In one way the south-western is the most enjoyable division of picturesque2 New Zealand. There is little here to regret or fear for. Unlike the beauty of the northern forests, here is a grandeur3 that will not pass away. Even in the thermal4 zone you are haunted by the memory of the lost terraces; but among the alps and fiords of the south-west Nature sits very strongly entrenched5. From the Buller Gorge to Puysegur Point, and from Lake Menzies to Lake Hau-roto, both the climate and the lie of the land combine to keep man’s destructiveness at bay. Longitudinal ridges6 seam this territory from north to south—not a single dividing chain, but half-a-dozen ranges, lofty, steep, and entangled8. Rivers thread every valley, and are the swiftest, coldest, and most dangerous of that treacherous10 race, the mountain torrents12 of our islands. On the eastern and drier side, settlement can do little to spoil the impressiveness of the mountains; for the great landscapes—at any rate north of Lake Hawea—usually begin at or near the snow-line. The edge [161]of this is several thousand feet lower than in Switzerland. Below it comes a zone sometimes dotted with beech-woods, monotonous14 and seldom very high, but beautiful in their vesture of grey-green lichen15, and carpeted with green and golden moss16, often deep and not always soaked and slimy underneath17. Or in the open the sub-alpine18 zone is redeemed19 by an abundance of ground-flowers such as our lower country cannot show. For this is the home of the deep, bowl-shaped buttercup called the shepherd’s lily, of mountain-daisies and veronicas many and varied20, and of those groves21 of the ribbon-wood that are more lovely than orchards22 of almond-trees in spring-time. On the rocks above them the mountaineer who has climbed in Switzerland will recognise the edelweiss. Among the blanched24 snow-grass and coarse tussocks, the thorny25 “Wild Irishman,” and the spiky26 “Spaniard,” with its handsome chevaux-de-frise of yellow-green bayonets, conspire27 to make riding difficult on the flats and terraces. These last often attract the eye by their high faces, bold curves, and curious, almost smooth, regularity30. For the rest, the more eastern of the mountains usually become barer and duller as the watershed31 is left farther behind. Oases32 of charm they have, where the flora33 of some sheltered ravine or well-hidden lake detains the botanist34; but, as a rule, their brilliant sunshine and exhilarating air, their massive forms and wild intersecting rivers, have much to do to save them from being summed up as stony35, arid36, bleak37, and tiresome38.
[162]
IN THE HOOKER VALLEY
At its worst, however, the eastern region may claim to be serviceable to the lover of scenery as well as to the sheep-farmer. Its thinly-grassed slopes, bare rocks, and fan-shaped shingle39-slips furnish, at any rate, a foil to the grandeur of the central range and the luxuriance of the west. It is, indeed, not easy to believe that such glaciers41 and passes, such lakes and sea-gulfs, lie beyond the stern barrier, and the enjoyment43, when wonderland is penetrated45, is all the greater. For the rest, any English reader who cares to feel himself among our tussock-clad ranges will find a masterly sketch46 of them and their atmosphere in the first chapters of Samuel Butler’s Erewhon. Butler’s sheep-station, “Mesopotamia” by name, lay among the alps of Canterbury, and the satirist47 himself did some exploring work in his pastoral days, work concerning which I recall a story told me by an old settler whom I will call the Sheriff. This gentleman, meeting Butler one day in Christchurch in the early sixties, noticed that his face and neck were burned to the colour of red-chocolate. “Hullo, my friend,” said he, “you have been among the snow!” “Hush!” answered Butler in an apprehensive48 whisper, and looking round the smoking-room nervously49, “how do you know that?” “By the colour of your face; nothing more,” was the reply. They talked a while, and Butler presently admitted that he had been up to the dividing range and had seen a great sight away beyond it. “I’ve found a hundred thousand acres of ‘country,’” said he. [163]“Naturally I wish you to keep this quiet till I have proved it and applied50 to the Government for a pastoral licence.” “Well, I congratulate you,” said the Sheriff. “If it will carry sheep you’ve made your fortune, that’s all”; but he intimated his doubts as to whether the blue expanse seen from far off could be grass country. And indeed, when next he met Butler, the latter shook his head ruefully: “You were quite right; it was all bush.” I have often wondered whether that experience was the basis of the passage that tells of the thrilling discovery of Erewhon beyond the pass guarded by the great images.
