IN KIWI LAND
“A land of streams! Some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.”
TENNYSON.
In that far corner of New Zealand where the long fingers of the fiords
reach inland towards the mountain ranges, amidst which lie the great
deep lakes, there is a region rich in its surpassing beauty and ever
ready to offer a store of stern adventure to the modest climber who
delights in the untrodden ways. It is true the mountains are not
high—as heights go in these modern days—yet even the Abruzzis and the
Bullock-Workmans, your Conways and your Collies would, in the times
I write of, find tasks to test their endurance—or, at least, their
perseverance—and to put a strain upon their commissariat sufficient
to conduce to a gradual tightening of the belts of such as wear them.
Into that land of beautiful forests and a strange bird-life, of deep
canyons and high waterfalls, of lovely lakes and clear rivers, of
dark precipices and unsullied glaciers, we were the first climbers
to adventure. Of our journeyings in that wonderland memories come
crowding in upon me as I take up my pen to commence this chapter. But
there is scarce space in this book to tell a tithe of them. They began
with that sad mission into the mountains—in company with my friend
and fellow-explorer, the Hon. Thos. Mackenzie—to look for my own lost
professor. He had wandered out from the tent and his two companions,
one wet day, for a stroll up the gorge leading to the pass they were
looking for. That was more than twenty years ago, and to this day no
one has found trace of him, and no man knows the manner of his death.
Of how, after a hurried journey by means of special trains and coaches,
we reached that beautiful, sombre “lake of the sorrowing heart,” and
launched a leaky boat upon its troubled waters, only to find it sinking
so rapidly that we had scarce time to get it back with our wetted
belongings to the shore; of how we patched it up with old rags and some
tar found mixed up with the pebbles of the beach; of our adventurous
trip, with the bailer ever at work, up the lake; of our journey through
the forest primeval; of our discovery of the pass and our unavailing
search there; of how the mountain torrent rose in the nighttime, many
feet, till the tent was in danger of being swept away; and of how
our food gradually diminished until there remained only some biscuit
crumbs and the leg of a tough and hoary pre-adamantine kakapo—of these
and other matters I am tempted to write; but the most good-natured of
publishers must put some limit to the size of the book he is producing,
and so I forbear.
The cairn that we erected to the memory of Professor J. Mainwaring
Brown—a talented English gentleman—with the rude wooden cross at its
head, was, perhaps, not a very lasting memorial; but we took the
liberty of naming after him a lonely mountain tarn and a peak at the
head of the pass near which must lie his lonely grave—either in the
fairyland forest or amongst the beautiful Alpine flora that he loved so
well. These form a more fitting monument.
The road to this region led past the Takitimo mountain range, across
the silvery tussock downs, and through unbridged streams. The Takitimo
Range—so tradition says—is one of the canoes of the Maori migration
turned into stone, and its sail is now the plain through which the Five
Rivers flow from the inner land. Time was when the swarthy southern
Maori, encamped by the lake-side, grubbed the edible fern root, or—in
the absence of a war—cunningly baited his eel-pots in view of a change
from the monotony of a vegetable diet. In time of war the change was,
perhaps, as easily made, and, certainly, it was more decided. For some
years it was thought that a remnant of the Ngatimamoes might still
exist in the mountain fastnesses of Fiordland, but there can be no
doubt, now, that the marauding warriors from the north practically
annihilated the tribe, and that the eel-pots and fire-sticks, the
old skull with the teeth gnarled from chewing the fern root, and the
_meres_ and other relics from the ancient battle-grounds, dug up by the
early settlers, are all that remain, besides tradition, to tell the
story of the former inhabitants of Manapouri and Te Anau.
