Page:Through South Westland.djvu/65

Rh protesting arms to heaven; tangled masses of tree-ferns and creepers still sent out living fronds and tendrils, though pitched headlong down the screes—everywhere ugliness and ruin:

But the ruin and the ugliness are inevitable. Where there is gold, all outside beauty must flee away before the digger. The disused workings were a desolate place on a wet afternoon, and broken sheds and rusting machinery depressed one; and as I viewed these things, I sorrowed for the passing of the Forest. Behind me the hills were hidden in a pall of rain; in front stretched the gold-flat with a ragged row of poplars on its marshy edge; beyond that again, a blank wall of mist hid the Pacific, moaning sullenly on the sand. I was glad to come in to tea and a cheerful fire from these meditations.

In the hotel we had visitors. The only harbour-master south of Hokitika came and told us tales of a wonderful region where few have been; where the olivine rocks shine blood-red on either side of a tremendous gorge. “It’s the finest sight you’ll ever see,” said he; “the road’s none too good; you’ll need be careful in the rivers, specially the Haast; there’s many a man’s been washed down in the Haast, and they never come out alive—no, nor do the bodies neither.” We questioned him as to distance and accommodation. His brother-in-law