In one of his letters about the infant Canterbury settlement Butler gives a description of Aorangi, or Mount Cook, which, so far as I know, is the earliest sketch of the mountain by a writer of note. It was, however, not an Englishman, but a German man of science, Sir Julius von Haast, who published the first careful and connected account of the Southern Alps. Von Haast was not a mountaineer, but a geologist52, and though he attacked Aorangi, he did not ascend53 more than two-thirds of it. But he could write, and had an eye for scenery as well as for strata54. The book which he published on the geology of Canterbury and Westland did very much the same service to the Southern Alps that von Hochstetter’s contemporary work did for the hot lakes. The two German savants brought to the knowledge of the world outside two very different but remarkable56 regions. It is true that the realm of flowery uplands, glaciers, ice-walls, and snow-fields told of by von Haast, had nothing in it so uncommon57 as the [164]geysers and so strange as the pink and white terraces made familiar by von Hochstetter. But the higher Southern Alps, when once you are among them, may fairly challenge comparison with those of Switzerland. Their elevation58 is not equal by two or three thousand feet, but the lower level of their snow-line just about makes up the disparity. Then, too, on the flanks of their western side the mountains of the south have a drapery of forest far more varied and beautiful than the Swiss pine woods. On the western side, too, the foot of the mountain rampart is virtually washed by the ocean. Take the whole mountain territory of the south-west with its passes, lakes, glaciers, river-gorges59, and fiords, and one need not hesitate to assert that it holds its own when compared with what Nature has done in Switzerland, Savoy, and Dauphiny.
MOUNT COOK
Aorangi, with its 12,349 feet, exceeds the peak of Teneriffe by 159 feet. It is the highest point in our islands, for Mount Tasman, its neighbour, which comes second, fails to equal it by 874 feet. Only two or three other summits surpass 11,000 feet, and the number which attain60 to anything over 10,000 is not great. From the south-west, Aorangi, with the ridge7 attached to it, resembles the high-pitched roof of a Gothic church with a broad, massive spire28 standing61 up from the northern end. When, under strong sunlight, the ice glitters on the steep crags, and the snow-fields, unearthly in their purity, contrast with the green tint62 of the crawling glaciers, the great mountain is a spectacle worthy63 of its fame. Yet high and shapely [165]as it is, and worthy of its name, Cloud-in-the-Heavens, it is not the most beautiful mountain in the islands. That honour may be claimed by Egmont, just as Tongariro may demand precedence as the venerated64 centre of Maori reverence65 and legend. Nor, formidable as Aorangi looks, is it, I should imagine, as impracticable as one or two summits farther south, notably66 Mount Balloon. However, unlike Kosciusko in Australia, it is a truly imposing67 height, and worthy of its premier68 place. With it the story of New Zealand alpine-climbing has been bound up for a quarter of a century, and such romance as that story has to show is chiefly found in attempts, successful and unsuccessful, to reach the topmost point of Aorangi. Canterbury had been settled for thirty-two years before the first of these was made. For the low snow-line, great cliffs, and enormous glaciers of the Southern Alps have their especial cause of origin. They bespeak69 an extraordinary steepness in the rock faces, and a boisterous70 climate with rapid and baffling changes of temperature. Not a climber or explorer amongst them but has been beaten back at times by tempests, or held a prisoner for many hours, listening through a sleepless71 night to the howling of north-west or south-west wind—lucky if he is not drenched72 to the skin by rain or flood. As for the temperature, an observer once noted73 a fall of fifty-three degrees in a few hours. On the snow-fields the hot sun blisters74 the skin of your face and neck, and even at a lower level makes a heavy coat an intolerable burden; but the same coat—flung impatiently on the ground and [166]left there—may be picked up next morning frozen as stiff as a board. These extremes of heat and cold, these sudden and furious gales75, are partly, I imagine, the cause of the loose and rotten state of much of the rock-surface, of the incessant77 falls of stones, ice-blocks, and snow, and of the number and size of the avalanches78. At any rate, the higher alps