ACROSS THE SOUTHERN ALPS—_continued_
“Good Luck is the gayest of all gay girls,
Long in one place she will not stay,
Back from your brow she brushes the curls,
Kisses you quick, then runs away.
But Madam Bad Luck, she soberly comes,
No fancy has she for flitting,
Snatches of strange, sad songs she sings,
Sits by your side and brings her knitting.”
Good Luck had walked with us over the pass and down the valley; but
at this point of the journey she must have either outdistanced our
lagging footsteps or returned the way she came. Anyhow, she left us,
and our troubles began. When we halted the warm sun had left the narrow
valley, and before we could get a fire going the chill air began to
search out the very marrow in our bones. The dryness of the eastern
side of the range had given place to the humidity of the west, and
every bit of wood or plant was either green or sodden with moisture.
Finally, when we did get a fire going it was a very smoky one, and gave
little heat except what was required for the boiling of the “billy.”
We ate a frugal meal of tinned meat, bread, and tea, made mattresses
of damp green branches and ferns cut with our pocket-knives, crept
into our sleeping bags, lit our pipes, talked over the events of the
day and the prospects of the morrow, and then tried to sleep. Fyfe’s
leg was beginning to trouble him; but he said little about it. The
mere fact of his mentioning it at all was, however, sufficient to
give me some concern, for Fyfe was never a man to make a mountain out
of a mole-hill. We spent a miserable night in our sleeping bags, and
when we awoke at five o’clock next morning were cold and stiff. Tea
was made from compressed tabloids, and sweetened with saccharine.
In this compressed form it is possible to carry in one’s waistcoat
pocket enough tea and sugar for an expedition lasting several days.
Saccharine, however, does not seem to be a good substitute for sugar,
as there is no nourishment in it, and tea in tabloid form is an
invention of the devil.
At 6 a.m., shouldering our packs once more, we started down the valley.
Cold and stiff as we were, there was no buoyancy in our stride, and I
could not fail to see that Fyfe was limping badly, though he toiled
bravely on.
It was Sunday morning, and a clear sky gave promise of another glorious
day. The valley was densely wooded, the forest coming down the steep
hillsides right to the water’s edge. There was scarcely a scrap of
level ground anywhere, and the river was a seething torrent. It was
necessary to shout to make our voices heard above its everlasting
roar. We proceeded for a little way along the side of the stream, and
then took to the bush, but returned to the edge of the river again a
little farther on. The boulders were very large, and had we not both
been rock-climbers they would have troubled us considerably. As it was,
however, we lost but little time, for whoever happened to be leading
tackled the difficulties without hesitation, selecting the route,
and quickly noting the best hand-grips as he went up one side of some
great boulder that blocked the way and down the other. After an hour or
two’s scrambling we found our progress barred by a gorge in the river,
and we had to climb through the bush on the hillside. Here Fyfe had
the misfortune to strike his leg twice in rapid succession on sharp
angular rocks—the débris of an ancient moraine that lay hidden under a
luxuriant growth of the most exquisite mosses and ferns. In each case
the blow was severe, and very painful because of the already inflamed
wound on the leg, and, though we were still in the cool shade of the
forest, the pain was so intense that the perspiration came out in beads
on his forehead. We struggled on in rather a gloomy frame of mind,
till, at 10 a.m., we came to a second gorge in which the scenery was
very grand. A rocky plateau, worn smooth by flood water, fringed the
left bank of the stream at a considerable height above. Pools of water
lay here and there in the hollows of the rocks. Along this plateau we
proceeded. Across the stream the rocks rose straight from the water’s
edge, clothed with ferns and mosses, and fringed above with trees,
amongst which the scarlet blaze of the rata blossom made a glorious
contrast with the sombre green. The scarcity of bird life in such a
beautiful wood seemed strange. At times we could hear the beating of
a wood-pigeon’s wings in the air, and, on looking up, would see a
solitary, grey-plumaged bird flying across the narrow valley. Or we
would hear the whistle of the kaka—a bush parrot—and note the flashing
scarlet of his under-wings as he went from one branch to another,
eyeing the strange intruders into his domain with that insatiable
curiosity that is such a feature of his character, and that, alas! so
often leads to his destruction.
The Alpine vegetation was now far behind us. Everywhere was a luxuriant
growth of moss and fern and tree. In one place a titanic boulder
blocked the river-bed, and the waters thundered through a narrow
defile, over which a man might easily jump. At the lower end of the
gorge the river ran for some distance between precipitous walls, and we
had once more to take to the pathless forest on the mountain-side. Then
we climbed down to the river again, and began the same scramble over
the interminable boulders. This scrambling over and under rocks made us
get into all sorts of strange attitudes. We felt, if there were much
more of it, that we should soon qualify for the position of acrobats in
a circus.
But the cold, hard, damp bed of the previous night, following upon
a long and trying day’s exercise, had left us rather stiff for such
contortions, and we simply longed for a hot bath and a rub down. We
even talked about such a luxury, and scarcely were the words uttered
than we found Mother Nature with the bath ready at hand.
All this morning we had noticed at intervals, as we marched beside the
stream, a strange and somewhat offensive smell. We had attributed it to
some plant in the forest, or to decaying vegetation. In jumping from
one boulder to another I saw that the water below had patches of oil
floating on it, and the offensive smell was very strong, so I stopped
to make an investigation. On putting my hand into the water I found it
was quite hot. Here was just what we wanted. I called out to Fyfe that
I had found a hot spring. He was at first inclined to doubt my words;
but when he remembered the strange smell that abounded in the valley he
came back, and, in less time than it takes to tell the story, we found
ourselves in the garb of Adam, and revelling in the luxury of a hot
bath in the midst of a garden more glorious than the original Eden, but
minus the temptations and distractions with which our original ancestor
was beset. The water ran into a clear pool, and where it welled up in
one place beside the glacier water of the river we could have, at the
same moment, a warm bath on one side of our bodies and a cold bath on
the other. This bath freshened us up wonderfully, and took all the
stiffness away. Our only regret was that we had no means of taking a
sample of the water away with us for analysis.
