THE LEADER EXPEDITION IN FIORDLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2161, 25 July 1895, Page 55

THE LEADER EXPEDITION IN FIORDLAND.

By MALCOLM ROSS, N.Z.A.C.

Oa a dull wioter morning towards the end of April, having seen provisions, tents, sleeping bags, ice axes, Alpine rope, and the hundred and one odds and ends necessary for an expedition into unexplored mountainous country safely stored in the baggage van of the southern express train, the members of Tho Leader expedition, 10 in number, took their seats in the compartment reserved for them, the old hands burying themselves in their morning paper, and the new ones Bpooulating about the weather and the prospects of the trip geserally. It was originally arranged th\t we should proceed by sea to the West Coast Sounds, the Government of New Zealand having placed their steam yaoht Hinemoa at our disposal, but owing to storms in the north and other causes our oraft was likely to be late in putting in an appearance, so at the eleventh hour all our plans were altered, and we decided to proceed overland. A train journey of eight hcurs takes us to Luinsden, and next morning, comfortably seated in two of Crosbie's coaches, we are fairly started on our journey to Fiordland. For some 12 or 15 miles the road is good, and as we cross the Oreti river and bowl along the fWts in the direction of Mossburu we have time to take a leisurely look at our sorcoundirga. The mountains begin to close in around w, and away ia the norbh-weßt the Ej re Peaks, which have already donned their winter robes, flash in the morning sunlight. Close on our right the massive form of .the West Come ris&s from the plain. For miles and miles, of the journey we see it toweriDg up, at firsb ahead, then abreast, and later behind as. At C ;ntre Hill we halt to change horses, and get a near view of Mount Hamilton, the end of the Tkkitimu lUnge. Takitimu was the name of oce of the canoes in which, according to tradition, the Maoris came to New Zealand from the dihtftnt islands of the South Seas. This canoe, they have it, was turned into stone, and its sails now form the plain through which flow the Five Rivers some 20 miles diitant. The process of mythological reisoning by which the Maoris turned their canoe into the rocky Takitimus and its sails into a plain 1b not apparent to a casual tourist ; "Sat the mountains are there still, and very fine they look too, as having slowly ascended the saddle at the head of the Weydon Burn, and made a biiak run down to the level country of the Mararoa Valley, we take a nearer and more critical look at their dark gullies and serrated peaks. A cold wind has pursued us all the morning, and the blazing fire of bog pine, the sweet roast mutton, and the cream and other delicacies at Bench's Key Hotel are all the more welcome, since we meet with them an hour beyond our customary luncheon time. Thirty-six miles from Lumsden we cross the Mararoa river, and enter upon a strange-looking piece of country, known as " The Wilderness." The gravel of an old lake bed shows through the scanty soil, where clumos of bog pine struggle for a bare existence. The road now rises over undulating country, and ahead we get a nearer view of the western Mountains — Titoroa to the south of Manapouri, with its crown of coral moss that seems like newly-fallen snow, forming a distinctive feature in the landscape. We pass the homestead of Lynwood station, embowered in a clump of native busb, on our right, and startle a flock of Paradise duck— a hundred or more— in the turnip fields on our left. Ahead, bsyond the western shores of Te Anau, the mountain tops are high in the olonds. The barometer is low, and as the coaches pull up in the gloamiDg in front of Snodgrass'i comfortable hotel on the south-eastern shore of the lake, a cold rain is steadily falling. On the morning of Wednesday, the 24th April, we are ejuly astir, bat by the time we