showed a front which, to ordinary dwellers79 on our plains, seemed terrific, and which even gave pause to mountain-climbers of some Swiss experience. So even von Haast’s book did not do much more than increase the number of visitors to the more accessible glaciers and sub-alpine valleys. The spirit of mountaineering lay dormant80 year after year, and it was not until 1882 that an unexpected invader81 from Europe delivered the sudden and successful stroke that awoke it. The raider was Mr. Green, an Irish clergyman, who, with two Swiss guides, Boss and Kaufmann, landed in the autumn of 1882. His object was the ascent82 of Aorangi; he had crossed the world to make it. He found our inner mountains just as Nature had left them, and, before beginning his climb, had to leave human life behind, and camp at the foot of the mountain with so much of the resources of civilisation84 as he could take with him. One of his first encounters with a New Zealand river in a hurry ended in the loss of his light cart, which was washed away. Its wrecked86 and stranded87 remains88 lay for years in the river-bed a battered89 relic90 of a notable expedition. To cap his troubles, a pack-horse carrying flour, tea, sugar, and spare clothing, coolly lay down when fording[167] a shallow torrent11, and rolled on its back—and therefore on its pack—in the rapid water. Ten days of preliminary tramping and clambering, during which five separate camps were formed, only carried the party with their provisions and apparatus91 to a height of less than 4000 feet above the sea. They had toiled92 over moraine boulders93, been entangled in dense94 and prickly scrubs, and once driven back by a fierce north-wester. On the other hand the scenery was glorious and the air exhilarating. Nothing round them seemed tame except the wild birds. Keas, wekas, and blue ducks were as confiding95 and fearless as our birds are wont96 to be till man has taught them distrust and terror. Among these the Swiss obtained the raw material of a supper almost as easily as in a farmyard. On the 25th of February the final ascent was begun. But Aorangi did not yield at the first summons. Days were consumed in futile97 attempts from the south and east. On their first day they were checked by finding themselves on a crumbling98 knife-like ridge, from which protruded99 spines100 of rock that shook beneath their tread. A kick, so it seemed, would have sent the surface into the abyss on either side. The bridge that leads to the Mahometan paradise could not be a more fearful passage. Two days later they were baffled on the east side by walls of rock from which even Boss and Kaufmann turned hopelessly away. It was not until March 2, after spending a night above the clouds, that they hit upon a new glacier40, the Linda, over which they found a winding101 route to the north-eastern [168]ridge which joins Cook to Tasman. The day’s work was long and severe, and until late in the afternoon the issue was doubtful. A gale76 burst upon them from the north-west, and they had to go on through curling mists and a wind that chilled them to the bone. It was six o’clock in the evening when they found themselves standing on the icy scalp of the obstinate103 mountain, and even then they did not attain the highest point. There was not a moment to lose if they were to regain104 some lower point of comparative security; for March is the first month of autumn in South New Zealand, and the evenings then begin to draw in. So Mr. Green had to retreat when within either a few score feet or a few score yards of the actual goal. As it was, night closed in on the party when they were but a short way down, and they spent the dark hours on a ledge55 less than two feet wide, high over an icy ravine. Sleep or faintness alike meant death. They stood there hour after hour singing, stamping, talking, and listening to the rain pattering on rock and hissing105 on snow. All night long the wind howled: the wall at their backs vibrated to the roar of the avalanches: water streaming down its face soaked their clothing. For food they had three meat lozenges each. They sucked at empty pipes, and pinched and nudged each other to drive sleep away. By the irony106 of fate it happened that close beneath them were wide and almost comfortable shelves. But night is not the time to wander about the face of a precipice107, looking for sleeping berths108, 10,000 feet above the sea. Mr. Green and his [169]guides were happy to escape with life and limb, and not to have to pay such a price for victory as was paid by Whymper’s party after scaling the Matterhorn.