How the lakes came to be formed is a matter for the geologists, the
geographers, and the physiographers. Some will tell you they have been
scooped out by the glaciers of a past period; others, again, will
deny this. For myself I can never quite follow the reasoning of the
erosionists. The greater glaciers, in the higher part of the range at
Mount Cook, moving at the rate of, say, half an inch a day along their
softer beds, and with a great press of moraine above and in the ice
below, have scooped out no such deep lakes. The vanished glaciers of
Te Anau and Manapouri, flowing from a lower altitude, and down a more
level valley, would march at a still slower rate, and they carried with
them a minimum of moraine. Why in the less likely case have we deep
lakes, and, in the more likely one, none—except those shallow ones that
have been formed, not by erosion, but by the blocking of the valleys
with morainic débris? It is difficult to conceive how Lake Wakatipu,
especially, with its surface 1000 feet above sea-level and its floor
400 feet below it, could have been so scooped out, and one is tempted
to tell the erosionists, as Ruskin told them, to try to saw a piece of
marble through (with edge of iron, not of soppy ice, for saw, and with
sharp flint sand for felspar slime), to move the saw at the rate of an
inch in three-quarters of an hour, and see what lively and impressive
work they will make of it! I may be told that Ruskin was not a
scientist, and I certainly am not; but even the scientists, themselves,
hold converse theories—and, after all, they are only theories.
In the days when I made the journey I am now about to write of,
travel in Kiwi Land was beset with many difficulties. The getting to
the lake was bad enough; but once aboard the lugger—which was a very
small steamer that raised steam in a most erratic way from burning
wood—one never quite knew what would happen. The captain had some
knowledge of steering a plough on dry land, but little in regard to the
navigation of a ship, and, moreover, he had contracted an unpleasant
habit of falling asleep at the wheel—a habit that one would rather
not see unduly encouraged, especially on a dark night. The result was
that when he awoke—or was awakened—there would generally be a heated
argument between him and the one and only engineer as to where they
were! The engineer had a happy knack of poking his head up through
the little hatchway at an opportune moment and asking the skipper in
a gruff voice where the devil he was making for; and the skipper,
guiltily endeavouring to rub the slumber out of his eyes, would remark
in dubious tones that he was steering for “yon clump o’ trees” or for
“the promontory with the blue-gums on it”; but, as often as not, the
clump of trees would be quite a fiction, and the promontory with the
blue-gums on it the creation of an imaginative but otherwise dull
brain. At such moments the skipper would at first argue the point with
all the positiveness of the slumberer who swears he has been awake all
the time; but, generally, it would end in his taking his orders from
the engineer! This was somewhat disconcerting for the passengers, and,
it might have been thought, humiliating for the captain, especially
as he was not only the captain, but also the owner of the vessel. The
captain, however, did not seem to mind. Occasionally, when there was a
head wind, the little vessel would make but slow progress up the lake,
and the supply of fuel would come suddenly to an end; but that was a
matter easily remedied, for they simply ran the nose of the vessel
ashore, and captain and engineer, with the passengers assisting, plied
the axe in the forest primeval until a new supply of fuel had been put
on board. Then the vessel would be put ahead for all she was worth and
sparks would come streaming aft from the funnel till the drier part of
the fuel on deck would catch fire and we would have to dip buckets of
water from the lake to quench the conflagration, or maybe, under the
press of steam caused by some combined momentary enthusiasm on the part
of the engineer and the captain, the boiler tubes would commence to
leak, so that we would once more have to run ashore and make up some
puddle of thick clay with which to heal up the wounds—
“All nautical pride we laid aside
And ran the ship ashore
Till with rags and clay in a lonely bay
We made her taut once more;
At the close of a gay, exciting day,
We sailed in pouring rain,
And, at length, we lay in another bay,
To patch her up again!”
But even in such memorable journeys there are some compensations, and
one of these is luncheon. We land in a sheltered nook where the little
waves come flapping lazily to our feet—
“To kiss with whispering sound and low
The beach of pebbles white as snow.”
There, under the tall beech trees, we build a great log fire, and,
all unheeding of the gently falling rain, boil the “billy” and enjoy
our first camp meal, amidst scenes of almost Arcadian simplicity.
It is the memories of such meals that remain when recollections of
Voisin’s, in the Rue Saint-Honoré, or the Ritz, in Piccadilly, have
been dimmed by the passing years. And I am sure that no delicacy in a
Savoy supper, and not even Delair’s famous _canard à la presse_ at the
Tour d’Argent could be more delicious than the grilled bacon that came
to us, in these wilds, still sizzling from the red coals of the camp
fire. Overhead we could hear the strange sound from the beating of the
air by the wings of a wood-pigeon and note the scarlet flash of the
kaka’s underdress as he flew across the valley uttering his discordant
screeches of protest. Nearer, the quiet native thrush, with russet
tail, would peer at us from the tangled undergrowth, while the little
wrens, confiding to the verge of boldness, would come hopping to us,
and, after eyeing us with curiosity, but without suspicion, would peck
the crumbs that fell at our feet.
