Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/348

 226 nearly every hour of the day, the thunder of avalanches. Many of them we saw as like waterfalls they plunged from ice-quarried ledges and, rolling and leaping, reverberated for the last time in deep hollows or at glacier's edge. Some of them seemed to be not more than a half-mile away, but the rarefied atmosphere was deceptive; they usually were two or three times more distant than they appeared. On an elevation commanding a view of all the principal elevations and glaciers on the northern and western sides of the Tasman Glacier I enjoyed the simply hospitality of Malte Brun Hut, an anchored inn. Standing three hundred and fifty feet above the glacier, this caravansary was so exposed to the furious winds that sometimes sweep down the valley that it was lashed to a huge boulder at its rear. At Malte Brun was one of the finest purely mountain panoramas of the world. At relatively close range were the domes of Hochstetter and Elie de Beaumont, the peaks of Mount Green and Walter and the Minarets, the walls of Haidinger and Cook, and the varied configuration of other lofty mountains in their vicinity; at the hut's rear, almost bare of snow in summer, were the formidable steeps of Malte Brun. Here, also, 'midst wild flowers and grasses, we saw Alpine climbers crossing the Tasman Glacier and ascending mountains across the valley. At Malte Brun Hut I learned of a feature of mountaineering that is popular in New Zealand. On rafters above the dining-table were several pairs of skis for the use of