Mr. Green’s climb, the tale of which is told easily in his own bright and workmanlike book, gave an enlivening shock to young New Zealand. It had been left to a European to show them the way; but the lesson was not wasted. They now understood that mountains were something more than rough country, some of which carried sheep, while some did not. They learned that they had an alpine playground equal to any in the Old World—a new realm where danger might be courted and exploits put on record. The dormant spirit of mountaineering woke up at last. Many difficulties confronted the colonial lads. They had everything to learn and no one to teach them. Without guides, equipment, or experience—without detailed109 maps, or any preliminary smoothing of the path, they had to face unforeseen obstacles and uncommon risks. They had to do everything for themselves. Only by endangering their necks could they learn the use of rope and ice-axe110. Only by going under fire, and being grazed or missed by stones and showers of ice, could they learn which hours of the day and conditions of the weather were most dangerous, and when slopes might be sought and when ravines must be shunned111. They had to teach themselves the trick of the glissade and the method of crossing frail112 bridges of snow. Appliances they could import from Europe. As for guides, some of them turned guides themselves. Of course they started [170]with a general knowledge of the climate, of “roughing it” in the hills, and of life in the open. They could scramble113 to the heights to which sheep scramble, and could turn round in the wilderness114 without losing their way. Thews and sinews, pluck and enthusiasm, had to do the rest, and gradually did it. As Mr. Malcolm Ross, one of the adventurous116 band, has pointed117 out with legitimate118 pride, their experience was gained and their work done without a single fatal accident—a happy record, all the more striking by contrast with the heavy toll119 of life levied120 by the rivers of our mountain territory. The company of climbers, therefore, must have joined intelligence to resolution, for, up to the present, they have broken nothing but records. Mr. Mannering, one of the earliest of them, attacked Aorangi five times within five years. After being thwarted121 by such accidents as rain-storms, the illness of a companion, and—most irritating of all—the dropping of a “swag” holding necessaries, he, with his friend Mr. Dixon, at last attained122 to the ice-cap in December 1890. Their final climb was a signal exhibition of courage and endurance. They left their bivouac (7480 feet in air) at four o’clock in the morning, and, after nine hours of plodding123 upward in soft snow had to begin the labour of cutting ice-steps. In the morning they were roasted by the glaring sun; in the shade of the afternoon their rope and coats were frozen stiff, and the skin from their hands stuck to the steel of their ice-axes. Dixon, a thirteen-stone man, fell through a snow-wreath, and was only saved by a supreme124 effort. Pelted125 by falling ice [171]the two amateurs cut their way onward126, and at half-past five in the evening found themselves unscathed and only about a hundred feet below the point gained by Mr. Green and his Swiss. They made an effort to hew115 steps up to the apex127 of the ice-cap, but time was too short and the wind was freshening; as it was they had to work their way down by lantern light. Now they had to creep backwards128, now to clean out the steps cut in the daylight; now their way was lost, again they found it, and discovered that some gulf42 had grown wider. They did not regain their bivouac till nearly three in the morning after twenty-three hours of strain to body and mind.[4]
MOUNT SEFTON
Four years later came victory, final and complete, and won in a fashion peculiarly gratifying to young New Zealand. News came that Mr. E. A. Fitzgerald, a skilled mountaineer, was coming from Europe to achieve the technical success which Green and Mannering had just missed. Some climbers of South Canterbury resolved to anticipate him, and, for the honour of the colony, be the first to stand on the coveted131 pinnacle132. A party of three—Messrs. Clark, Graham, and Fyfe—left Timaru, accordingly, and on Christmas Day 1894 achieved their object. Mr. Fitzgerald arrived only to find that he had been forestalled133, and must find other peaks to conquer. Of these there was no lack; he had some interesting experiences. After his return to England he remarked to the writer that climbing in [172]the Andes was plain and easy in comparison with the dangers and difficulties