By the time our meal was at an end and we had re-embarked, the
rain-clouds were low on the mountains with their “burden of unshed
showers,” and a stiffish breeze from the middle fiord was chasing a
squadron of white-crested waves aslant the lake. But we got out of this
disturbance into smoother waters and steamed slowly along the western
shore at the feet of the great forest-clad mountains. And high in
heaven we got a glimpse of one snow-capped peak that rent the clouds
asunder with startling suddenness and then vanished again beneath
its ashen drapery. Later, other peaks came out, and, in the breaking
clouds, the majestic grandeur of the scene was slowly revealed. The
walled summits closed in upon us as we went, the cold night air
dissipated the swirling mists, the stars stole out one by one, and the
serrated edges of the mountains on either hand were silhouetted against
the evening sky as our vessel puffed along. Narrower and narrower
became the lake, and as we rounded the final turn the blackness of
the water and the towering precipices ahead seemed to be luring us
to destruction. The captain and the engineer exchanged orders, but
there was no slackening of speed, and just as the doctor, who had
been stationed in the bow as a look out, was straining his eyes in a
hopeless effort to fathom the cimmerian darkness, the vessel went full
tilt on to the beach, and we found ourselves suddenly at the end of our
journey, and, as the engineer remarked to the captain, “in a devil of a
place.” Luckily no damage was done, and we had only missed the proper
landing—a shelving, sandy beach—by a few yards. The men of our party
scrambled out over the bow, knee-deep in the cold water, the ladies
were carried from the side, and then swags and provisions were quickly
transferred from the steamer and up a short bush path to the hut near
by. A roaring fire was soon blazing up the spacious log chimney, and
the expedition settled down to discuss the pannikins of steaming hot
tea and the liberal camp bill-of-fare that the self-appointed cooks—the
doctor’s wife and “the poetess”—had spread on the rough bush table for
our delectation.
[Illustration: ON LAKE TE ANAU.]
The walk from Milford Sound has been described as the finest walk in
the world, and, although this is an exaggeration, it has sufficient
of beauty, and grandeur, and variety to make it world famous. But it
has been so much described that it were futile for my poor pen to
add anything here, except, perhaps, to say a word or two about the
views from and about the pass, which is named after my old friend and
fellow-explorer, Quintin MacKinnon, whose body, these many years now,
has lain at the bottom of the deep, cold lake that he loved so well.
One of the loneliest spots on the journey is Lake Mintaro, at the
eastern foot of the pass. The lake itself reflects the surroundings,
and the few wildfowl on its waters look at themselves as in a mirror—
“The swan on still St. Mary’s lake
Floats double—swan and shadow.”
With the dying day the gloom of the narrow valley deepened. The glow
of sunset fell for a few moments on the mountains down the valley,
and the tracery of the dark beech trees stood boldly out against
the gold. The trumpet note of the Paradise ducks—which are not
ducks, but geese—sounded from the lake, and the plaintive cry of the
orange-wattled crow—three clear, sad notes in a minor key—came from
the hillside in the dying day. The trees were grey with clinging
mosses, Mount Hart towered on the left, and across the lake the grim
precipices of Mount Balloon, inaccessible from this side, rose in wild
grandeur for thousands of feet—a solid wall of black granite seamed
with snow; while just overhead, on the left, the enormous buttresses of
the mountain range in places overhung, and seemed ready at any moment
to topple over and compass our destruction. The valley is narrow and
gloomy, and almost completely shut in from the late autumn sun, so that
as the evening wanes one is glad to seek the shelter of the hut and to
pile on the beech-tree logs till a great sparking fire goes roaring up
the capacious chimney.
Late in the season as it was, we only gained the summit of the pass
after a weary trudge through snow. Our reward was the view. One
has seen nobler mountains, greater glaciers, and more beautiful
snow-fields; but the wild and rugged grandeur of the surrounding
country cannot fail to leave a lasting impression. The blackness of
the mountain walls, the narrowness of the valleys, and, above all,
the _nearness_ of the views, charmed and surprised us. In the valley
up which we had journeyed the mountain ranges rose above the mists.
