s in surface appearance under a heavy covering of
snow where deep and extensive drifts have formed.

Notwithstanding our deviations and undulating course, we made the summit
of the great spur at midday. Such a scene as here opened out before us
is difficult to describe. If it had been a flat plain with the usual
domestic accessories there would be only a dreary circumscribed and more
or less familiar picture, but here we were among the silent mountains
untouched by the hand of man, in the clearest atmosphere in the
universe, with magnificent and varying panoramas stretching away from us
on every side. To the north we could see far into the upper gorge of the
Rangitata, with its precipices and promontories receding point by point
in bold outline to the towering peaks forty miles beyond, and below it
the wide flats of the great river, with its broad bed and streams so
rapid that they could not be frozen over. On the east the low undulating
downs stretching away towards the plains, while westward they ran in
huge spurs to the foot of the Alpine range, towering 13,000 feet above
us. Turning southward was seen the lower gorge, with its hills almost
meeting in huge precipitous spurs, with stretches of pine forests
clothing their slopes.

Turn where we would over those immense panoramas all was white, pure,
dazzling, glittering white, with a deathlike stillness over all. No
life, no colour, save a streak of grey-blue on the broad river bed, and
the shadow thrown by the mountains in the depths of their frowning
gorges. The cold grey cloudless sky itself was scarcely any contrast. It
was a magnificent wilderness of snow, and we viewed it spell-bound till
our eyes ached with the glare and we felt a strange desire to lie down
and sleep.

Such is invariably the attendant sensations under these circumstances,
whence the danger. If one once gives way to the drowsiness and longing
for rest, he is gone. The sleep comes quickly, but it is a sleep from
which there is no awakening--hence the precautions taken on such an
expedition to have as large a party of strong men as possible to assist
each other in case of failure. The need for such caution was fully
verified in our case.

We were fortunate in discovering a number of sheep on the leeward of the
spur where the snow had drifted off and lay comparatively light, and
some were feeding off the tops of tall snow grass which remained
uncovered. In other places numbers were living under