Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/318

206 the lake, the Remarkables' western face was so broken and jagged that, if placed upright, it would have looked like mountain ranges in miniature. On the marred front age appeared to be more deeply written than on any other part of the rugged surface of Wakatipu district.

Compared with the fertility of the mountains of Fiordland, the Remarkables seemed to be practically one lifeless mass. Here, from base to loftiest peak (Double Cone, 7688 feet), were sombre barrenness and fearful solitude. Excepting in rare places on the lower slopes where a beech found roothold and moisture, there was not even one friendly tree. Almost everywhere was black, inhospitable, sterile rock, lessened in its severity on the higher slopes by tussock and snow grasses wherever it was possible for these to obtain sustenance. Lower down there mingled with the tussock the bracken fern, the poisonous tutu, and the thorny Wild Irishman, which is guaranteed to make wild any son of Erin who gets entangled in its spines.

Plowed by glaciers, and scarred by thousands of rivulets born with every rain to scour with the sands of decomposing rock, the mountains have been fashioned into precipices, peaks, crags, "saw teeth," and sharp ridges with many ramifications. On grassy slopes and in all creek beds lie boulders, slabs, and stone splinters and chips; and the steepest parts only the shadows of shifting clouds can scale.

The Remarkables appear most impressive when seen at a distance; a near approach lessens the grandeur