Robert Caldwell Reid

“ It is here reproduced in nature in the Otira Gorge. The driven snow has covered everything with virgin purity. Every bow of the pine, each leaf on the rata is traced in white. Every creeper trailing from the trees is a delicate festoon of snow. The great fronds of the giant ferns bend beneath the weight of the flakes which cover them; they are a thousand times more lovely than in their spring verdancy. It is a supremely beautiful sight, one which the driver says he has seldom seen. ”

“ We bowl along a good road, with a gradual ascent. All the way from Christchurch the rise has also been gradual, so the mountains do not look so high. The snow is lying about in patches. There is no bush, and the brown tussock grass has a dismal look, reminding me of the hills round the Clutha. A few miles out and we are at the bottom of a very steep incline, the road winding round the face of the mountain before us. Then the pleasant driver halts and seductively asks, ‘Will any of you gentlemen like to walk up here?’ I do not know why it is that I have not moral courage to refuse. ”

“ With their yearly garden and field crops, a few score bushels of grain, their small flocks and herds, and an occasional washing up from the gold on the beach, the settlers hereabouts, though few in number, lead a quietly prosperous life, rarely seeing strangers, rarely leaving their homes, and in happy oblivion of much toil and turmoil which pervades the busier haunts of men. Their chief anxiety is centred on the beach, on the varying state of tide and currents, which either deposit new layers of black sand, or else for the time being swamp all traces. ”

“ Looking inland from the sea along the chain of mountains, one first beholds ‘Mount Cook,’ the ever hoary-headed giant of the south, rearing aloft its snow-clad heights, 13,000 feet above the level of the sea, the monarch of all, the greatest land mark in New Zealand, and alongside of which all others seem insignificant, but none the less grand in the glorious picture presented. ”

“ The brightest pages of Bruce Bay history is to be found in Mr Frederick Greer’s ledger, if that valuable and interesting volume is still extant, and the darkest in the memories of the men who were misled thither by their simple faith in Hunt’s honesty and his supposed faculty of facile gold discovery. Once the scene of a heedless, headlong rush ending in dire disappointment, in uproar, and in threatened outrage, and once with only two of a population—one a madman, the other his keeper—its short history is well-nigh as picturesque as its surroundings. ”

“ It is in sooth a spot where the landscape painter would love to linger. A dreamy quiet rest on the hills and valleys, the broad expanse of lagoon is margined not “by fruits of gold and whispering myrtles, glassing softest skies, clear and cloudless, save with rare and roseate shadows,” but with the luxuriant New Zealand bush, which, in every season of the year, has a beauty all its own. ”

“ Elsewhere the level is too high, or the surroundings are not congenial, for the growth of any vegetation but that of the most meagre kind. But wherever a footing is to be had, there vegetation asserts itself, and, in every shade of Nature’s green, clothes the white or the grey rocks of the cliffs, or surrounds the errant patches of snow which have slipped from the parent fields above, and deposited themselves in solitude, or in groups upon the mountain side, until they are again separated and slid off to a lower level, to wither away into the waters of the streams. ”

“ We are below the level of the snowfall, which is replaced by a soft rain. A long stretch of beautiful road called the Avenue is before us. There is a wonderful difference between the vegetation on the east and west coasts of New Zealand. It is the same as noticed on the west coast of North America, a luxuriance of Nature due to the heavy rainfall. Here there are great trees, giant ferns, which look like palms, lianas hanging from bough to bough, deep mossy carpets underneath, a thousand rills of water gurgling on each hand—it is tropical in the profusion of vegetable life. ”

“ Evening is drawing on apace, and our journey’s end is near. There, full before us, is the sea. We catch the glitter of the crested surf, though its roar is inaudible at this distance. The sun is peering over the farthest verge of the level plain of waters, staining the deep with crimson, and lighting with a rosy glow the peaks of the enchanted region through which we have so lately passed. ”

