20 



THE KEA. 



paradise duck and swamp hen thrive, but horse and rider may 

 be hopelessly bogged in awful quagmire. 



Westward the three great river-beds spread, first for ten 

 or twelve miles as broad U-shaped valleys and then as deep 

 precipitous gorges leading away to the supplying glaciers. 

 There the streams are lost to view. 





KEA COUNTRY (Boundary Crefk) : A small tributary 



OF THK WiLBKRFORCE RiVKR. 



Their flood height can be gauged by the broad reaches 

 of naked shingle flanking the water's edge. Everywhere else 

 below the hardy tussock is supreme. Above, peaks, jagged 

 and white, stretch away to the great heights of the Southern 

 Alps themselves. It is all so appallingly gigantic that man 

 seems helplessly insignificant. 