Deep down below us was Lake Mintaro with the lonely hut. Turning to
the right, we saw the long ridge of Mount Hart, leading to a fine rock
peak, and, beyond it, behind Mount Sutherland, the glacier that feeds
the Sutherland Falls, gleaming in the morning sun. Down the Arthur
Valley range after range, streaked with snow, rose, clear cut, against
a blue sky, merging, near the horizon, into pale green; while right
opposite the pass—the grandest and most striking sight of all—was Mount
Elliot, with the pretty little Jervois Glacier stretching between its
twin peaks. The sun just tipped a patch of snow on the left of either
peak, while the glacier itself and the stupendous black precipices
flanking Roaring Creek were in shadow. Two streams of frozen snow
clung to the rocks below the higher end of the glacier, and, still
farther round, a peculiar cleft in the rock ran down slantwise from
near the summit to the shoulder of the mountain for fully a thousand
feet. Occasionally a block of ice fell from the edge of the glacier,
or a rock avalanche rattled down sheer into the valley, thousands of
feet below. Mount Balloon rose on the right, but, in point of grandeur
and beauty, it was not to be compared with Mount Elliot, the dark
precipices of which stood out in vivid contrast against the foreground
of snow which the saddle this day afforded. The fine crags of Mount
Balloon frowned defiantly down upon me, so Fyfe and I, leaving our
burdens on the pass, went off to test them from a climber’s point of
view. We went straight at the precipices that rise above the pass,
kicked steps up a short snow couloir, and then zigzagged up the rocks,
climbing towards what appeared to be an arête, running down into the
valley at the head of Roaring Creek. We got on very well for a while,
but the sun began to work round on to our side of the mountain, and,
melting the snow, made the rocks slippery and the vegetation in the
crevices and on the ledges dripping wet, so that we had to exercise
more than usual care. The heat of the sun, moreover, began to loosen
the frozen snow on the ledges of a wall of rock that towered above us
for nearly a thousand feet, and masses came crashing down in unpleasant
proximity. In nearly every case, however, the falling pieces became so
disintegrated through coming from such a great height that there seemed
little danger, and we proceeded. The climbing was unlike anything we
had previously experienced, and we went at it independently, trying the
rocks in different directions. Fyfe almost got blocked on a difficult
bit of the cliff near the head of the couloir, and had to leave his
axe behind. The couloir narrowed as we proceeded, furtively glancing
up every now and then at the chunks of frozen snow that came whizzing
down from the heights above. Some of the chips occasionally struck us,
and the fusillade was becoming just a little unpleasant, when suddenly
there was a louder crash above, and we saw, descending from a great
height, a larger mass than any that had preceded it. We instinctively
ducked our heads into the snow as the falling mass struck the edge of
the couloir above us a little to the right, and came swishing down
the slope in a thousand pieces. This was hardly good enough, so,
recognizing that discretion was the better part of valour, we turned
and beat a precipitate retreat. With the rocks free from snow these
crags would, however, make quite a fine climb; but now it was quite
clear the mountain was not in a condition to be trifled with. We had
further evidence of this a few minutes later, for as we were glissading
down the couloir a chip of rock came whizzing past us, too close to
be pleasant. Fyfe went down first, and was skirting the base of the
first great precipice that rises from the saddle on the Milford side,
when there was a crash above. I yelled to him to look out, but he had
seen the rock coming, and in a moment had ducked his head down and his
heels up the slope, so that if the rock did strike him it would not be
in a vulnerable part. To me, looking down from a height of 200 or 300
feet, the attitude he presented was most comical; and although I could
not but recognize the danger and admire his quickness and presence of
mind, I could not at the same time refrain from laughter. The rock fell
within half a dozen yards of him and buried itself in the snow.
Later, my brother Kenneth and I made two efforts to ascend the peak, as
we had discovered a route from the head of the valley on the Milford
Sound side, leading to an easy arête that led right on to the summit;
but each attempt was nipped in the bud by bad weather. One afternoon in
company with Mr. Ziele, a member of our party, we left the Beech Huts
at Sutherland Falls, and climbed to a bivouac near the pass, feeling
confident that on the morrow the peak would be ours. We found an ideal
place for a camp. A small stream trickled through the bush near at
hand. Lower down we could hear the ceaseless murmur of the waters of
Roaring Creek, and over the tree-tops immediately below us we got a
glimpse of the frowning precipices of Mount Elliot. Kenneth lit a great
camp-fire right on the path, and while I built up a rude platform of
branches and twigs, Ziele busied himself cutting the fronds of _Todea
Superba_ and other ferns, so that we should have an easy couch. It was
dark before we finished, but we continued our operations by the aid of
the firelight, and at 7.30 p.m. we crawled into our sleeping bags for
the night. The cries of the kiwi and kakapo sounded close by; the fire
crackled on the path near at hand; while above the monotonous lullaby
of Roaring Creek and all the other noises came, every now and then, the
roar of an avalanche from the Jervois Glacier just across the valley.
