Page:The Kea, a New Zealand problem (1909).pdf/29

Rh South Island of New Zealand, and stretches for about 480 miles, from one end of the island to the other, lying somewhat to the west. It is composed of long parallel ranges of mountains many thousands of feet in height, crossed all along their length by shorter transverse ranges, which taper out to the plains. In between these cross ranges the rivers run, fed all the year round by the alpine snows, and cutting out deep gorges between the mountains, which form picturesque defiles opening to the plains.

These river-beds form the easiest way of access to the alpine country, and usually a road or track stretches along their high banks, cutting across miles of shingly river-bed, over low hills and flat tussocky terraces, until it runs towards the central range, often getting rougher and more hard to follow as it approaches the passes that lead to the West Coast.

On the east side of the dividing range the mountains are clothed with tussock grass, which grows up towards the snow-line, where it gives place to the sub-alpine vegetation. Where the rainfall is sufficient fairly large patches of forest stretch for miles.

On the western slopes, owing to the large amount of moisture deposited by the north-west winds, the barren tussocky scenery changes almost immediately into beautiful snow-clad peaks, covered on their lower slopes by evergreen forest, where ratas, veronicas, olearias, tree ferns and mosses form scenes of exquisite beauty.

From the sides of the steep forest-clad mountains foaming cascades and rearing torrents tumble down into the valleys; and, when the upper snows melt, waterfalls of all sizes pour from every depression and gully, forming, with the dark evergreen of the bush, scenes of unsurpassed loveliness. Here one leaps from the cliff a hundred feet or so above you, and, arching over the roadway, tumbles with a roar into the valley, drenching the traveller with spray as he passes under its watery arch. There one darts out from some bush-clad precipice, and, when caught by the wind, spreads itself out for some hundreds of feet along the sides