The New Zealand Reader
View Of Mount Cook
View Of Mount Cook.
We started from a lonely valley, down which runs a stream called Forest Greek. It is an ugly, barren-looking place enough—a deep valley between two high ranges, which are not entirely clear of snow for more than three or four months in the year. As its name imports, it has some wood, though not much, for the Rangitata back-country is very bare of timber.
We started, as I said, from the bottom of this valley on a clear frosty morning—so frosty that the tea-leaves in our pannikins were frozen, and our outer blanket crisped with rime. We went up a little gorge, as narrow as a street in Genoa, with huge black and dripping precipices overhanging it, so as almost to shut out the light of heaven. I never saw so curious a place in my life.
It soon opened out, and we followed up the little stream which flowed through it. This was no easy work. The scrub was very dense, and the rocks huge. The Spaniard * "piked us intil the bane," and I assure you that we were hard set to make any headway at all. At last we came to a waterfall, the only one worthy of the name that I have yet seen. This "stuck us up," as they say here of any difficulty. We managed, however, to "slew" it, as they no less elegantly say of the surmounting of an obstacle.
After five hours of most toilsome climbing we found the vegetation becoming scanty; and soon we got on to the loose shingle which was nearer the top of the range. In seven hours from the time we started we were on the top. Hence we had hoped to discover some entirely new country, but were disappointed, for we only saw the Mackenzie Plains lying stretched out for miles away to the southward.
* [Speat-grass, or bayonet-grass.]
To return. There we lay on the shingle-bed, at the top of the range, in the broiling noonday; for even at that altitude it was very hot, and there was no cloud in the sky, and very little breeze. I saw that if we wanted a complete view we must climb to the top of a peak which, though only a few hundred feet higher than where we were lying, nevertheless hid a great deal from us. I accordingly began the ascent, having arranged with my companion that if there was country to be seen he should be called; if not, he should be allowed to take it easy.
Well, I saw snowy peak after snowy peak come into view as the summit in front of me narrowed, but no mountains were visible higher or grander than what I had already seen. Suddenly, as my eyes got on a level with the top, so that I could see over, I was struck almost breathless by the wonderful mountain that burst on my sight.
It rose towering in a massy parallelogram, disclosed from top to bottom in the cloudless sky, far above all the others. It was exactly opposite to me, and about the nearest in the whole range. So you may imagine that it was indeed a splendid spectacle. It has been calculated by the Admiralty people at 13,200ft., * but Mr. Haast, a gentleman of high scientific attainments, in the employ of the Government as geological surveyor, says that it is considerably higher. For my part I can well believe it. Mont Blanc himself is not so grand in shape, and does not look so imposing. Indeed, I am not sure that Mount Cook is not the finest in outline of all the snowy mountains that I have ever seen.
* [The height is 12,349ft.]
There is a glorious field here for the members of the Alpine Club. Mount Cook awaits them, and he who first scales it will be crowned with undying laurels. For my part, though it is hazardous to say this of any mountain, I do not think that any human being will ever reach the top.
But I am forgetting myself in admiring a mountain which is of no use for sheep. This is wrong. A beautiful mountain here is only beautiful if it has good grass on it. Scenery is not scenery—it is country. If it is good for sheep it is beautiful, magnificent, and all the rest of it; if not, it is not worth looking at. I am cultivating this tone of mind with considerable success, but you must pardon me for an occasional outbreak of the old Adam.
Of course I called my companion up, and he agreed with me that he had never seen anything so wonderful. We got down a little after dark, having had a very fatiguing day, but one that has amply repaid us for our exertions.
(" A First Year in Canterbury Settlement," 1861).