A. Maud Moreland

“ A great and abiding peace possesses it, and it was hard to realize the tales I heard of the days of the gold fever, when those grey sands of the beach yielded a wondrous golden harvest; when, on many a moonlight night every man, woman, and even child, might have been seen digging frantically on the tide-line at some low ebb, when certain bands of black sand were exposed; running the sand up in barrows, carrying it in baskets, heaping up the precious harvest above high-water mark, working with mad haste till the tide turned and covered these gold-bearing sands until the next low tide. ”

“ Far south it is even more isolated—only this generation has been born and brought up on the Coast. The old generation came from another world. There is a certain sense forced upon one of the smallness and feebleness of man, when brought face to face with the Forest—when from some hill-top you look out over that undulating sea of green-blue hills and valleys, all untrodden, all impenetrable, wherein is no open track or glade save only up the bed of a torrent. ”

“ Each time we could see to the opposite side of the ravine, it seemed to change its face: at one moment we were opposite that fairy waterfall, then in a little it had moved away; and when the great ice-field of the glacier came in view it seemed in a totally unexpected quarter. The descent into the bush was terrific—no other word for it. We swung by lianes and creepers, sliding and slipping; hanging by a branch to let ourselves down over moss-grown boulders, holding to ferns and anything we could lay hold of—often to find the branch or tree we held hollow with rottenness ”

“ In the peaceful evening light we rode back, carrying a supply of fruit, and ate our supper as the long, purple shadows of the mountains leaned across the river-bed, and mounted slowly over the opposite forest.
Next day we started to climb the mountain immediately behind the homestead. We had viewed it from a distance, and could see that it rose by a succession of gigantic stairs with very rugged outlines, to black rock and snow some 6,000 feet above us. Transome had already gone up some distance on one spur, where quantities of the magnificent Ranunculus Lyallii grew among the rocks. ”

“ The spell of absolute loneliness and silence lay over all things. But where was the path? We turned the horses up the river-bed, crossing and re-crossing many streams, anxiously scanning some old hoof-marks, but as often as not finding they were but tracks of the half-wild cattle of the settlers. No one in sight, no sign of habitation—and the sun sank, and it became harder and harder to trace the will-o’-the-wisp hoof-marks. Now the river-bed widened out into a flat—partly shingle, partly overgrown with scrub—more puzzling than ever. ”

“ From the end of one arm issued a blue river, the Clutha, which wound in great loops and curves through brown plains of terrace formations, which descend from Lake Hawea in a succession of giant steps. They were dotted over with homesteads and cornfields and brilliant green oases. But we had to get down to the plains, and it looked as if we could jump from the crest where we were, it was so steep! At last we selected a spur. No English horse would go surely where those good beasts of ours hauled themselves up and let themselves down! ”

“ At one place the track led through what looked like a colony of giant lycopodium. They drooped above the ferns in weeping sprays of bronzy-green—it was like riding under a shower of golden rain—yet these were young rimus in their babyhood. In twenty years or more, the moss-like form will grow stiff and branch erect into the forest tree, though the ends of its branches always, to some extent, retain the graceful, weeping growth. Among all the baffling secrets of the forest, this utter diversity between the young and the mature form of many of its trees, is the most baffling. ”

“ Everywhere it is fringed with bush and tall tree-ferns, except to seaward. There it is shut in by flax-swamp and grey sand-dunes, on the other side of which the long rollers thunder night and day. I don’t believe the Pacific knows how to ripple in gently over ribbed sea sand. There is always that dull roar sounding far inland—less at times, but always there. The road led past the wharf with its goods shed, and beyond this is the entrance to the lagoon—a narrow opening through which the tides surge in and out. ”

“ We were obliged to keep high up because of the rank vegetation lower down, which really looked impenetrable. After a tedious climb, at last we saw the head of the gorge—a wonderful sight on which not many eyes have gazed. It is closed by a semi-circle of cliffs, precipitous and black; and wedged as it were between three mountain peaks, lies an enormous glacier.
Not a long river of ice, but a mighty mass of ice, breaking off sharp at the top of the stupendous cliffs, whose blackness contrasts strongly with its white surface and green edges. ”

“ I think those bricks must be just like the talents of gold of King Solomon. The roar and noise were deafening; and they told us, were the man who seemed with such ease to direct the nozzle of the hose to get in front, he would be dashed against the cliff like a straw in the wind. Round the bend of the hill almost all trace of man and his works ceased, and we rode along the fringe of the bush some distance inland, with the sea on our right hand, through ever-changing scenes. ”

“ We climbed up on to the top of it, and proceeded over a slippery surface, rather sloppy in the hot sunshine, till we stood below the waterfall which shoots in unbroken volume into a round, black hole. A cloud like steam rises out of it, and hangs around the opening. Looking upwards you see the fall comes down in a succession of three grand leaps, having their beginnings in a glacier poised some thousands of feet above. I don’t know whether it is more weirdly strange to stand up there at the edge of the uncanny pot-hole, or in the dimness of the cave to hear the water thundering down without. ”

