OUR LITERARY CORNER.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15560, 8 April 1916, Page 7

OUR LITERARY CORNER.

A RAMBLE ON THE

HILLS.

written foe "the press.")

(BY B. E. Bacghan.)

"Is there any excuse," asks Mr A. C. Benson, in his latest book, "for Bringing before the world at such a time as this .... the gentler schemes of less troubled days?" And lie goes on to reflect that there is: that war is like an outbreak of pestilence; that the best way to resist its adverse mental influence is "not to brood over it, but to practise joy and liealth" ; and that, therefore, it is right and wholesome "to fix our gaze firmly upon the Deaceful things that have been, and «Hll be once more." Thi s seems a sane view; and there are many of us, as the days of destruction drag on, who, feeling more and m6re the need or such vital refreshment, turn gladly toward any offer of it. So that I feel no further excuse is needed for trying to draw the attention of readers of "The Press" in this literary column to a bit of good news about their own Summit Road, and will lose no more time in telling it.

The original plan of the Summit ■Road, included, it will be remembered, a track all along the Port Hills from the Lighthouse to Gebbie's Pass, and then a continuation up to the old Port Track-Kaituna saddle, and round the head first of Kaituna Valley and then of Little River Valley as far as the Hilltop. where it could join itself on to the Summit road of the Peninsula. At present the track has been aotualiy rompleted only from the Lighthouse as far as Cooper's Knob, and, even so, many of us month by month rejoice more in it-. But the original plan still stands, and is gradually being carried out, and my bit of good news is, that the route is practicable "right now" for sound walkers, more than ono party, including ladies, having recently traversed its unformed portion. And, Jet me add, if the Lyttelton Harbour end is fine, the other end is splendid! Late in February, one little band of walkers made this trip right through to Christchurch, and the writer, who had the luck to be of them, had the further luck to begin the journey at Akaroa, and to finish it at Clifton, so that hers was a fairly complete itiner- , ary of the whole destined track. Akaroa this February was a real Pomona's basket, overflowing, over-dripping with, ripe fruit. Plum-trees, pear-trees, quinces, nectarines, all were loaded. Peaches glowed in the sunshine, apples sbone in the shade. I never saw such a wealth, of deep ruby nectarines before, and the long, green, globes on the tall pear-trees seemed almost to hide, the leaves. Great yellow sun- ! . flowers lit up the French end of the town; flaming Aihlinja and radiant gladioli and astem brightened all the bowery gardens with/the lavish bloom and opulent colour of early autumn; while , among the leaves it was still summer, and in the. paddocks the re- . ®ent rains had revived the velvety ver-. , dare of spring. . Out of this delicious nest of luxuri- . ons plenty, one mounted up toward' the summits by the Long Bay road, i into a region of simplicity and space that, in comparison, really seemed, after all, like the fairy-tales' discovery of diamonds instead of gold. . How cool, ■ l»w crystal, was the air up there 1 How intense the colour, how bracing the ex- . Danse, of that great spectacle of simple , blue and green and grey—grey rocks, green hills, blue") harbour, blue sea, blue sky! The Summit Road winds • in and out among the hill-tops at this end; now one looked down upon, the sapphire harbour, all dappled with ' patches of royal purple, and little redv and-white Akaroa clustered, bright and clear, at one.corner; now all that side was blotted out, and one- looked, away to the right, down the long slopes to the lonjr fjord-like outer bays, deep-sunk in rocky hills, and so to the ocean beyond. The sprightly air made walking a delight, and tempered the f. brooding sunshine; the new grass glistened as it only does when it is new, the sailing thistle-down shone like* silver. There seemed hardly any other traveller on the road that day, but i here and there a solitary grass-seeder i : - could be seen far off in some rocky Paddock threshing-out cocksfoot with ; . a flail. The cocksfoot harvest had been light, but the konini crop was heavy— the little, black, shining globes were large as small grapes, and full of juice. One or two mobs of lambs nibbled at the green hillsides, and raised, with their attendant horsenfen and aotive dogs, a halo of sunshiny dust alone the road. But mostly that walk high Tip in air was all amid still- ' aess, and space that shone, and soli- • tude that was not solitude at all. In a perfect glory of full moonlight , that evening, the rest of the party Walked .up from Little River, and shortly after six next morning we parted for what will be the Summit Tiack, each carrying four or five pounds of provisions, except the one who bore the burden of a tent. We might have kept along the Summit Road toward Pigeon Bay for about a mile, and then struck into the Purau line at, or near, l'. the spot where that noble old totara once stood,. before which Bishop Selwyn, like Linnaeus before the English gorse in bloom, fell on his knees and thanked and in that case we should have begun our walk with a fine view of Akaroa Harbour and of Akaroa itself sparkling in the early sun. But we were a little dubious as to time-allow-ance, and so took the shorter route across some paddocks on the Little River side of the hilltops; and thien,striking into' the line, went up in a north-westerly direction, through a nar--5 row grove of remnant bush toward Alt. , Sinclair, Here the view was open on j. both, sides; below us, on the left, all f ~j*tle River Valley lay open, while on s the right we could see the whole length , of Akaroa Harbour, with both heads "■ - an d. the open sea beyond, the long blue arm of Pigeon Bay, and a great emer- * aid sweep and tumble of multitudinous . , 5 ' man .V °f them strewn and stuck - ! 1 black-and-grev logs, none of them, i green with the living forest that . covtred them all, and the preser-