“ Nothing on the hillsides but snow patches and tussock. The mountain in many places casts a heavy shadow—the sun’s rays do not reach us. The road is frost-bound. The streams which in summer would be babbling and breaking into a thousand ripples, are now sealed in the sleep of winter. Great icicles hang down from the banks. The path is covered with frozen snow and ice. The cold would be intense but that the hard exercise warms me. ”

“ Huge mountains, bare heath, breezy upland, widespread plain, swamps suggestive of sport aquatic, ranges timber clad to the very summits, the exuberant foliage of New Zealand brake and fell, glimpses ever and anon of the bright blue sea, pleasant picture spots of cottage life and rural occupation, all combine in charming panorama, and the eye never wearies. ”

“ A seven mile walk will bring him to the banks of the Mohikinui, and amidst piles of driftwood, tons upon tons, in thousands, he will perceive traces of human habitation. Penetrating the circumvallation of ocean-tossed waifs and strays, borne by flood along the southern rivers, and thence by the ocean currents bearing northward, until left by the receding tides high and dry on land, an exhaustible supply of firewood, the traveller will suddenly find himself amid strange surroundings—the melancholy wreck of what was once a bustling little township. ”

“ We can hardly see the leaders. The flakes come in heavy drifts striking in our faces, stinging and blinding. Up the hillsides, along the banks of the Bealey river by a perilous track, the danger of which we cannot see, high mountains above us, the gorge beneath us. For myself, I am one mass of icy snow, a frozen witness. Everything is white and chilly looking. Yet all the while Arthur Davis sings cheerily and encourages his horses; he seems perfectly happy and doesn’t swear. A real ‘gilt-edged driver’ this. ”

“ We are in another climate. The mildness of the air is charming after the cold of Otago and the ranges. A lovely place this Hokitika. The long stretch of surf-bound shore, crested billows everywhere save the entrance to the harbour in the Hokitika River, the town backed by the primeval forest, not like the Australian bush, but varying in colour and shade; far beyond is the range of the Alps towering to the skies, culminating in the monarch of New Zealand, Mount Cook. ”

“ Crossing the Buller bar, the voyager will find not a narrow tortuous channel, but a wide and straight run in, up which vessels sail without danger, and where, already, a coal fleet comes and goes, carrying Mount Rochfort black diamonds to the markets of the world. Preparations have been made, a quarter of a million or more of pounds sterling spent in wharves, staiths, and railways, the coal is in the hills in millions of tons, the accumulation of ages, a store which a legion of cyclops could scarce diminish, and its production, as a marketable commodity, has now been fairly established. ”

“ Cascades tumble down the rocks into Otira, whose living crystals are only equalled by the great icicles which overhang the road; sheets of ice cover the hillsides. Every turn brings a different beauty of form as we gallop along for four miles. Everything is pure and chaste as the heaven from which we tell children the snow falls.
“A fearsome journey this. We are shown many places where teams have been over the side of the road. ”

“ Miles upon miles of road, smooth and well kept as the avenues of an English park, running through a dense undergrowth of stately fern trees and an endless variety of blooming creepers, that, intertwining each with other, formed an impenetrable jungle. The trunks and even the loftiest branches of the huge trees were coated with moss and hung with ferns, and looked like bearded druids, some clasped in the writhing coils of dark-stemmed rata vines, and yielding slowly to the insidious parasites which sap their vitals, while they make gay the surfaces of their life. ”

“ The rivers ‘Wanganui’ and ‘Wataroa,’ ‘Bald Head’ and ‘Wanganui Bluff,’ the scene of many of Ocean’s mighty furies and the terror of the traveller at times, when trying to get round its perpendicular and iron bound cliffs, and as far as the eye can reach one beholds headland after headland laved by the mighty Pacific Ocean, the white fringe of its ever restless surf looking in the sunshine like a silver thread upon the storm-beaten shore. ”

