Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/97

 We scrambled over the wall, and descending the rocks were soon enjoying a wild glissade down the steep snow slopes. Then came a scramble over some rocks which led to the grass slopes and to a great isolated boulder. Here we paused for a meal. While wandering round looking for firewood, I was attracted to the ravine at the back of our boulder by the roar of falling water. The snow slopes drained into this ravine and quickly formed a rushing mountain stream, which just below us leapt from off a shelf of rock and fell sheer to the valley below; it was a dark, sunless, eerie spot, into which these gay and restless waters tumbled. From where I stood it was impossible to see the bottom, and only in imagination could I follow the silver shower. Unfortunately our way lay in the opposite direction, and we had no time to spare, or I would have attempted to get a view from below of these precipitous cliffs and the wonderful fall.

After our meal we set off again over slippery snow grass slopes which at last brought us down to the head of the Copland River. We followed along the left bank as best we could, scrambling through the thick scrub and undergrowth, or walking over the top of the tough alpine vegetation. I was unhampered by a swag, so had a comparatively easy time of it. The men, laden with bulging rucksacs, were caught and pulled back at every yard. We had to cross two foaming mountain streams by jumping from boulder to boulder—this is a pastime I always enjoy, not yet having fallen in. At 5.30 our destination, Douglas Rock, was in sight; the approach to it is through thick tropical bush, where moss-covered tree-trunks and creeping ferns abound. The rock is a large overhanging shelf closed in on three sides, and the front opening on to dense bush. A fireplace occupies the middle of the open space, and serves to keep the inmates warm and drive away the sandflies and mosquitoes. The floor was thickly strewn with dried ferns, which were a great