Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/58

48 most attracted us. No sooner was this plan settled than Mr. Earle, A.C., expressed a wish to join us. He had been in the mountains since October, and had done some high climbing with Jack Clark, who was acting as his private guide. Clark was for the time being laid up with a strained foot, and would probably be unfit for work for some weeks, so Mr. Earle was rather at a loose end, being unable to procure another guide, and was glad to join a party that offered some chance of mountaineering. We on our side were very glad to add an experienced climber to our party, as we were unable to secure two guides, owing to the crowded state of the Hermitage.

On January 6th the weather seemed to have definitely cleared, so we set out for the Ball hut, accompanied by Peter Graham. We reached the hut the same evening, just in time to climb up the wall of Moraine that shuts out the view, and see the last glories of the sunset. In the quivering air of the midsummer evening the strange black waves of moraine, tipped here and there with crests of white ice, seemed really to undulate like some uncanny sea. Beyond their black depths shimmered mile after mile of pure white ice, which rose in a grand curve at the ice-fall and swept round the base of Mount de la Beche and the Minarets and on to the head of the glacier; here they lost themselves in the rounded softness of the Hochstetter Dome. In contrast with the white of snow-clad peaks and curving glaciers, Mount Malte Brun reared its great rock ridge from the crevassed ice at its base, and towered up with crag after jagged crag outlined sharp against the ever-changing evening sky. As the sun disappeared into Westland its last rays dyed the black pyramid to a glowing mass of molten copper, till one could but believe that some volcanic fire was welling up from the unseen heart beneath. We watched till the last vestige of colour faded and the surrounding mountains turned grey and cold, and then scrambled down to the hut, and thoroughly enjoyed