George Edward Mannering

“ It was a small matter, but it seemed to revive our failing energy and to call us on to victory to see the silver crescent apparently awaiting us on the snow ridge. Then a distant peak appeared—a wild cheer broke from us; another peak, and yet one more, followed by groups of twos and threes, dozens, hundreds—glaciers! forest! a river! the sea! the boundless ocean! 'Hurrah!' we shouted, 'our tramp has not been in vain.'
Here we were in the heart of Nature's solitudes, where only once before the foot of man had trodden the eternal snows. ”

“ Northwards and eastwards extended in glorious and shining array the magnificent chain of the Alps; glacier upon glacier, peak upon peak, range upon range of splendid mountains. Eastwards a fine rocky peak without a name and Mount Darwin, and looking south-westwards down the Tasman Glacier, from whence we had toiled our laborious way, the eye could follow the course of the great ice stream for twelve or thirteen miles, flanked by the grand mountains which sent down their tributary ice streams to join the mass in the valley below. ”

“ I remember well how we resorted to all sorts of dodges to get over the difficulties, taking the snow slopes of the mountain sides here, cutting a few steps there, even going to the length of climbing down into crevasses and crawling under ice blocks. But eventually we passed the worst of the crevasses, and made good time over the smooth, snow-covered surface of the glacier. The distance from our De la Bêche camp to the saddle must be about six or seven miles, but in the soft and treacherous snow it seemed more like sixty or seventy. ”