.-!( '.V TR. 1 1.. I SI. 1 ILL US TRA TED. 



think that not one had yet been climbed ! Here was work, not for a short holiday 

 ramble merely, not to be accomplished even in a life-time, but work for a whole 

 company of climbers, which would occupy them for half a century of summers, and still 

 there would remain many a new route to be tried." 



At 5.30 p.m. on the 2nd of March, 1882, or the close of the sixth day from tin- 

 time they started to scale the Mountain, the party " reached the highest rocks, from 



which an easy slope led up to an icicled 

 bergschrund, which, starting from the cornice 

 of the arctc, ran round the cap of the sum- 

 mit from left to right We bore 



away to the left to avoid the highest part 

 of the bergschrund above us, and surmounting 

 the cornice without any difficult), at six p.m. 

 stepped on to the topmost crest of Aorangi. 

 A look backwards, down into the dark, cloud- 

 filled abyss out of which we had climbed, was 

 enough to make us shudder; it looked fathom- 

 less, and this white icy ridge on which we 

 stood, with torn mists driving over it before 

 the fierce nor'-wester, seemed the only solid 

 thing- in the midst of chaos. Mount Cook 

 was now practically conquered. We advanced 

 rapidly along the cornice, which rose at an 

 angle of about twenty degrees towards what 

 was mathematically the highest point, now and 

 then cutting a step for greater security, but 

 in most cases trusting to the grip gained by 

 the nails in our boats. Sometimes a blast 



would come upon us with such force as to compel us to crouch low and drive in our 

 axes firmly, to guard against being blown off into space. Fierce squalls would shatter the 

 icicles of the cornice, and send them down the slopes up which we had climbed. Descend- 

 ing with a swishing sound, they soon pounded themselves to pieces, and so accounted for 

 the showers of coarse hail which had proved so disagreeable on the final ice-slope." 



The two largest glaciers on the Hermitage, or western side of Mount Cook, are 

 the Hooker and the Mueller, the former descending in two branches from the south and 

 south-western slopes of the Mountain, and being enlarged by several branches from 

 Mount Stokes and the Moorhouse Range. Opposite to it, the Mueller Glacier descends 

 from the south-western slopes of the Moorhouse Range, while its glacial cave lies two 

 thousand eight hundred and fifty-one feet above the sea-level. These two glaciers are 

 the most accessible to the tourist from the Hermitage, just above which the Mueller 

 assists to swell the Hooker River. Some time may be profitably spent in exploring 

 their ice-caves, visiting the ice-pinnacles forming a crystal wall some seven hundred feet 

 in height, gathering edelweiss, or hunting the curious little ivcka, a semi-nocturnal wood- 

 hen, which, if unable to lly, can at any rate run with the swiftness of a rat. 



SURMOUNTING A GLACIER. 