“ The forest shut it in, and the grim walls of the Waiho gorge rose behind, and in the pleasant living-room I sat and chatted long; heard tales of the five stalwart sons, and of the grandchildren, of the diggers in the gorge, and the Hatters among the hills. The mountains and the forest and the great glacier are, to the old lady who lives there under shadow of the everlasting hills, “The wonderful works of God: Can we have anything but good when we live so close to the grand works of our Father?” ”

“ The very loneliness but added to the wondrous, mysterious charm of this forest world. On and on we rode in the dewy freshness: round steep mountain flanks, up deep gorges, along rock-cut ledges where the yellow sunshine lay bright and warm on the rocky way, catching at times vistas of high mountains towering above us, shrouded always in impenetrable bush—it was, above all things, a forest ride. Always there was the crowding undergrowth beneath—that riot of green-life, of forms strange to our eyes, beautiful in their infinite variety. And everywhere were ferns. ”

“ The colouring grew more weird and strange every minute. Behind Omarama the hills turned to reddish violet, the Ohau range hung like a dark wall in front, and over it the snow peaks peeped, flaming orange as the sun touched them. The nearer hills faded from blue to black, and when we left the plain and entered the river valley, dusk was falling. After a few miles we turned into the gorge of the Lindis and passed a desolate-looking station where there had been a great muster of sheep. Thousands were penned in paddocks waiting for the shearers. ”

“ The only harbour-master south of Hokitika came and told us tales of a wonderful region where few have been; where the olivine rocks shine blood-red on either side of a tremendous gorge. “It’s the finest sight you’ll ever see,” said he; “the road’s none too good; you’ll need be careful in the rivers, specially the Haast; there’s many a man’s been washed down in the Haast, and they never come out alive—no, nor do the bodies neither.” ”

“ It is rather a fascinating place, reminding one a little of a French town, with its houses perched about on reddish-coloured hills from which the bush has been cleared. There is no attempt at regularity, it straggles about, up and down the hills, and a very little way outside, the bush closes in again and rolls away, range beyond range, hill beyond hill, clothed as with dark green fur. To seawards a yellow flat stretches to the sand-dunes. Gaunt, dead trees stand on the flat, and a ragged forest of white-pine borders it; there are pools and bogs surrounded ”

“ Not even natives inhabited these solitudes in the past, nor any four-footed beast—nothing but the birds. The Maori invaders from the north, who came for the precious greenstone to be found in the river-beds, made no settlements among the hills, and left but a few small ones along the coast. Perhaps it is the only country in the world without history. Even the heart of Africa or Greenland has its traditions and folk-lore—here it is writ only in the rocks and immemorial trees. Its lords were the spirits of mountain and river—their Temple the house of the Forest. ”

“ I thought with regret how the white moonbeams were lying across our lonely valley, left now to the rabbits and the cows. . . . The black falcon will perch unmolested on the tree before the door; the ducks won’t need to go through their pantomime for our benefit; no one will stand looking at the hurrying river, and in the blue and silver morning listen to its singing.
Beautiful, untrodden ways and silent mountains, we come no more; like Okuru and its placid lagoon, you are laid by for ever in the inner room of memories . ”

“ Now, it is not every night one rides into a strange river m the dark, quite ignorant as to where to get out, and not knowing if one’s horse is going to swim; so that it was a relief to me when we were safely over. The trees had been felled on a little rise above the landing-place, and we could just make out a square outline with another beyond—the hut and stable. I have no doubt on a fine evening this forest-pool, with trees and ferns reflected in the still water, may have been an enchanting spot. ”

“ Beyond lay a dead-white wall—a ghostly barrier of snow—between two purple ranges. All nearer objects became black and indistinct. Suddenly, behind the dead-white wall an orange light grew up, palpitating up and up past the zenith, till the night clouds overhead blazed out in gold and orange as it caught their edges. We watched it spread from bank to bank. Then came another change. The gold turned rosy red, then crimson, deeper and deeper, till all the clouds were blood-red, and we rode on in a darkening world, our eyes fixed on the glory above. ”

“ And, lastly, we get a spreading forest tree equalling the red pine in height. At certain times of the year the bark peels off, and then the Temple columns are splashed with crimson and scarlet—wonderfully beautiful.
Surely it is this continual finding of surprises that make one’s progress through the bush so fascinating? Everywhere one sees those strange black ropes, jointed and polished, hanging from the roof in straight lines, or tying tree to tree, twisting and coiling, with neither beginning nor end that one can find. ”

“ The more sombre eastern colouring had given place to vivid greens; pine forest and ferns took the place of beech; above the gorge the snow peaks gleamed pure and sharp against the intense blue of the sky: it was enough to make the heart rejoice. And very joyous we were, as we rode down that sun-flecked woodland way, where the pinky track before us lay all mottled and barred with violet shadows. ”

“ Looking back, we saw the snow-fields of the Lansborough glittering against the glorious blue, with a dark mass of precipitous mountains at the junction of the valleys. No longer was the Haast a hungry, treacherous river. Here it was a lovely blue stream, widening in places to broad reaches of quiet water, where the paradise ducks swam with their almost grown-up families, uttering their plaintive cry and rising and flying short distances as we disturbed them. It is a cry in keeping with the loneliness of Nature among these untrodden hills. ”