of the Southern Alps. One of his severest struggles, however, was not with snow and ice, but with a river and forest in Westland. Years before, Messrs. Harper and Blakiston had surmounted134 the saddle—or, more properly speaking, wall—at the head of the Hooker glacier, and looking over into Westland, had ascertained135 that it would be possible to go down to the coast by that way. Government surveyors had confirmed this impression, but no one had traversed the pass. It remained for Mr. Fitzgerald to do this and show that the route was practicable. He and his guide Zurbriggen accomplished136 the task. They must, however, have greatly underestimated the difficulties which beset137 those who would force a passage along the bed of an untracked western torrent. Pent in a precipitous gorge, they had to wade138 and stumble along a wild river-trough. Here they clung to or clambered over dripping rocks, there they were numbed139 in the ice-cold and swirling140 water. Enormous boulders encumbered141 and almost barred the ravine, so that the river itself had had to scoop142 out subterranean143 passages through which the explorers were fain to creep. Taking to the shore, as they won their way downward, they tried to penetrate44 the matted scrubs. Even had they been bushmen, and armed with tomahawks and slashers, they would have found this no easy task. As it was they returned to the river-bed and trudged144 along, wet and weary; their provisions gave out, and Fitzgerald had to deaden the pangs146 of hunger by chewing black [173]tobacco. He found the remedy effectual, but very nauseating147. Without gun or powder and shot, and knowing nothing of the botany of the country, they ran very close to starvation, and must have lost their lives had a sudden flood filled the rivers’ tributaries148 and so cut them off from the coast. As it was they did the final forty-eight hours of walking without food, and were on their last legs when they heard the dogs barking in a surveyor’s camp, where their adventure ended.
Not caring to follow in the wake of others, Mr. Fitzgerald left Aorangi alone, but Zurbriggen climbed thither149 on his own account in 1895. An Anglo-Colonial party gained the top ten years later, so that the ice-cap may now almost be classed among familiar spots. Still, as late as 1906 something still remained to be done on the mountain—namely, to go up on one side and go down on the other. This feat150, so simple to state, but so difficult to perform, was accomplished last year by three New Zealanders and an Englishman. To make sure of having time enough, they started from their camp—which was at a height of between 6000 and 7000 feet on the eastern side—three-quarters of an hour before midnight. Hours of night walking followed over moonlit snows, looked down upon by ghostly crests151. When light came the day was fine and grew bright and beautiful,—so clear that looking down they could see the ocean beyond the eastern shore, the homesteads standing out on the yellow-green plains, and on the snows, far, very far down, their own footprints dotting the smooth whiteness beneath them. It [174]took them, however, nearly fourteen hours to reach the summit, and then the most dangerous part of their work only began. They had to gain the Hooker glacier by creeping down frosted rocks as slippery as an ice-slide. Long bouts152 of step-cutting had to be done, and in places the men had to be lowered by the rope one at a time. Instead of reaching their goal—the Hermitage Inn below the glacier—in twenty hours, they consumed no less than thirty-six. During these they were almost incessantly153 in motion, and as a display of stamina154 the performance, one imagines, must rank high among the exertions155 of mountaineers. Many fine spectacles repaid them. One of these, a western view from the rocks high above the Hooker glacier, is thus described by Mr. Malcolm Ross, who was of the party:—
“The sun dipped to the rim156 of the sea, and the western heavens were glorious with colour, heightened by the distant gloom. Almost on a level with us, away beyond Sefton, a bank of flame-coloured cloud stretched seaward from the lesser157 mountains towards the ocean, and beyond that again was a far-away continent of cloud, sombre and mysterious as if it were part of another world. The rugged158 mountains and the forests and valleys of southern Westland were being gripped in the shades of night. A long headland, still thousands of feet below on the south-west, stretched itself out into the darkened sea, a thin line of white at its base indicating the tumbling breakers of the Pacific Ocean.”
