Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/195

179 CHAPTER XIV.

was a bitterly cold night, that on which we sailed up the silent lake, through the darkness, to Queenstown. The end at Kingston was formerly the outlet, but during some great glacial cataclysm the moraines must have filled the valley, and raised the level of the lake, the pent-up waters eventually finding a fresh egress much farther up, by the Kawarau Falls into the Kawarau Valley.

The lower end of the lake is not nearly so picturesque as the upper. Still it was eerie, in the extreme. This silent gliding up the unknown vista, with giant mountains snow-covered and silent on either hand, like wraiths and spectres, keeping watch and ward over the mysterious depths below. The churning swish of the paddles alone broke the deathly stillness. The cold was intense. But soon the fragrant odour of grilled steak stole on the frosty air, and all poetry was banished for a time, while we satisfied