Page:Mannering - With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps.djvu/73

Rh the moraine itself—well, the walking on the moraine itself cannot be fitly described in parliamentary language.

We secured many good views as we proceeded with a 10 × 8 camera. Mount Haidinger on our left was particularly fine, its eastern face being almost entirely clothed with the Haast Glacier, which struck us as being one of the finest cascades of ice we had yet seen, larger in extent than the ice-fall of the Hochstetter, though not so picturesque.

Time was fast going, and we found that to get off the glacier before dark it would be requisite to strike away to our right, over a mile of much crevassed ice, to the gully next in the Malte Brun Range, which we had originally set out to reach. Jumping crevasses and cutting a few occasional steps, we at last arrived at the eastern side, finding a very suitable place to pitch our Whymper tent, and discovering to our joy a small supply of firewood.

The gully in which we camped had its origin far away up in the red-sandstone precipices of Malte Brun, and in its bed rushed down a foaming mountain torrent fed everlastingly by the many small hanging glaciers above. This stream rushed headlong into a large tunnel of ice in the side of the Tasman Glacier, over which was formed a tremendous cave, above which, again, were sheer walls of ice capped with morainic accumulations, the height from tunnel mouth to moraine summits being about 500 feet.

A view of this cave was secured by the photographer.

Friday the 29th was a morning to be remembered.