Through South Westland : A journey to the Haast and Mount Aspiring New Zealand . for it careered wildly over rocksand boulders where most horses would have brokena leg. From the mountains on both sides camemany waterfalls, leaping from the very tops. Justahead Mount Ansted showed a snowy shoulder,and behind the ranges on our left, but unseen, laj^Lake Wakatipu and Mount Earnslaw. The valleyup which we were travelling bore away to the right,and, as we went on, the mountains towered up infantastic shapes and beetling precipices, and attheir foot the river ran, a pale blue stream. Thevalley grew
Through South Westland : A journey to the Haast and Mount Aspiring New Zealand . for it careered wildly over rocksand boulders where most horses would have brokena leg. From the mountains on both sides camemany waterfalls, leaping from the very tops. Justahead Mount Ansted showed a snowy shoulder,and behind the ranges on our left, but unseen, laj^Lake Wakatipu and Mount Earnslaw. The valleyup which we were travelling bore away to the right,and, as we went on, the mountains towered up infantastic shapes and beetling precipices, and attheir foot the river ran, a pale blue stream. Thevalley grew wilder the higher we got, filled withancient morainic terraces, through which manystreams and the river have cut their way. Thismust be very rich land, for the terraces werecovered with beautiful grass slopes, and groups offine trees scattered about gave a strangely park-like effect. Sometimes a long opening appearedbetween the trees, like some grass-grown carriage-drive that ought to lead to an ancient house, but oftrack or sign of man there was none. Here we leftthe THE SILVER CONE. 197 Grander and grander views opened out as wewent on. The cliffs on our left were crowned withglaciers, which curving over them, broke and sentlong tongues down into gullies in the mountainsides. These again became waterfalls, leapingfrom such, heights they were changed to finestspray. At the foot of some of these falls werethe Ice-caves we had come to seek, and somewhereahead of us was the Silver Cone. Mr. Macpherson was now in full command—whittling a stick with feverish energy, another heldin readiness under his arm, thick as his wrist, to bewhittled away in no time ! It seemed to give himan inspiration, and he had an unerring instinctwhere to go, for as far as knowledge went, we werenow far past his farthest point, and he had to findthe way. So, led by our Highlander, we plungedinto the bush, almost as bad to get through as theRob Roy, only the slopes were less precipitous, andthe
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidthroughsouth, bookyear1900