have conveyed our provisions and camp fixings to the lake steamer and taken a few photographs it is close upon 10 o'clock. The whole population of the little township of Marakura, consisting of three or four men and two women, turn out to see us off. As we leave the jelty and head up Ihß lake, Ciptain Duncan, an artist who has taken up his quarters in these wild?, dips the red ensign fro-n the flagstaff in front of Li 3 buugalow, the engineer sounds his whistle, the explorers re-pand with a lusty cheer, and The Leader expedition, fairly launched upon its journey, steers for the dim fastnesses of Kikapo and Kiwi land. We have been warned about the dangers of exploration so late in the seascn, of snowstorms on the pass and heavy rains and flooded rivera on the Milfcrd side ; but we have breasted swollen rivers before now ; we hava camped jinder a rock by the side of a glaoier; and weathered a storm at the Mount Cook Bivouac, where the thunder shook the tottering ridge ; so we are nob going to be deterred by anything that Fiordland is likely to produce in the way of storms at the b 'ginning of winter. And so, not giving the forebodings of our friends a second thought, we begin to form our first impressions of Te Anau. In spite of rain and wind wo are a jolly crew, and an occasional chorus floats across the waters. Passing the South Fiord of the lake we get a momentary glimpse of sunshine, and some fine snow-capped mountains ahead enchain our attention. Down the South Fiord all is g'oom, and ahead the clouds are hanging low on the more distant mountains. We pass Garden Point, where, beside a small clearing, bordered by a gently-shelving beach lapped by the light grer.n waters of the lake, nestling among the slender beech tree*, is poor Quintin M'Kinuon's hut, tenat.t'ess and lonely. The clouds come lower down the shoulders of the mountain", and we muse awhile on the majesty and the mysterious pasb of Lake Te Anau. What mighty force his made this vast basin inW which the waters of the hills have rolled P It is a popular belief that it has been scooped out by glacier action. But no glacier ever chiselled out of these hard grauite rocks ao deep a lake bed. Certain it is that a great glacier once occupied the-basin of Te Anau, and stretched bejond far do^n the valley of the Waiau ; plain, too, from the morainic boulders on the fringes of "The WiiderLOJs" that the glacier at one time ended not far from the present lake bed ; bud the idea that it carved out this bed is ludicrous in tho extreme. The great glaciers at Mount Cook move at the rate of about ha^f an inch a day, and, notwithstanding their pressapf moraine and their softer schistose beds, they have,jduring the ages of their existence, scooped out co deep lake beds descending below sea level. The old glaciers of Te Anau, flowing down an almost level valley, would move more slowly still, there would be a compaia'ive absence of moraine, and the erosive action of the ice on their hard granite beds would be reduced to a minimum. They might polish slowly, but they certainly would not scoop out thig vast ehesai of Lake Te Anau bad the ica age of which they formed a part extended back to the beginning of the world, ii Try," Bays one of the keenest observers of the age, "to saw a piece of marble through (with edge of ironj not of eoppy ice, for saw, and with sharp flint sand for felspar slime), and move your saw at the rate of an inch in threequartars of an hour, and see what lively and progressive work you will make of it ! " And this, I think, put 3 the case in a nutshell. The great? forces of nature which, either by upheaval or subsidence (or both), gradual or sudden, formed these deep lake beds and vast mountain chains seem, therefore, all the more wonderful and mysterious. And then from the dim geological past the mind turns and mu>ei on the historic, and thinks of the days when the swarthy southern Maori encamped by the lake side grubbed the edible fern root, or — in the absence of a war — cunningly baited his eel pats in view of a change in the monotoay of a vegetable diet. For some years it was thought thai; a remnant of the Ngatimamoe tribe might still exist in the mountain fastnesses of Fiordland, but there can be no doubt now that the marauding tribes from the East Coast practically annihilated them, and that the eel pots and fire s'ioks, the old skull with the teeth gnarled from chewing the fern root, and the meres and other relics from the ancient battle grounds, dug up by Mitchell— sometime of Manapouri station — and others, are all that remain, besides tradition, to tall the story of the former inhabitants of Manapouri and Te Anau. But soon again our thoughts return to the present, as we find our little craft heading ifl shore, and note the rattle of billy and pannikin that presages lunch. The steamer finds anchorage almost within reach of the treefringed shore, and we land in the "flatty" that we have been to ffing astern all the morning. There under the tall beech tre. swe build a great log fire, and, all unheeding of tho gently falling rain, boil the billy and enjoy our firsb camp meal. Some kakas and a stray wood pigeon fly overhead, a New Zealand thrush, with russet tail, hops in the branches of a shrub rtear at hand, and a confiding wren comes along to make friends vita U3 and peck the crumbs that fall at our foet. An honi» flies quickly, the remains of the feast are stowed away, the "flatty" mikes two or three short voyages, and then the steamer Ripple once more steams proudly on her way, the captain getting peremptory directions from the chief and only engineer as to how he should steer. It looks very black ahead, and opposite the Middle Fiord, where there is a stifHsh breeze, the white-crested waves are chat ing one another down the lake. We pass Centre Island, and have a bad hour and a-half in the troubled waters. The artist and the poetess, sad to say — probably owing .to their super-sensitive organisations — are leaning mournfully over the lee side. Their troubles, however, are soon over, for once past the Middle Fiord we regain the smooth water, and steam quickly along the western shore under the shadow of the great forest-clad mountains. The cold, heavy rain beats relentlessly down upon us with a final burst, and then slowly ceases. On the left, high in heaven, a snowclad peak rends the clouds asunder with startling suddenness, and vanishes again beneath its ashen drapery. Then other peaks come out, and in the breaking storm the majestic grandeur of the scene is slowly revealed. The walled summits close in upon us as we proceed ; the cold night air dissipates the swirling mists; the stars steal out one by one, and the seriated edges of the mountains on either hand are silhouetted' against the evening sky as our vessel puffs along. .Narrower and narrower becomes the lake, and as we round the final turn the blackness of the water and the towering precipices ahead seem to be luring us to destruction. The captain and the engineer exchange orders, but there is no slackening of speed, and just as the doctor, who has been stationed in the bow as a look-out, is straining his eyes in a hopeless effort to fathom the Cimmerian darkness, the veesel goes full tilt on to a shingly beach, and w* find ourselves suddenly at the end of our journey, and, as the engineer remarked to the captain, "in a devil of a place." Luckily no damage is done, and we have only missed the proper landing— a shelving, sandy beach— by

