Page:Mannering - With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps.djvu/89

Rh us of the downward view from the arête of the Finsteraarhorn, while beyond, the glacier-seamed crags of Mount Sefton towered skywards.

'Further off lay the mer de glace of the Mueller Glacier, a splendid field of white ice, its lower moraine-covered termination lost in the blue depths of the valley at our feet. The high ridge connecting Mount Sefton with Mount Stokes alone prevented us from seeing the western sea. It was a glorious day, scarcely a breath of air stirring; no cloud visible in the whole vault of blue; ranges upon ranges of peaks in all directions and of every form, from the iced-capped dome to the splintered aiguille. It was a wonderful sight, those lovely peaks standing up out of the purple haze; and then to think that not one had been climbed! Here was work, not for a short holiday ramble merely, not to be accomplished even in a life-time, but work for a whole company of climbers, which would occupy them for half a century of summers, and still there would remain many a new route to be tried. Here, then, we stood upon the shoulder of the monarch of the whole mountain world around us, within less than 5,000 feet of his icy crown, but a long, jagged, ice-seamed ridge lay in our path. Was it accessible? Let us see!'

It was not accessible, as anyone who has read Mr. Green's interesting book will know, and I could see from my standpoint very plainly that Mr. Green, with Emil Boss and Ulrich Kaufmann—two of the finest mountaineers in the world—could not do otherwise than accept a defeat.

Just such a scene as Mr. Green describes I saw,