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Milford Sound.

At last the words "Land on the starboard bow" came from the look-out on the forecastle, and dimly through the mist we saw a black rock with white breakers shooting up its side. Another moment, and emerald-green foliage showed above it, and, as the steamer's head swung round to the northward, there appeared a high sloping headland all covered with fern vegetation. The north-westerly gale had driven us too far to the southward, so we dashed along through the seas, skimming close to the land, which was now and then completely hidden by heavy showers of rain.

As we passed the headland there was often not two waves' distance between us and the rocks, and had we not had the greatest confidence in our captain we should have considered it a perilous style of navigation on a lee-shore. The contrast between the white breakers, black rocks, and green foliage was lovely. At short intervals we passed little bays into which foaming streams tumbled from the hills above, and found their way to the sea over sand-bars which seemed almost to dam them back. There were, however, no high sea cliffs as might have been expected on this the weather side of the island. Dr. Hector concludes that the sloping form of the headlands is a proof that at present the land is either rising or sinking, and, though there is important evidence on both sides of the question, showing that various oscillations have taken place, the former theory seems the most probable.

After pounding through a head sea for about twenty miles we came to an outlying sea-swept rock, over which a few albatrosses soared, and, rounding it in a furious squall of wind and rain, we entered the still waters of Milford Sound. Vertical cliffs rose for thousands of feet on either hand, and we drove in before a blast so strong as almost to make steaming unnecessary; the surface of the sea would now and then be torn off in sheets, driven along in spindrift, and again all would be as calm as glass. Waterfalls resembling the Staubbach came down the cliffs from far above the clouds, and were blown away into spray while in mid-air by the fury of the storm. Wherever vegetation could get a footing on these immense precipices lovely treeferns and darker shrubs grew in profusion, all dripping with page 70moisture, and running up the cliffs in long strips of verdure till lost to our view aloft in the torn white mists. The vivid green of the foliage was the feature of all this wondrous scene which struck me most. Two or three miles up the sound we steamed close to an immense waterfall which, in one plunge of 300 feet, leaped into the sound with a roar like thunder, drowning our voices, and sending great gushes of spray over the steamer's deck. The face of another great cliff was so draped with numberless small falls that it seemed to he covered with a veil of silver gauze about 300 yards in width. While passing along here we fired off a gun. Echo after echo resounded from cliff to cliff, and from invisible crags high over our heads the echo again returned as a voice from the clouds.

The mists now showed an inclination to clear off, the rain ceased, and as we entered the inner basin of the sound the forests increased in beauty. The totara pines, draped with festoons of grey lichen, contrasted well with the soft green of the great fern-fronds, and formed a suitable background to the scarlet blossoms of the rata, which here and there lit up the upper surface of the forest with patches of intense colour. Gleams of sunshine began to dart through the clouds, giving a momentary flash on one of the numerous cascades, and then, passing over forest and cliff, added new beauties of light and shade. When about eight miles from the open sea, a booming sound rose high over the voices of the numerous cascades, growing louder as we advanced, and, rounding a forest-clad point, we came upon the grandest of New Zealand waterfalls—the great Bowen Fall. Its first fall is only about 50 feet, into a rock basin, but, leaping from it upwards and outwards in a most wonderful curve, it plunges down with a deafening roar in a single leap of 300 feet.

The Te Anau was allowed to drift up in the eddy caused by the fall, and, being caught by the stream in the midst of drenching clouds of spray, she was spun round as though she were a mere floating twig; then, steaming to a short distance, she stopped again. The weather had now taken up sufficiently for us to see through an opening in the clouds the snow-clad top of Mitre Peak, which rises in one great precipice of 5,000 feet from the surface of the sound. The glacier on Pembroke Peak showed for a few minutes. page 71and was then lost bo view; but what we saw formed the grandest combination of scenery upon which my eyes had ever rested. As these sounds are from 200 to 300 fathoms deep, there are but few places in them where a ship could anchor. Had we stayed there for the night we should have made the steamer fast to the trees.