[175]
THE TASMAN GLACIER
Mr. Green, as he looked out from a half-way halting-place on the ascent of Aorangi, and took in the succession of crowded, shining crests and peaks surging up to the north and north-east of him, felt the Alpine-climber’s spirit glow within him. Here was a wealth of peaks awaiting conquest; here was adventure enough for the hands and feet of a whole generation of mountaineers. Scarcely one of the heights had then been scaled. This is not so now. Peak after peak of the Southern Alps has fallen to European or Colonial enterprise, and the ambitious visitor to the Mount Cook region, in particular, will have some trouble to find much that remains virgin159 and yet accessible. For the unambitious, on the other hand, everything has been made easy. The Government and its tourist department has taken the district in hand almost as thoroughly160 as at Roto-rua, and the holiday-maker may count on being housed, fed, driven about, guided, and protected efficiently161 and at a reasonable price. Happily, too, nothing staring or vulgar defaces the landscape. Nor do tourists, yet, throng162 the valleys in those insufferable crowds that spoil so much romance in Switzerland and Italy. Were they more numerous than they are, the scale of the ranges and glaciers is too large to allow the vantage-spots to be mobbed. Take the glaciers: take those that wind along the flanks of the Mount Cook range on its eastern and western sides, and, converging163 to the south, are drained by the river Tasman. The Tasman glacier itself is eighteen miles long; its greatest width is over two miles; its average [176]width over a mile. The Murchison glacier, which joins the Tasman below the glacier ice, is more than ten miles long. And to the west and south-west of the range aforesaid, the Hooker and Mueller glaciers are on a scale not much less striking. The number of tributary164 glaciers that feed these enormous ice-serpents has not, I fancy, been closely estimated, but from heights lofty enough to overlook most of the glacier system that veins165 the Aorangi region, explorers have counted over fifty seen from one spot. Perhaps the finest sight in the alpine country—at any rate to those who do not scale peaks—is the Hochstetter ice-fall. This frozen cataract166 comes down from a great snow plateau, some 9000 feet above the sea, to the east of Aorangi. The fall descends167, perhaps, 4000 feet to the Tasman glacier. It is much more than a mile in breadth, and has the appearance of tumbling water, storm-beaten, broken, confused, surging round rocks. It has, indeed, something more than the mere168 appearance of wild unrest, for water pours through its clefts169, and cubes and toppling pinnacles170 of ice break away and crash as they fall from hour to hour.
THE CECIL AND WALTER PEAKS
If the Hochstetter has a rival of its own kind in the island, that would seem to be the Douglas glacier. This, scarcely known before 1907, was then visited and examined by Dr. Mackintosh Bell. By his account it surpasses the Hochstetter in this, that instead of confronting the stern grandeur of an Alpine valley, it looks down upon the evergreen171 forest and unbroken foliage172 of Westland. The glacier itself comes down [177]from large, high-lying snow-fields over a mighty173 cliff, estimated to be 3000 feet in height. The upper half of the wall is clothed with rugged ice; but the lower rock-face is too steep for this, and its perpendicular174 front is bare. Beneath it the glacier continues. Waterfall succeeds waterfall: thirty-five in all stream down from the ice above to the ice below. Mingled176 with the sound of their downpouring the explorers heard the crashing of the avalanches. Every few minutes one of these slid or shot into the depths. Roar followed roar like cannon177 fired in slow succession, so that the noise echoing among the mountains drowned the voices of the wondering beholders.
