56 MOUNT KOSCIUSKO AND AUSTRALIAN ALPS 



leave behind everything and every person that is likely to 

 spoil the expedition. Where pleasure only is the aim, it 

 is absolutely wrong to run dangerous risks. 



Besides ascending Kosciusko, I have spent several 

 weeks in exploring the gullies and recesses about its base, 

 and am consequently fairly well acquainted with the 

 country in its neighbourhood. My starting-point was a 

 stock-rider's hut situated about twenty miles south-west 

 of the mountain — the side which, in my opinion, is the 

 most accessible. 



The base, and sides for quite two-thirds of the height, 

 are covered with forest trees of large size, many of them at 

 least a hundred and fifty feet high. For ages these have 

 been growing, living their day, dying and falling in inter- 

 laced confusion, quite undisturbed by the interference of 

 man, and consequently there is, in many places, a mass of 

 prostrate trunks barring the most likely routes up the 

 mountain side. Sometimes this fallen timber is ^o rotten 

 that it can be easily cut away ; but often it must be climbed 

 over, or crept under, both expedients being accompanied 

 by danger. Some of the masses are so dense that the 

 incautious traveller may get lost in the maze, and waste 

 many hours of valuable time before he finds his way out ; 

 and in climbing over the prostrate mass there is always the 

 danger of a decayed trunk giving way beneath the feet, 

 and then a nasty, if not a fatal, fall may be the consequence. 

 There is also some danger from poisonous snakes which 

 are pretty numerous on all sides of the mountain. 



The diamond-snake {Python spilotis) is both numerous 

 and large in size on the lower slopes of Kosciusko ; and I 

 once slipped down unpleasantly close to one of these 

 dangerous creatures, which, on being killed, was found to 

 be seven feet long — a foot longer than this species usually 

 measures. Diamond-snakes are found as high up on the 

 Australian Alps as the limit of trees — that is generally to 

 the top of the range ; but Kosciusko, and some few other 

 high points are without vegetation on their summits. On 

 Kosciusko the tree-limit is marked abruptly, and there is 

 only a narrow band of herbage between the forest line and 