ORIGINAL AND SELECTED MATTER.

NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

ration of whose poor remains is one of the dearest objects of the Summit Road Association. On Mt. Sinclair itself (2800 ft), however, we found plenty of "native holly" bushes clustered along the rocky steps of the track, as well as a special "biddy-bid" and other subalpine plants. Here, too, was all the precious sub-alpine clarity and radiance, and from the summit, which glitters with billowy flax, there is a view which, on a clear day, is positively immense. Mt. Cook can be seen upon occasion, 1 am told; but even on more ordinary days peak after peak of the Southern Alps rises clear into the sky to the south, the Kaikouras glimmer far away to the north, in the middle distance the wide plains sweep and spread toward that other azure plai n of the sea ; while nearer, among the yreen ana russet chaos of the Peninsula Hills, one's eye may rest now on Godlcy Head Lighthouse, now on the soft, blue lagoon of Pigeon Bay, or Akaroa Harbour, or oi Lakes Ellesmere or Forsyth, now again on the green lap of Little River Valley; while all around the tawny fringe of the peninsula, the amethyst-blue sea keeps breaking into view.

Breakfast, however, called us on — breakfast, which we had decided that ■we could not have before climbing our next peak. Mt. Fitzgerald (2700 ft). So, doun from Sinclair upon a grassv saddle we went, and then up a grassy side. A delicate blue "bloom" like that ,o n a grape, hung over the great, tureen slope of the surrounding hills, and the golden flowers we most of us ca J capeweed" (quite wronglv, lam told) shone along the track like myriads of small suns. Just below Fitzgerald s Urow, cradled, indeed, snuglv in his arms, a fine bit of Bush has hitherto escaped destruction. Here, in its depths, there is water: so here the blue smoke soon went curling up: and what a zest that belated breakfast had! Through a mistake, we had wasted time in finding tho water, and did not leave Fitzgerald until eleven o clock. After that -we followed the grassy enclosure (which is really the old Purau r oad still, though it looks like a "long paddock." in good truth), westward for several miles. Up and down, down and up it runs, curling along over the green hilltops, which are nearly all bare of Bush, but not of stump; and then, after crossing the road between Port Lew and Kaituna, L , urn ? th ° north, toward Mt. Hcr- £,-• ~,i • vi ®w down into Little .River Valley, it really had by that time begun to seem as if we never should bo done; I am sure the track.will survey that valley from every possible an S' e is° that as wo trudged along toward Mt. Herbert, the wholly new view that suddenly presented itself was all the more welcome—of long, narrow green Kaituna Valley, winding down toward Lake Ellesmere, with the .Ninety-mile Beach and broad Pacific beyond; and, more to the south, the Plains looking just like another sea full of undulations, of which the troughs when one looked closer, were seen to be the lines of plantation trees, tfy 2 o clock we were at the edgo of a splendid bit of Bush Reserve, the largest on the whole Track, some six hundred acres in extent. Through the manuka masses (mixed with a little totara and black pine) of which this Greenland Bush, as it is cabled, is composed the line of the Track has been slasned—but not cleared—so that our party sagaciously kept alwve it, and presently clambered up on to the breezy russet meadows that make the top of Mt. Herbert (3050 ft). whence the view again is superb—out over all the Peninsula and Plains in general, and down in particular upon the satiny sheet of the whole of Lyttelton Harbour, with the trees of Diamond Harbour extraordinarily black against its blue.

