Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/20

4 few tracks and roads, some slender spires of smoke, and now and then there came the faint echo of voices of cattle and sheep, but otherwise a great silence brooded over this new land. The panorama of the Southern Alps is beyond my powers of description; very strange it seemed that there should be such an amount of snow in midsummer, but I am told that the level of perpetual snow in the South Island is much lower than in Switzerland; so that an ascent of Mt. Cook, which reaches an altitude of 12,300 feet, whenever attempted, will be found as difficult as that of Mt. Blanc with its 15,000 feet.

Well, I have kept you a long time in this rocky pass, and have not explained how I came to be there alone. Not far from where I sat were two horses, good sturdy animals, tethered and grazing on the tussock grass; they had roomy saddles with plenty of rings for straps, and near them lay a quantity of miscellaneous baggage in bundles of blankets and rugs. Let me explain. The ship Egmont had but just arrived in Lyttelton Harbour, bringing my Father and Mother, and several of our family, including myself. In the harbour lay the Southern Cross, Bishop Selwyn's yacht, and soon the Bishop came in his boat to welcome us,—a notable personality, moderately tall, of great physical strength, and the bearing of a man born to command. He and my Father began their friendship at Eton, Selwyn as a private tutor after his Cambridge career, my Father, after his time at Oxford, as Conduct of Eton Chapel, and in charge of Eton parish. It was due to my Father's influence that Selwyn took Holy Orders instead of going to the Bar, as his family wished. I was born at Eton, and as a little chap of five years of age I can remember