about half a # dozon yards. The men scramble over the bows and step ashore, ankle-deep in water, the ladies are carried from the side, tvud then swags aud provisions are quickly transferred from the steamer and up a short bush path to the hut near by. A roaring fire is soon b'aziug up the spacious log chimney, and then t-e expedition settles down to discuss the pannikins of steaming hot tea and the liberal camp bill-of-fare that the self-appointed cooks — tbe doctor's wife and the poetess —have spread on the roagh bush table for our delectation. Next morniug at 10 o'clock the overland party, seven in number, start off with heivy swags for the half-way hut in tho Clinton Valley, leaving tbe artist with the doctor and his wife to proceed on a photographic picnic round the lake in the steamer. It is a glorious day. The track winds round the base of a cliff through. the splendid beech forest, with its wonderful mosses and lichens. Above is the blue sky and ahead the snowy mountains. The geologist, probably pbjlosophifiag on some palsezoic problem, loses his way and wanders off on a different track. As he does not join us, I become a little concerned regarding his safety, so, dropping my swag, I hurry back a mile or so in search of him. I find, however, that he has taken the river track, and must now be ahead of me. Regaining my burden, I plod along by myself, silently noting the beautiful mountain mist effects, moralising on the gentle art of swaggiog, and thinking' what a fool a man is to turn himself needlessly into a beast of burden. Have you ever, gentle reader, carried a 601b swag for 10 or 11 nflles through the New Zealand bush or over the great moraine of a Mount Cook glacier on a sweltering summer day ? No. Well then it is difficult, nay impossible, for you to enter into the feelings of an amateur " drummer" towards the close of his first day's swagging. I know it is generally supposed that I am a great, big Highlander, with kilts and a red beard, and that swagging has no terrors for me ; instead of which I am a slim, delicate-looking mortal of only lOst 51b, not much bigger than my own swag, and wont on every expeiifcion that I undertake to vow that on the next I shall not carry a pound. A«d so on this warm nftornoon, as I plodded along by myself, atad the relentless swag straps settled down into my shoulders, my burden, inntead of bting only 601b seemed 160 ! But swagging, like most other mundane things, must have an end, and the welcome sight of the blue smcke wreaths of the midway hut, ourling above the trees early in the afternoon, and the pleasurable anticipation of satisfying a healthy bush appetite, once mora reduced my swag to its normal weight, aud I felt at peace with men. The views of river and forest along the valley so far were sufficiently lovely to make one linger at every turn. The clear waters of the Clinton river, beautifully green in tint, flowed on in a series of rapids and gently whirling pools, that anon gave place to qu ; efc reaches, at the bottom of which the trout swam lazily, and fondly imagined themselves unsesn. The views of Mount Mackenzie and Mount Anau— snow-crowned— had also claimed a due share of attention on the morning march, and seemed in harmony with the peaceful scenes around us. Now, however, the valley began to close in and the mountains to assume a wilder aspect — the precipices of Mount O'Rourke towering up on*the one hand, aud the great granite walls of Mount Nicholas rifting abruptly on the left a short distance bejond the camp. We spent the rest of the afternoon photographing, two of the party going back to the hut at the head of Lake Te Anan to bring up additional swags of provisions pn the morrow. We spent a jolly night in the hut, making a great fire of beech logs in the capaoious fireplace ; eating and drinking as only amateur swagsmon can after their first day's work ; playing cards; telling tales, wise and otherwise; enjoying ourselves to onr heart's content, and not oaring one jot how the world wagged outside. In the morning the mist* were low in the valley, but the blue sky overhead and the clear mountain tops gave promise of a fine day ; so or.cc more after breakfast we shouldered our swags and marched bravely forward. Leaving the clearing at the hut, 'we followed the track through the forest, past the ruins of an old camp, up a sidling, and then down a z ; g-z*g ladder path into the valley again, occasionally crossing a creek on a rustic bridge fashioned from a fallen tree, or marching in single file over the stepping logs that have been laid crosswise over the path in marshy places. The t,ummit of a noble peak on our right towered above tha mists, and a gleim of sunlight lit up the snows of a near neighbour. On our left was another fine rooky peak, at which the mountaineers of the party often cast longing glances. We halted on an open space at the side of the valley, where a floe waterfall came down over a high granite cliff. The view from this point down the valley was one from which we turned away reluctantly. Black, rocky peaks towered on either hand, and far away, over a foreground of graceful, feathery toi-tois and sombre forest, one fine peak, snow-clad, rose in the centre of the valley. Ahead the valley narrowed in, and the ' rock walls seamed more preoipitous. The track wound round a bend in the river, then through a clump of beautiful ribbon-wood trees — from the branches of which two orange wattle crows peered out at the intruders — and on once more into the sombre beech forest. For two or three miles now we had to trudge through soft snow that covered the path, so that at length when we came on to a steep pinch and had to wend our way amongst the rough granite blocks for the last mile, cur swags again began to be a burden. It was on the whole, however, an easy day's work, and but for the swags and the snow we should have made light of it. At length the trumpeting of paradise ducks near us on the right indicated that Lake Mintaro was close at hand, and at 2.30 p.m. we came suddenly upon the hut, situate in a lovely spot at the end of the little lake that lies almost at the foot of M'Einnon's Pass. We shovelled away the snow from the door and boiled the billy for lunch, after which two of the party returned to the halfway camp to come on with the others next morning with a further supply of provisions. (To he continued.)