its blue. We had avoided the Bush; because on a pioneer expedition with M r Ell, the never to be sufficiently lauded "author" of the -whole Summit Track, two of us had learned that, with packs, its couple of miles required more than four hours to get through--and then put the empuaciis on. the preposition, please I But how glorious was the midhill "prospectv that met us when we had then at last emerged, and flung ourselves,. panting, on the sward to rest! There spread the Bush behind us and "below, a splendid, sweeping mantle of greenery that, was here bronze, and there myrtle, and now again brignt with touches of emerald. Before us, Bush IVsak, with great grey crags, ail bare above.Jts climbing trees, rose right up out of Kailuna Valley; -.vhile beyond it, and above our heads, yet far away, ringing us round like the brim of a chalice, so spacious that still it did not seem to close us in. ran the clear, large line of uninterrupted summits. Out of the Bush-muffled depths, the tui's voice rang clear; overhead the skylarks rejoiced. How sweet the flax smelled, and the tussock; the fresh- little breezes too, coming up across the Bush, brought little fresh wafts of nectar; and the strength of the hills, that smiling Sunday noon, looked all gentleness. Thero is something at once large and simple aboift the i'eninsula hill scenery. It is not nt all Alpine; nor is there very much dotal! about it. But it is noble, 3Ld .-it the same time kindly, with no thing ferocious or sarogo" about its «reatre«s. is one of its notes, shining another, freedom, frankness a third. Our hills always seem to ir»e like gentle giants, that have finished all their fighting long ago, and now btand friendly to the world at large, and like, ratner than notj to feel the little human beings climbing up their knees and creeping on to their laps and shoulders by way of getting a general "lift-up." Past Greenland Bush, there comes down from Castle Hill's grey precipices a succession of grassy spurs and bushy gullies. In one of these last we camped for the night—that is, we cooked and ate our pea-soup and mushrooms there, and put up our tent. But the night was moony and mild; most of us, disdaining' the tent, took to the tussock. A morepork called for a while, the moonlight was painting the crags above —more I do not remember, until, all of a sudden, it was misty morning! We broke camp about 3 a.m., sidled round more Bush-intersect-ed spurs, where that coming Track wiil be a boon, and by 10 were among the cabbage trees of the Kaituna Saddle, looking across a sufficiently wide interlude of low green swells, at the craggy crests cf the Port Hills to the north, and the full expanse of Lyttelton Harbour t" the north and east. By 112.15, after a pleasant walk, really aimost as much over mushrooms, plump, clean, pink-and-wliite mushrooms, as over grass, Ave reached Gebbie's Pass, where we dined; and then, steering up a charming, park-like valley, stormed the summits, about two miles from Cooper's Kiiob, crept through Ahuriri Bush, where the eoprosma berries shone like coral beads, and by about 4.30 were boiling our billies for the. last time at the imposing stone-set spriiig below the Knob. We got to Kennedy's before the mists, that.-had been hanging round all day began to settle as a drizzling rain. Most of the party were back in town that night before 9, while the writer, stayed to sample the excellent accommodation at Kennedy's that ni<'ht. and next day walked on to Clifton in a thick mist, which provided plenty of "atmosphere," if not much outlook, and incidentally proved the satisfactory clearness of the Track. So here, now. is a fine walk a walk of the finest, of two days or three, as you prefer, waiting at tlie Chxis tchur ca

doors. A. cottage is at this moment being built on the Kaituna Saddle, so that hereafter 110 tent need be carried; and the journey can be shortened by a return to civilisation via Kaituna or Teddington. For week-ends and holidays, it ought to prove a great boon to good, average, sound walkers—shackles off. conventions dropped, dullness spirited away, depression nowhere, half an hour after starting, health and hopefulness remaining long after return. Blessings upon that friend to his fellows wnose foresight, hrst discerned such a playground: and blessings, too, upon our friends, the hills, that even in these tragic days can lead us out to a renewal of strength and vitality, and lift ;is up to a firm faith in those "things which are more excellent!"