About midday we came to yet another gorge, where we halted for lunch.
We got through without much bush-work, and arrived at a large stream
that came in from the left. We took off our nether garments, put on
our boots again without stockings, waded through, and in that guise
walked for some distance along a comparatively level beach. When
I looked round and saw Fyfe walking half naked behind me over the
rocks I was seized with the ludicrous nature of his appearance and
laughed heartily, only to have myself heartily laughed at in return.
Our delight was now great, for we saw ahead of us a mile or so of
comparatively easy walking, and fondly imagined that we had done with
those troublesome gorges. But again our hopes were foredoomed to
disappointment, for on rounding a promontory the river took a bend to
the left and entered another gorge. It was the worst one of the lot.
There was nothing for it but to take to the bush and climb the steep
hillside to a plateau in the forest that seemed to run parallel with
the river. We climbed up a long way, and got in amongst some tall trees
where the forest was fairly open. The ferns here were exquisitely
beautiful, and rare varieties abounded. Whole tree trunks were covered
with the varied greens of the beautiful kidney fern, and at almost
every step the graceful fronds of the umbrella fern rose above its
neighbours and the lovely mosses that made a gloriously green and
springy carpet for the uneven ground. It was a veritable fairyland,
and one would not have been greatly surprised if the Queen of all the
fairies had met us at any turn.
We kept well up the mountain-side, sometimes getting a bit of easy
climbing, at other times making heavy work of it with our swags
through scrub and luxuriant undergrowth; and all the time the rumbling
of the waters, softened now by distance, could be heard down below
on the right. But we could see nothing beyond a few yards. Suddenly
the roaring of waters close in front fell upon our ears, and we
found ourselves face to face with a high fall that came down in a
succession of leaps through the forest. We followed it to the river and
crossed where the precipice ended and the water ran over some gently
sloping ground towards the river. Ahead was a level shingle flat. The
valley was widening out and the hills were lower. Now, surely, our
difficulties would be at an end. But after going a few hundred yards we
saw the river again entering a deep and narrow gorge. We had been going
pretty steadily for twelve hours. Fyfe’s leg was bad, and we were both
a little tired, and in no mood to tackle the gorge, so we camped and
made tea. Drift-wood was here in plenty. We lit a big fire under the
overhanging trees, and dried our wet clothing. Meanwhile we took our
bearings. The river, now swollen into a stately stream, forked on the
shingle flats, and ran at a more leisurely pace. It seemed a good spot
to cross in the event of our deciding to avoid the gorge by climbing a
lower hill on the right bank.
We had taken with us at the start of this expedition two loaves of
bread, a 4-lb. tin of meat and 4 lb. of marmalade, together with a
small pot of bovril, and the tea and sugar tabloids, reckoning that,
with our sleeping bags and some spare clothing, this would be as much
as we could conveniently carry over so difficult a pass. We estimated
also that this quantity of provisions would be just about enough to
see us down to civilization on the West Coast. It was with a somewhat
rueful countenance, therefore, that, after supper, we now looked at the
two empty tins that had contained the jam and marmalade, and beheld
only enough bread left for one frugal meal. Had Fyfe’s leg been sound
we should not have minded, but it was now terribly inflamed and swollen
to abnormal dimensions, so that we were not sure whether he would be
able to stand another day’s rough walking.
Having dried our things, we scooped out, with our ice-axes, two
hollows in the shingle on a bank overhung by trees, and, getting into
our sleeping bags, lay down in them for the night. Should it come
on to rain, it was decided to get up at any hour of the night and
endeavour to cross the river before it became flooded. The sandflies
were numerous and very troublesome, but they left us shortly after
sundown. The shingle bank made a soft bed in comparison with the
rougher rocks of the glacier moraines, to which we had been used on
the eastern side of the divide, and under ordinary circumstances I
doubt not that we should have slept long and soundly; but Fyfe’s leg
grew worse and worse, and all night long he tossed, moaning, from side
to side in a vain endeavour to get relief from the pain. I lay awake
for hours, listening, and wondering whether we could cross the river
in safety, and whether in the event of our doing so he would be able
to continue the journey. Then I would commence to devise schemes for
getting him down to the coast should he knock up altogether. I fully
expected that I should have to leave him here and proceed alone down
the valley in quest of aid. Once or twice during the night, when he
was more than usually restless, I ventured an inquiry as to how he
fared, and received a gloomy, monosyllabic answer that was the reverse
of cheering. And then it was, in the silences of the night, as I lay
a-thinking and a-planning, that the lines I have put at the head of
this chapter came into my head, and I could not refrain from repeating
them over and over again to myself—
“Good Luck is the gayest of all gay girls,
Long in one place she will not stay,
Back from your brow she brushes the curls,
Kisses you quick, then runs away.
But Madam Bad Luck, she soberly comes,
No fancy has she for flitting,
Snatches of strange, sad songs she sings,
Sits by your side and brings her knitting.”
Well, after all our good fortune, here was Madam Bad Luck come at last,
and it really looked as if she had “brought her knitting.”
The camp fire dies down, and a weka or some night bird stirs the dry
leaves near at hand. I watch the stars come out, and one fine star rise
slowly above the eastern horizon. The night is clear and cold.
“And stretching, stretching over all,
Bends the unmeasured sky, that glows
With its pale stars—like the full close
Wherewith Eternity shall wall
Time round when Time shall fall.”