Page:Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand.djvu/80

56 the lake, that we had come ashore rather indifferently supplied with provisions, in the event of any accident happening to prevent our return to the steamer. Some of the digging party, who were “shell-backs,” and good hands at the oar, were therefore despatched to the vessel in the smaller boat for additional supplies, and for stores to be left for the surveyors. The remainder of the party came on to the head of the lake in our boat, and they camped at this old camping place. Others of us pulled the boat up, and, when that became impossible, tracked her to the first fork of the river; and there we also camped for the night. The camping place was picturesque enough, being in the midst of a tiny clump of shrubbery at the extreme point of the island formed by the division of the river into the two streams which fall into the lake; but it was not a very prudent choice, except upon the faith of the continuance of dry weather. It was already all but encircled by the stream, and it was evident, from the numerous large logs, and the considerable area of bare boulders in the neighbourhood on nearly the same level, that the upper part of the island—and under extraordinary circumstances, perhaps the whole of it—is occasionally overflown. The river at this point runs between ranges 3000 and 4000 ft. high, some of them rising almost precipitously from the banks of the stream, and all of them more or less snow-clad. Through openings in the ranges on the Milford Sound side, could be seen the immense snow-fields of Tutoko Peak—a mountain not less in height, if not higher than, Pembroke Peak—and we were sufficiently near it to hear, during the dead of night, the loud thunder sound of the avalanches descending its steep sides.

For a party of nine, the tent accommodation was not extensive, but it was economically dispensed; and if there was limited comfort, there was at least a picturesqueness about us befitting the fashion of things around. The comfort was not inconsiderable, but it was mixed. With the Superintendent and Secretary for Lands and Works acting as hewers of wood and drawers of water; with a bed of fuschias and veronicas carefully spread by the hands of the Harbour Master; with the tit-bits of pigeons shot, waded for to the waist, plucked and cooked by one’s companions; with all these conditions combined, a man would surely be bold to complain. Any one who was luxuriously disposed might have walked about with his hands in his pockets; but it was just at that point that there was a failure in the completeness of things; for hath not a man ears with which to hear, and eyes with which to see, and is it likely he would submit to have them literally “bunged up” by sandflies, in exchange for all the moral satisfaction he might derive from the other circumstances by which he was surrounded? The vote was unanimously in favour of physical comfort versus moral satisfaction, and we lit a big fire, with a view more to the size of its smoke than its cheerful blaze; and later in the evening, we hailed the gentle dew which fell, and the clear moon which rose above the snow-peaks in the east. By their assistance we managed to get two or three hours’ sleep, to be awakened by the sweet notes of the morning song of the thrush, and the irritant pricking of these same sandflies; for neither reasoning nor wrath would turn them away. It is fair to say, however, that it is not here that these pests were most