wavelets ripple on the grey beach of a little wooded isle. After leaving Pukaki the road followed along the shores of the lake for some miles; parts of it were very rough, with now and then a sharp corner that required the skill of an expert driver. On reaching the head of the lake the road wound through low foothills, which shut out the view of the ever-nearing mountains. At last at about 4.30 p.m. we came out into the plain at the foot of the Mount Cook Range. This plain is surrounded on three sides by snow-clad mountains, the Mount Cook Range dividing it in the centre into two narrow valleys; on the right hand glisten the white peaks at the head of the Tasman Glacier, which flows down for eighteen miles in waves of white ice. This is one of the largest glaciers in the world outside the Himalayas or the Arctic regions; it is longer than the largest glaciers in Switzerland. At the left hand is the valley of the Hooker, in which the Hermitage is situated. The left side of the Hooker Valley is shut in by the great white wall of Mount Sefton, the highest peak of the dividing range, which separates the east and west coasts. In the middle of the valley Mount Cook towers high above all else, and the minor peaks of the Mount Cook Range shut in the valley on its eastern side. At the base of Mount Cook flows the Hooker Glacier, and from its terminal moraine the Hooker River gushes out, and after flowing about 10 miles