Page:Through South Westland.djvu/280

174 points and walls. From the very start we had hard work.

Leaving the horses tied below, we began a toilsome ascent through a belt of tutu —a stout herb growing as high as our shoulders. This bit was very steep, followed by a belt of fern; then across screes of slate-shale and faces of bare rock, with only cracks for footholds, where we clung by our finger-tips. Slowly we worked our way up a deep gorge, the opposite mountains seeming only a few hundred feet away, and towering up five or six thousand feet. The heat grew greater every moment, and the glare from the rocks scorched us and made us terribly thirsty as we worked our way from gully to gully. Each one we climbed into we hoped would be the last; but they were interminable, and no water in any of them—each was a fresh disappointment.

We were obliged to keep high up because of the rank vegetation lower down, which really looked impenetrable. After a tedious climb, at last we saw the head of the gorge—a wonderful sight on which not many eyes have gazed. It is closed by a semi-circle of cliffs, precipitous and black; and wedged as it were between three mountain peaks, lies an enormous glacier.

Not a long river of ice, but a mighty mass of ice, breaking off sharp at the top of the stupendous cliffs, whose blackness contrasts strongly with its white surface and green edges. All day long in