“ Leaving the diggers on shore to continue their prospecting, the steamer steamed to Milford Sound.
It must be with extreme diffidence that any one would address himself to the duty of describing such a sight as that which is presented by the magnificent scenery of Milford Sound. There is a double difficulty to deal with. It is not easy to convince people, and especially those who may have “looked down Vesuvius,” or, for that part, looked down upon the whole world, and “found nothing in it,” that in even indicating its outline there is not a straining of language to achieve an empty effect. ”

“ On the debatable ground between the forest and the lake, the tutu plant grew as elegant trees, usually overhung, in the back-ground, by the lighter-leaved and drooping branches of the “Kowhai.” The character of the forest, and the general richness, without rankness, of the vegetation, is easily accounted for, looking at the shelter which this part of the level country, even more than that on the north side, receives from the southerly breezes by the ranges behind, and the mass of mountains towards Milford Sound. ”

“ Thousands came to this district year by year in pursuit of wealth, forsaking the comfort of their homes, to lead a life of wild excitement, ending in madness or death, or to perish alone in desolate places.’ But the early gold seeker formed a province, in the second decade they married and settled, as witness the scores of children who run out and cheer us at Dillman’s Town, the first mining settlement we pass through. ”

“ Everywhere it is beautiful, and if it is so in the winter, what is it in its summer glory? I repeat it is the culmination of all the beauties I have seen, and the traveller who fails to make the journey to the West Coast misses the grandest sight of its kind in the world. ”

“ Hope is ever the watchword of those who wish to conquer. But the tranquil and decorous Westport of to-day, whose chief export is coal, bears no manner of resemblance to the busy, noisy, turbulent Westport of olden times, when heavy exports of golden ore constantly crossed the Buller Bar. ”

“ Here again the traveller will be told of coal seams discovered, of a company formed, of much ado being made to get a steamer in and out of the little inlet connecting with the sea, then a clamour for railway communication, and how, when the railway was made up to within a few chains of the coal pit, all works were stopped, a padlocked door prevented ingress or egress into the mine, and the rails have ever since lain rusting. But seeking less for facts unsatisfactory than striking scenery, the traveller will find ample charm in the views along the railway route. ”

“ A tumbled sea of mountains looks down from above on the long swell of the southern ocean, breaking in clouds of snowy white foam on craggy cliffs rising abruptly from the shore, while glaciers and snowy peaks, slopes covered with noble forest trees, gloomy valleys and glittering waterfalls, all combine to present an ever varying succession of sublime pictures. ”

“ We fondly anticipated that some human form divine, rather than mountain or marine divinity, would present itself upon the beach, but the whistle of the steamer produced nothing but empty echoes until a look-out in the rigging distinguished the “Lapwing” cutter, moored by ropes to the shore, in a quiet cove, in the shelter of Steep-to Island; and even then humanity, in the persons of the mate and a man on board the cutter, partook of the pacific disposition of the elements on that particular evening. ”

“ Each morning comes upon them like a new creation, and they hail it joyfully—ringing out sweet sounds which, with the modulating echoes, fill the whole air with melody. Sun-worshippers they must be, they are so sensitive to his approach, and so ceaselessly and universally eager to accord him praise. ”

“ Higher up is a huge pinnacle with an eye through which the sunlight seemed to stream. These were striking points, but ever new beauties in the view met the wandering eye, and the effect produced on the mind is beyond description. The low altitude of this glacier—about 675 ft. above the sea-level, and the luxuriant vegetation in close proximity to the ice, a vegetation covering the hills on both sides of the glacier for a height of from 800 ft. to 1000 ft.—are the most remarkable features. Further on we get a sketch of a glacier at one of the sources of Cook’s River. ”

“ The beaches of the lake, lower down, seem to consist of granite gneiss, and disintegrated schist. Though tall trees grew here, on what may be literally described as suction—for they stand on the bare rock, without even the semblance of soil—there seems to be, on some parts of the island, some cultivatable ground, and it might hold a homestead; but rich as is its vegetation, it is hard to say how far it is guaranteed against floods. ”