Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/116

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Letters from New Zealand.

of Kuleborn himself, with his attendant gnomes and sprites, for it is flanked by magnificent precipices of bare rock, two thousand feet above you, which are scored with channels, down which the water god comes in grand cascades; yet the whole place is relieved by a growth of Alpine flora; daisy, ranunculus, the Mount Cook Lily with its plate-like leaves, and a great variety of veronica. The pass is said to be the ancient moraine of a great glacier.

Looking down westward, you stand on the edge of the old moraine dyke which cut across the deep ravine below and blocked up its eastern end; with a precipitous face, once bare rock, now thick with forest growth; in the ravine you can trace at intervals a rushing glacier stream, losing itself in a continuous mass of trees. To make a road down this and onward was a bold undertaking, but successful. For eighteen hundred feet it zig-zags down with such sharp turns that at several corners the leaders' feet are within a yard of the edge; they curve and round about like circus horses; the road has a surface of soft broken metal, good holding ground; the driver knows his work, the breaks grind and squeak; "Hold her now your side," says the driver to me, as I put my whole weight on it. "Now easy; hold her again" and so we get down safely, and at a good pace, which is necessary to keep the coach from swerving; and after two miles of cavernous, rugged rock-cutting, just above the roaring blue glacier torrent, every now and then besprinkled with the spray of waterfalls, we pull up at a little shanty for a welcome lunch. Down steps an elderly gentleman from the seat behind me, shakes himself, and says, "Well, sir, I'm thankful we're here; nothing shall ever induce me to come