i 9 o 3 ] SCENIC GRANDEUR 167 



towering over us on either hand ; ahead between these dark 

 walls the sky, perhaps by contrast, looked intensely blue, and 

 here and there in the valley floated a little wisp of feathery 

 white cloud ; again and again these appeared under some 

 forbidding rock-face only to melt impalpably away. As we 

 emerged into the great ice-basin we turned towards the north 

 to face a new aspect of this wonderful country. 



'To describe the wildly beautiful scene that is about us 

 to-night is a task that is far beyond my pen. Away behind 

 us is the gorge by which we have come ; but now above and 

 beyond its splendid cliffs we can see rising fold on fold the 

 white snow-clad slopes of Mount Lister. Only at the very 

 top of its broad, blunt summit is there a sign of bare rock, 

 and that is 11,000 feet above our present elevated position; 

 so clear is the air that one seems to see every wrinkle and 

 crease in the rolling masses of neve beneath. 



■ The great basin in which we are camped has four outlets. 

 Opposite that by which we have come descends what we call 

 the south-west arm ; it is a prodigious ice-flow, but falls 

 steeply and roughly between its rocky boundaries. Away 

 ahead of us is the north-west arm ; we have some twisting 

 and turning to get to it, but shall eventually round a sharp 

 corner and steer up it to the westward. To the right of this 

 and ahead of us also is the north arm, which seems to descend 

 sharply towards the sea. Besides these main outlets or inlets, 

 there are some places to the west of us where smaller ice-flows 

 fall into our basin with steep crevassed surfaces, and in many 

 places around are lighter tributaries descending from the small 

 local neve fields. But for the main part we are surrounded 

 with steep, bare hillsides of fantastic and beautiful forms and 

 of great variety in colour. The groundwork of the colour- 

 scheme is a russet-brown, but to the west especially it has 

 infinite gradations of shade, passing from bright red to dull 

 grey, whilst here and there, and generally in banded form, 

 occurs an almost vivid yellow. The whole forms a glorious 

 combination of autumn tints, and few forests in their autumnal 

 raiment could outvie it. 