While pausing to admire the scenery, and fire shots to awaken the echoes, a boat with three men in it put off to us from the shore. At this we were not a little surprised, as we had believed we were in one of those secret places of nature untenanted by man.

On reaching our side they stepped on board, and we learned that two of them had resided in these solitudes for several years, keeping possession of a seam of asbestos which they have discovered till the time comes when it may be worked with a profit. They trust for supplies to the occasional visit of one of the Union Company's steamers, and to the Government vessel which goes round periodically inspecting lighthouses and looking after a few straggling settlers like our friends. The third man who came off in the boat, and who remained on board the Te Anau, was an enterprising explorer, who had spent some weeks trying to discover, what many others tried to discover with no better success, an overland route from Milford Sound to the inhabited country to the eastward. Only ten miles of mountain and forest divide the head of Milford Sound from the Greenstone Track to Lake Wakatipu, with its steamers and railway, but the scrub is so dense and the mountains so rugged that it has never been traversed.

The boat now put off from the steamer laden with supplies we had brought to the men, and the signal "easy ahead" being given, we slid gently through the still water, and, skimming along the shore close under Mitre Peak, passed Anita Bay—famed for its vein of the precious jade or greenstone, from which the Maoris made their axes— and then out into the long rollers of the Pacific.

Our course was now to the southward, and we thought we were done with sounds; but the afternoon cleared so rapidly, the sun shining out and the sea going down, and only a few tattered fragments of the white mists lingering over the wooded headlands and higher peaks, that the page 72captain was induced to give us another delightful experience in George Sound.

We were leaning on the rail admiring the charming bays and rich woods when a great vista opened between the hills, with domes of forest reflected in the still sunlit water. We exclaimed involuntarily, "How delightful it would be to go up there," when, to our surprise, the steamer's head spun round, and we steamed straight in. Immediately every one ran for their friends, and heads were popped through the skylights calling all on deck. The grandeur of Milford Sound—its great precipices and waterfalls, which reminded us of the Geiranger Fjord in Norway—was not so striking a feature in George Sound, where all was rich beauty. One fall, indeed, embowered in trees like the Giessbach, we passed near the entrance, but the dense forests reaching from the sea-level to the snowy hill-tops, the fern foliage and the red flowers of the rata, gave to the scene a glory quite its own.

The expanse of water which we saw on entering reminded us somewhat of the Lake of Brienz, and on reaching its inner end, we expected to turn round and come out. But this was only the vestibule, for a deep gorge opened to the right, so narrow that the steamer could barely have turned in it. And now we steamed through the most lovely corridor of rich forest scenery, rising tier above tier to the highest limits of vegetation. On and on we went, past an islet covered with fine trees draped with lichens, the whole reflected gem-like in the still water, thinking that every bend and branching arm would be the last, till, on reaching it, another charming vista opened ahead.

When about twelve miles from the sea we reached the inner sanctuary, a fitting home for the nymphs. A strong rush of water here met us, while the filmy haze and dull booming of a waterfall filled the air. The screw now ceased its motion. The eddy of the fall drew us along, grazing the rocks and trees which hung their branches almost over our decks; we slipped past a point and entered a little basin in which we were quite shut in from the view of more than half a square mile of water. Immediately before us the foaming fall plunged into the sound, filling the air with its roar. For a moment we felt as if we were at the bottom of a deep well, so small was the patch of sky overhead, the page 73walls of forest all around rising rapidly for 3,000 feet or 4,000 feet. The next moment the eddy swept us into the main current of the fall, and, though the Te Anau was a vessel of some 1,500 tons burthen, she was instantly spun round, and drifted out of the sacred spot in which we can imagine an extraordinary meeting of oreads, dryads, and naiads was immediately convened to denounce the modern abomination of steam navigation.

—W. S. Green

("High Alps of New Zealand," 1883).