chap, xiii WATERFALL CAMP 189 



steep hill-sides to a height of from four to five hundred 

 feet above the main stream, whose immediate banks are 

 walls of the old ice. The moraine covering was all wet 

 and loose ; sometimes there would be a slowly flowing 

 mud mass many feet thick to be crossed, sometimes loosely 

 crested ridges of stony stuff, all alike trending downwards, 

 and so across the direction of our way. 



The route actually followed cannot be described. It was 

 up and down, to right and to left, over one obstacle and 

 round another, but always forward, winning progress yard 

 by yard. Sometimes the sledges had to be lifted by our 

 united efforts, sometimes dropped over crumbling edges, 

 sometimes convoyed down streams, sometimes hauled through 

 pools. Rarely a small bed of snow or ice could be followed, 

 and gave welcome relief. Half-way over, we were forced 

 down to the river bank, where an ice-bed presented an 

 irresistible attraction. It was of beautifully clear blue ice, 

 frozen out of flood water and snow, in a small terrace- 

 formation not unlike a miniature reproduction of the 

 destroyed New Zealand terraces. Along this we gaily went, 

 only to find farther progress impossible and return com- 

 pulsory. The river must be crossed. There was no other 

 way. Searching out a place where the ice-bank was low, 

 and the torrent broad and of stony bed, in we plunged. 

 The sledges floated at first, then got water-logged and rolled 

 over. One entangled itself with a big boulder, and involved 

 Gregory in a more thorough ducking than the rest. The 

 far bank was steep and of loose rocks on ice. It took the 

 ponies all they knew to climb on to it and haul up the loads. 

 The remainder of the traverse was relatively easy, and who 

 shall describe the joy with which we emerged on a mere 

 stony river fan, and beheld beyond it the pile of goods which 

 marked the site of Delusion Camp ? The actual breadth of 

 the moraine wilderness was about a mile. I did not observe 



