248 
CHRISTCHURCH 
CHAP. 
We were soon ready after our breakfast for our 
climb, and, armed with substantial alpenstocks and blue 
glasses, set off along the Tasman Glacier, which is 
eighteen miles long and claims the distinction of being 
the largest in the world. It moves, we heard, at the 
rate of eighteen inches in twenty-four hours. When 
once on the pure ice the great ice-cliffs became more 
broken at every step, and the deep blue crevasses 
deeper. We peered into the clearest, bluest holes, con- 
taining crystal-like water, and crept into an ice-cave 
with lovely transparent walls of the clearest topaz blue ; 
but these beauties of detail were surpassed in fascina- 
tion by the glorious view. 
Away in front of us lay the long snow-white sweep 
of the glacier. On either side are stupendous cliffs of 
ice and the sky-piercing peaks of Mount Cook, a 
mountain of serrated and corniced ridges. Beyond 
that again, the Hochstetter dome of solid ice and snow, 
with the sunlight all dancing and sparkling on it — 
almost too dazzling to look at — and its wonderful 
glacier-fall of frozen cascades coming down 4000 feet 
in waves and pinnacles, towers and cubes, each crested 
point tipped with unconsolidated snow. Beyond, again, 
other snow peaks of spotless white rise one above 
another. There is a solemn silence, broken only by the 
rush of water somewhere below us. Then a sharp crack 
like a pistol-shot, clouds of snow and ice, and the 
avalanche falls. To us, away in those heights, it looks 
a shower to stand under, and it is hard to realise that 
it would sometimes cover 200 or 300 acres of ground. 
The pinnacles that look to us a step are 200 feet to 
300 feet high, and those smooth, pure white flats above 
them three and four miles across. 
What a memory for a lifetime it is. The wild 
wonderful beauty of these mountains makes one feel 
