Page:Mannering - With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps.djvu/181

Rh cucumber, and I following, like a spaniel after his master. One wild rush, a few strokes of the paddle, a mad tossing about in a sheet of crested foam, half-a-dozen bucketfuls of water on board, and we were through, breathing again as we tore down the hurrying, but straight and safe, current below.

Though we met with no greater obstacles to canoeing than this rapid in the gorge, such performances were several times repeated, and we had to land now and again to survey the course ahead.

To describe the mad plunging of the river through the gorge is not an easy matter. Here and there, perhaps, a long even stretch is met with, but for the most part the river makes a succession of bends bounded by rocky cliffs on either hand, now and then masses of rock crop up through the water, against which the stream is banked up by the force of its mad career to a height of ten or twelve feet; immediately under the sides of the rock there are vicious-looking heavings, eddies, and whirlpools, which, if one chances to get into them, twist the boat about like a feather when blown upon the water's surface. A black swan and three cygnets kept ahead of us for the last six miles of the gorge, but as we entered with relieved feelings upon the more open country, they eluded our further pursuit in a backwater. Another few miles and we reached our destination for the night—Mr. W.G. Rutherfurd's station, Rugged Ridges—where a warm and hospitable welcome made us feel that once more we were in the regions of civilisation.

Leaving next morning at 4.30, we gave ourselves eleven hours to catch the train for Christchurch, at