1 164 



A USTRALASIA ILL US TRA TED. 



the Creek to Lake Tekapo, twenty-six miles, there is an excellent road, and in 

 fine weather the drive is most enjoyable. At the end of the first five or six 

 miles is Silver-stream, famed for its trout, and seven miles farther is the township of 



TIMARU FROM THE WIND-MILL. 



Burke's Pass. It is a stiff pull 

 to the top of the Pass, two 

 thousand five hundred feet high, from 

 which is obtainable a capital survey 

 of the great Mackenzie Plains, so named 

 from a daring outlaw who, from this 

 secure retreat, made regular forays in 

 the earl\' clays upon the stations of 

 the more settled country. The Rev. 

 W. S. Green, M.A., who made the 

 ascent of Mount Cook in 1882, says 

 that the vast area now occupied by the 



Mackenzie Plains " was once covered by the great glacier-field of the Waitaiki. Afterwards 

 it was filled by a lake, the ancient shores of which form the most complete series of 

 terraces that has ever come under my observation. When at last the waters of the great 

 lake broke through the dams of glacier deposits to the south-eastward, the rivers ploughed 

 deeply into its bed, shifting their channels now and again, and leaving abrupt escarp- 

 ments of shingle to mark their courses. Now the whole surface is covered with a sparse 

 vegetation, consisting of the various . native tussock-grasses, and interspersed with clumps 

 of 'Spaniards,' or sword-grass. On the Plains this latter plant grows short and strong, 

 and presents a most formidable array of spikes, which pierce your flesh like so many- 

 daggers, should an unfortunate stumble cause you to fall upon a clump. Vegetation of 

 any sort is so scanty that these Plains can barely support but one or two sheep per acre." 

 After a slight descent from the Pass, the road takes a sharp bend to the right, 

 and skirts the hills over the upper level of an old lake terrace, till, rounding a hill, 



