VIII 
CROSSING A FORD 
243 
that my brain wouldn’t stand any more, so went to 
bed, where I slept the sleep of the just, and tired. 
Next morning at eight the coach went over the river 
in the ferry, and we travelled for miles along the side 
of the lake, then over the yellow downs of Rhoborough 
Station, and through the bed of an old river, where I 
sympathised with the man who got down to see if the 
wheels were square, for seldom in my life before had 
I been so thoroughly “ churned up.” It got beyond 
a joke when we rattled down a steep incline, over more 
boulders, and through a creek, and every bone seemed 
disjointed. 
Our next stopping-place was at a small station, 
where the manager’s wife gave me a cup of tea, and 
we rested the horses for an hour. They needed it, for 
we had yet to ford the worst river, where the last 
floods had played havoc with the crossing place. It 
had forced a new channel for itself and had rolled down 
huge stones. We dropped down the bank, and as the 
coach doubled over on to the horses, I put out my hands 
on their backs to balance myself. We got through 
I don’t know how, but it wasn’t a pleasant sensation. 
We found a very merry party at the Hermitage at 
Mount Cook, who had just come back from a camping- 
out excursion, and, unfortunately for me, went away 
next day, when I was left in sole possession. The 
weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky, and the 
air so crisp and light that I felt ready for anything 
when I started next morning with the guide ; first 
skirting the base of Mount Sefton and then along the 
Countess Glacier, eight miles long, which travels at a 
rate of twelve inches in twenty-four hours. It is some 
time before you can realise that you are on cliffs of 
ice, not until you first experience the slipping shingles, 
which in places leave the ice exposed. 