Two kakapos, half flying, half running, rushed past us through the
bush, and the shrill whistle of a weka on the slopes above was answered
by the quack! quack! quack! of a blue mountain duck in the creek
below. Then a wind began to sigh ominously in the trees, and a falling
barometer warned us of further defeat. But our bed was a comfortable
one, and the old campaigners, at all events, were soon in the land of
dreams.
Towards morning we were awakened by our friends the kakapos, who in
their frolics seemed to forget the respect due to the featherless
bipeds, and scampered right over our heads. Putting out my hand half an
hour or so later, I felt a gentle rain falling, and there was a small
pool of water in the folds of Ziele’s sleeping bag. The weather had
again broken, and there was nothing for it but to return to the huts
and try another time. The mist was thick in the valley and all the
mountains were blotted out, but the booming of the avalanches indicated
clearly that the Jervois Glacier was still alive and kicking. We
waited an hour after daylight, and then, squirming out of our sleeping
bags, made a hurried breakfast and marched off in single file down to
the Beech Huts. On arrival there we found that Fyfe and Hodgkins had
started down the Milford Sound track to see if they might by any chance
fall in with the Government road-making party, who we knew must be
camped not many miles away. Hodgkins returned in the afternoon with the
intelligence that a party of fourteen men were camped about a mile and
a half down the valley, that they had almost run short of provisions,
and had been for some weeks without news of the outside world. As the
day wore on, the rain came down heavier and heavier, and by nighttime
we fully realized that the climate on the western side of the divide
could be “demned moist and unpleasant” when it chose. Our supply of
bread now ran out, but luckily we had taken some flour over the pass,
and my wife was kept busy baking scones to supply the wants of six
hungry men with fully developed appetites. It was rather interesting to
watch the evolution of the methods of camp cookery, but let us hear the
cook herself on so important a matter:—
“It was with some trepidation,” she says, “that I decided that
afternoon to bake bread. At home, I am considered a good cook, even by
those who suffer under my experiments, but here things were different.
The commissariat department included self-raising flour,—one is fairly
sure of a success with that,—and I was fortunate enough in the first
hut to find a tin basin to mix my dough in.
“My husband had, before starting, objected, on the score of weight, to
the handle of the common domestic frying-pan that figured among our
utensils. It was decided to break it off and put two light curved wire
handles across. To make it still lighter, only one of these handles
was brought, and the consequence was that the pan, if anyone winked or
coughed, tipped up suddenly. My dough looked beautifully light as I
patted it gently into the hanging pan. Stokers there were in plenty,
and I felt sure of success as I saw the cream-white bubbles rise on the
surface. Two of the party were building castles in the air, sitting
on the bench in front of the fire, gloating over the idea of fresh
bannocks for their tea. For but one moment—one hapless moment—I left
my scone to wash the basin at the door, one short step away from the
hearth. When I returned, the pan had ignominiously ejected its contents
into the very middle of the fire, and then had righted itself again.
I demanded of the two, who still sat gloomily gazing, why was this
thus; but they told me they thought I was running the show, or words to
that effect. The three of us set disconsolately to work with spoons to
fish up some of the dough. I deposited a spoonful or two of it in the
frying-pan, where it burnt, and smelt so strong that another member of
the party came rushing in with his appetite in full play. ‘Well,’ he
said cheerily, ‘how did your scone turn out?’ I stared solemnly, spoon
in hand, and told him that it had turned out all right; but not in the
manner expected! However, they let me down lightly over this first
_faux pas_ in camp cookery, and I hid the charred remnants with the
meat-tins where the rats ran riot behind the hut, and, no doubt, made
short work of them.
