Page:Through South Westland.djvu/216

126 by forest track and river-bed, far among the silent mountains, whose loneliness is one of their greatest charms. The inner room of memory is hung with pictures, some few of which I have tried to make visible to others. . ..

If they feel the fresh breeze blowing, and the flood of sunshine, and the blue of New Zealand skies above them as they read; if they see the climbing tangle of forest on the mountain flanks, the snows above the mighty cliffs, and the swift-rushing glacier rivers, I shall feel it was worth while to have tried to share with them these memory pictures.

And so I began collecting stores, books, cooking things, etc., and a medley collection was stowed into a deep sailor’s-bag and a sack, and with rope and axe we sent them down south. Sleeping-bags were purchased; they were of a cool sea-green colour, all in keeping, it seemed to me, with a couch on a glacier. Of information as to routes or camping ground, we could get none. No one apparently lived there, except a semi-mythical Highlander, and we had to leave matters till we should be nearer the scene of our adventures. Then we sent on the two horses—the Scorpion and Tom, and so it came about that on Christmas Eve we were speeding south, leaving the dust and glare behind us, our spirits rising moment by moment as we neared the long, blue barrier of hills, and knew that beyond their utmost purple rim lay all of which our friend had told us.