Page:Through South Westland.djvu/219

Rh have mostly met violent deaths. On one stone we read: “Killed by the kick of a horse”; on another: “Found in the snow”; on a third: “Found drowned.” The wind grew cold and moaned fitfully in the gloomy firs that have grown all too thick among the graves, and we turned back to the cheery inn, clean sheets, and comfortable beds.

Glorious sunshine greeted us next morning. We had only thirteen miles to get over, and rode away joyously through the tawny tussock hills, down to a plain bounded by violet distance. The mirage shimmered on its farther edge, the breeze swayed the tussock grass and changed it from golden to dusky grey, as the cloud shadows passed along the hills. We mounted a ridge, and there lay Lake Tekapo, whose waters are always turquoise blue, though a smaller lake behind the encircling hills is deep indigo. Beyond, the line of the Southern Alps had come in sight; peak beyond peak, sharp and jagged in outline, the higher ones white and pure; and even at forty miles off the great glaciers were visible. There was Mount Cook, towering above them all, who looks down east and west, on yellow plains and billowy forest, two worlds divided by a mighty wall.

We got to the inn just as it was getting unbearably hot. It is close to the lake shore, very convenient for bathing, but the water on the hottest day is cold as the glaciers which feed it. The outlet is a deep cutting through which the