“It was always interesting on arrival at a hut to inspect the kitchen
utensils. As a rule it did not take long. We left the hapless
frying-pan behind in one hut hoping to find in another a substitute. I
pounced eagerly upon three small cake-tins, and determined to utilize
them. They did very well, though of rather thin metal. An enamel plate
I also used returned, I regret to say, from the furnace minus the
enamel. Of course, these were simply placed on the embers, which had
constantly to be raked out from beneath the great mossy logs at the
back of the fireplace. Now and again culinary operations had to be
stopped, as the wooden chimney had a little habit of going on fire;
but a man inside with one bucket of water, and another outside with
a second bucket, soon extinguished the conflagration. We got quite
used to it at last. It was terribly hot work raking out the embers and
watching the bread, and I always got a volunteer for that. I sort of
superintended. These scones were really very good; but the best plan
was hit upon towards the end of our trip. One awesome night, dark as
pitch, when I lay awake in the hut and listened to the rain pouring
and the rush of Roaring Creek as it carried its rain-swollen waters
into the Arthur River, my thoughts veered round to the perennial scone.
The rats that night were holding high carnival. They had discovered
some figs in my swag. Among the bric-à-brac in the men’s hut, which
was our kitchen, dining-room, and drawing-room in one, I had noticed
a frying-pan with a large hole in the bottom. This inverted over the
baking tins, a piece of tin covering the hole, and then thickly covered
with hot embers, would be a great improvement on our present method,
and this also would save the trouble of turning. Next day, when tried,
the plan proved a great success, and much less bother than the other
way. _La nuit porte conseil_, the French say. It was so in this case.”
We had heavy rain now, and on our journey down to the Sound had
to wade nearly waist-deep through strong-running streams. We were
hospitably received at the roadmen’s camp, albeit they were running
short of provisions. At one time they had run out of tea, and had to
be content with hot water, while now they had neither sugar, butter,
nor jam, but were obliged to rest satisfied with dry bread and tinned
meats. To add to their troubles, they had a cook who was no cook, and
whose mental balance, never very well adjusted, had in these solitary
places developed a decided kink. He eyed us with a weird look, half
of suspicion and half curiosity. We had noted, in passing, near the
cook-house, a crooked log partially hollowed out, and we now learnt
that this was a primitive canoe which the cook in his spare moments was
laboriously fashioning with the avowed object of making a voyage to the
better land.
It would have been a cranky craft in any case, and, had he trusted his
body to it, there can be no doubt that his contemplated journey to
the better land would have been somewhat shorter than he anticipated.
However, instead of voyaging on the troubled waters of the Arthur
River, he wandered off at midnight down the track to Lake Ada. He
returned next day, but went straight to his bed, and refused to cook
any more. When asked what possessed him to make this midnight journey,
he merely remarked that he had heard the Lord calling him. Some of the
men wished he had gone in his canoe.
Our journey down the valley after the heavy rains afforded us a
wonderful sight. The Arthur River, swollen to three times its normal
size, roared over the rapids, and flowed swiftly along the more level
reaches, while adown the granite walls of the splendid valley hundreds
of waterfalls of great variety in height, in volume, and in beauty came
madly rushing or softly falling as the case might be—
“A land of streams! Some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.”
Down the river in the boats that we found there, across Lake Ada with
its sunken forest, and again on down the woodland track we rowed and
marched till we reached the lower boat landing. There we found a boat
and a small flat-bottomed punt. We baled them out and embarked—four
in the boat and three in the “flatty”—for Milford Sound. The valley
broadened out a little, and the rapids of the river had given place to
quiet tidal reaches. We seemed to be floating down into fairyland over
mountain-tops that were mirrored beneath us. Kenneth, Fyfe, and I were
in the “flatty,” and we had to bale for dear life; but often we would
halt in our work and gaze admiringly upon the beautiful scenes that a
bountiful Creator had spread about us with such lavish hand.
No wind stirred the waters, and no sound vexed the hushed air save
the plash of our oars and the swish from the baler’s can. It all
seemed unreal—a pleasant dreamland, a land in “which it seemed always
afternoon.”
“We saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land; far off, three mountain tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset flushed; and, dewed with showery drops,
Up clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.”
Suddenly the curving foam of the Bowen Falls flashed into sight, and
an involuntary shout of delight and admiration arose from both boats.
