ting up for the night at a small inn, generally used as the dining place for the coach, we found the men who are in charge of the pass, and heard their account of it. They had in places cut narrow tracks through deep drifts, which lay across the road in wreaths, and would have been impossible to negotiate either with horses or wheels. Snow had fallen in three successive storms, they thought, fully fifteen feet thick; the top layer in many places soft and treacherous. "You may just get through to the Bealey Hotel"—about twelve miles distant—"but it will be a tough job."
Two of them came with us in the morning for a part of the way, to lend a hand in case of difficulty, bringing long-handled shovels and some rope. On the western side of the pass the road ascends nearly two thousand feet in less than three miles, in sharp zig-zag curves, much of it a mere shelf cut out of precipitous rock, until it reaches a plateau, some six miles in length, intersected by ravines, and then descends by slightly easier gradients into the valley of the Bealey River. Brilliant weather, with keen frost and complete absence of wind, was in our favour. Save for the uncertainty of reaching our goal, and the chance of being hopelessly entangled in the snow, nothing could have been more delightful. The scene was Arctic; a white wilderness of rock and mountain, sparkling under sunshine which, in New Zealand, makes such a difference between its winter climate and that at home. The going was a foot's pace, great care being necessary where snow bridges crossed streams and narrow gulleys in the road. After a long day's work, we reached the hotel, and its warm welcome of a huge fire of logs, and good food; the horses being cared for as well as a stable of corrugated iron,
