DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 



1 129 



THE RIMUTAKA GORGE. 



desperate incline. As the loco- 

 motives pant and snort on their 

 toilsome progress up the tre- 

 mendous ascent the traveller 

 finds the pace by no means 

 too slow, for the grandeur of 

 the changing scenery tempts 

 the eye to linger upon its 

 features of striking interest. 

 Ever and anon a serpentine 

 course is pursued along a narrow causeway excavated from the winding wall of cliff 

 and the traveller hangs as it were, like Mahomet's coffin, between earth and heaven 

 away above his head a precipitous face of frowning rock, and deep below, how 





