Page:Mannering - With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps.djvu/58

34 difficulty, having to resort to the use of the rope to climb a ditch or couloir in the rock-face where the river boiled past at a terrific pace. Here the camera was accidentally dropped, and falling down fifty feet or so, lodged on a ledge which overhung the water. Strange to say, when recovered it was found to be quite uninjured!

By dint of continued exertion and considerable expenditure of adipose tissue we at last turned the end of the range, and upon reaching the first water as we struck up the Tasman Valley, boiled the 'billy' and made a good lunch.

The wind now began to rise from the nor'-west, and clouds of dust were sweeping down the valley, so we lost no time in pressing on to a patch of Irishman scrub a mile or so below the terminal face of the glacier. We hurriedly cut some bedding and pitched the tent before the rain came on, in rather close proximity to an old creek-bed, which had apparently been dry for some time.

That creek made up for lost time during the night, and soon the rain came down in bucketsful as we lay our wearied limbs to rest in our oiled calico blanket-bags. The thunder crashed and the lightning flashed, and the Tasman River began to roar, and by one o'clock such a quantity of rain had fallen as to convert the dry creek-bed into a roaring torrent, whose waters threw up a bank of shingle, and, turning its course (horror of all horrors!), came right into our tent. In less than a minute from the time that we felt the first trickle there was a foot of water in the tent, and all our impedimenta of every description were