44 
CHRISTCHURCH 
CHAP. 
We had our lunch under an immense block of ice. 
The day was intensely hot, and the snow water in our 
milk most refreshing. Afterwards our road was very 
much rougher. Climbing along the sharp high ridges 
of ice with deep blue crevasses below, a false step would 
have sent us rolling into space. Above us towered the 
snow caps of Mount Sefton, with cliffs 300 and 400 
feet high of solid ice, with the Huddlestone Glacier 
rolling down its sides ; while other peaks again were 
gaunt and bare, with little or no snow on them, and 
the rock-strewn gorges between them were all chiselled 
and fretted into jagged points from the constant water- 
falls. 
Leaving the glacier to our left, we climbed the back 
of the Seeley Range. This was more of an experience 
than I had anticipated. It was rather like climbing a 
greasy pole. You got up to slide down again, and the 
top seemed to recede the nearer you reached it. We 
rested several times to get breath and to pick snow- 
berries, edelweiss, and white gentian, then on again 
until we reached the top. Away 4000 feet below us 
lay the long Hooker and Tasman glaciers, with Mount 
Cook standing out glittering and majestic in the 
distance ; on our right the rugged rocky peaks of 
Mount Chudleigh and Malte Brun, while peak after 
peak of others was lost in dim cloud and mist. 
It is a mental awakening to see the new sights and 
hear the new sounds, in this wonderful place : peal 
after peal of avalanche thunders, and down and away 
the great ice - blocks rattle along the steep slides, 
gathering up others as they go, and falling broken and 
scattered into fragments on to the glaciers below. 
What a doll’s house the Hermitage looks away below 
us ; and out in the plains the Hooker runs, a rollicking 
boulder-strewn river, breaking up into endless streams 
