Page:Through South Westland.djvu/284

176 scrambled out of one, to climb into another. The day grew hotter and hotter, and ahead of us stretched a horrible patch of burnt bush, where some forest fire had swept through dry manuka scrub, leaving the wiry stems and branches stiff and black: we emerged with hands and clothes blackened, and more parched than ever—was there no end to these gullies?

Time was getting on, and we decided to descend and see what lay at the foot of the ice-fall. Each time we could see to the opposite side of the ravine, it seemed to change its face: at one moment we were opposite that fairy waterfall, then in a little it had moved away; and when the great ice-field of the glacier came in view it seemed in a totally unexpected quarter. The descent into the bush was terrific—no other word for it. We swung by lianes and creepers, sliding and slipping; hanging by a branch to let ourselves down over moss-grown boulders, holding to ferns and anything we could lay hold of—often to find the branch or tree we held hollow with rottenness; and the whole would plunge downwards, and we be left clinging to the steep slope. Yet all the time the never-ceasing roar of the river seemed to be at a great distance, and it was long before we ceased looking through the tops of the trees below us, and began to look through their mossy stems to the opposite side.

Now and then we caught a glimpse of a tumbling cascade of foam; or an opening showed the precipice