Then, rounding the last promontory, we came from the dark mountain
shadows of the narrow valley into the gleaming sunshine of the open
sound.
The stay of a few days in Milford Sound was greatly enjoyed by the
non-climbing members of the party. My wife writes of it:—
“The exquisite weather—true Indian summer days—the magnificent
surroundings, the genial hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland, and
the feeling that there was no need to be ‘up and doing,’ all increased
the lazy enjoyment of those halcyon days. Perhaps even the knowledge
that our comrades, while we basked in the sunshine or rowed on the
calm water, were toiling through the matted bush, or cutting their
way up their mountain, also added a sharper relish to our pleasure.
Many a time our thoughts of them were tinged with anxiety, and we
followed their course in imagination. From the hour we came in sight
of Sutherland’s, lying in the afternoon sunshine of that perfect day,
with the white curving flash of the Bowen Fall on our left, and the
great mountains far above, to the morning when, with many a wistful
backward glance, we left it, silent and seemingly tenantless, we had
ideal weather. After the excitement and bustle of starting the climbers
were over, and after the return of Mr. Fyfe, who had to be put under
medical treatment for neuralgia, we decided to go fishing. It was most
exciting. The boat, to begin with, was leaky, and I was very thankful
that I had no skirts to get draggled and dirty. One had to keep baling
half the time, and another rowing to keep the boat in position. As
there were only two of us in our boat our fishing was spasmodic, but
in Mr. Fyfe’s case successful. He stood with quite a professional air
in the stern of the boat, and caught four or five fish—some blue cod,
and two or three of a large frill-backed kind called teraki, which
objected extremely to have the hook taken out of their mouths, and
flopped most alarmingly about my ankles. Some little red fish, called
‘soldiers,’ were not considered worth catching at Milford, where so
many finer varieties may be hooked. In other places they are thought
very good. The water seemed teeming with fish. The line was scarcely
out before there came a tug, and occasionally some of our party caught
two at once. As the afternoon wore on, a tiny breeze ruffled the
surface of the Sound, and it began to feel chilly. The sun had set,
and the silvery pallor of the mist wreath across the Lion, veiling its
precipices, was changed to rose. From the water’s edge towered the
great mountains, gloomy in shadow, but above, the higher peaks were
still glorious in the sunlight and glowed with living gold.
“When we got back to the roaring fire and comfortable tea Mrs.
Sutherland had provided, we did full justice to both. It was the first
time I had tasted kid cutlets or stewed kaka, and both were very good.
And then, after, we gathered round the blazing logs and told stories,
and listened to Mr. Sutherland’s yarns amid the curling smoke of the
evening pipes. He told us among many other things that there were in
the Sound fish he called grampuses—‘grampi’ sounds more correct—that
when at play jumped out of the water 20 feet, sometimes turning a
somersault in the air. He said they were often 12 feet long. A recent
visitor to Milford City had said Mr. Sutherland’s yarns were on a par
with the scenery—‘tall’; and we, metaphorically, of course, winked at
one another as he volunteered this statement. Time proved it to be
quite correct, however. Next morning the three men of our party started
off to try to climb the Mitre, and left me to my own devices. It had
been dark a long time, and there were no signs of their return. I was
feeling a little anxious, as they had to row five miles in the leaky
boat. At eight o’clock Mrs. Sutherland and I went out and listened for
the plash of their oars, for that, on a still night in the Sound, can
be heard over a mile away. The moon was up and making a silver glory of
the water. The muffled roar of the hidden Bowen Fall came to us across
the little inlet. In front towered the Mitre, grander yet in the misty
moonlight. Suddenly across the silence of the sound came a cheer, and
some nondescript noises, afterwards explained to be singing, and in a
little while we welcomed the wanderers back. They were exultant, for
they had filled their boat with fish, and excited, for they had been
chased for miles by ‘grampuses,’ ‘quite 12 feet long, and that jumped
at least 20 feet out of the water just alongside our boat.’ To judge
from the slightly incoherent accounts, these monsters must have chosen
this fine moonlight night for a game of leap-frog, and have wanted an
audience. Fortunately, though they dived underneath and jumped quite
close to the oars, they never touched the boat, but evidently the minds
of the gallant crew were not free from apprehension. The next day Mr.
Sutherland showed us these same fish spouting five miles away, near the
Stirling Falls.”