Oddly enough the lakes of the South Island are nearly all on the drier side of the watershed. Kanieri and Mahinapua, two well-known exceptions, are charming, but small. A third exception, Brunner, is large, but lies among wooded hills without any special pretensions178 to grandeur. For the rest the lakes are to the east of the dividing range, and may be regarded as the complement179 of the fiords to the west thereof. But their line stretches out much farther to the north, for they may be said to include Lake Roto-roa, a long, narrow, but beautiful water, folded among the mountains of Nelson. Then come Brunner and Sumner, and the series continues in fine succession southwards, ending with Lake Hau-roto near the butt-end of the island. Broadly speaking, the lake scenery improves as you go south. Wakatipu is in advance of Wanaka and Hawea, Te Anau of Wakatipu; while Manapouri, beautiful in [178]irregularity, fairly surpasses all its fellows. The northern half of Wakatipu is, indeed, hard to beat; but the southern arm, though grand, curves among steeps too hard and treeless to please the eye altogether. In the same way Te Anau would be the finest lake in the islands were it not for the flatness of most of the eastern shore; the three long western arms are magnificent, and so is the northern part of the main water. But of Manapouri one may write without ifs and buts. Its deep, clear waters moving round a multitude of islets; its coves180 and cliff-points, gulf beyond gulf and cape13 beyond cape; the steeps that overhang it, so terrific, yet so richly clothed; the unscathed foliage sprinkled with tree-flowers,—all form as faultless a combination of lovely scenes as a wilderness can well show. From the western arm that reaches out as though to penetrate to the sea-fiords not far away beyond the mountains, to the eastern bay, whence the deep volume of the Waiau flows out, there is nothing to spoil the charm. What Lucerne is to Switzerland Manapouri is to New Zealand. Man has not helped it with historical associations and touches of foreign colour. On the other hand, man has not yet spoiled it with big hotels, blatant181 advertisements, and insufferable press of tourists.
MANAPOURI
In one respect—their names—our South Island lakes are more lucky than our mountains. Most of them have been allowed to keep the names given them by the Maori. When the Polynesian syllables182 are given fair play—which is not always the case in the white man’s [179]mouth—they are usually liquid or dignified183. Manapouri, Te Anau, Roto-roa, and Hau-roto, are fair examples. Fortunately the lakes which we have chosen to rechristen have seldom been badly treated. Coleridge, Christabel, Alabaster184, Tennyson, Ellesmere, Marian, Hilda, are pleasant in sound and suggestion. Our mountains have not come off so well—in the South Island at any rate. Some have fared better than others. Mount Aspiring185, Mount Pisa, the Sheerdown, the Remarkables, Mounts Aurum, Somnus, Cosmos186, Fourpeaks, Hamilton, Wakefield, Darwin, Brabazon, Alexander, Rolleston, Franklin, Mitre Peak, Terror Peak, and the Pinnacle, are not names to cavil187 at. But I cannot think that such appellations188 as Cook, Hutt, Brown, Stokes, Jukes, Largs, Hopkins, Dick, Thomas, Harris, Pillans, Hankinson, Thompson, and Skelmorlies, do much to heighten scenic189 grandeur. However, there they are, and there, doubtless, they will remain; for we are used to them, so do not mind them. We should even, it may be, be sorry to lose them.
MITRE PEAK
The Sounds—the watery190 labyrinth191 of the south-west coast—have but one counterpart in the northern hemisphere, the fiords of Norway. Whether their number should be reckoned to be fifteen or nineteen is of no consequence. Enough that between Big Bay and Puysegur Point they indent192 the littoral193 with successive inlets winding between cliffs, straying round islets and bluffs194, and penetrating195 deep into the heart of the Alps. They should be called fiords, for that name alone gives [180]any suggestion of their slender length and of the towering height of the mountains that confine them. But the pioneers and sailors of three generations ago chose to dub196 them “The Sounds,” so The Sounds they remain. It is best to approach them from the south, beginning with Perseverance197 Inlet and ending with Milford Sound. For the heights round Milford are the loftiest of any, and after their sublimity198 the softer aspect of some of the other gulfs is apt to lose impressiveness. The vast monotony and chilly199 uneasiness of the ocean without heightens the contrast at the entrances. Outside the guardian200 headlands all is cold and uneasy. Between one inlet and another the sea beats on sheer faces of cruel granite201. Instantaneous is the change when the gates are entered, and the voyager finds his vessel202 floating on a surface narrower than a lake and more peaceful than a river. The very throbbing203 of a steamer’s engines becomes gentler and reaches the ears softly like heart-beats. The arms of the mountains seem stretched to shut out tumult204 and distraction205. Milford, for instance, is a dark-green riband of salt water compressed between cliffs less than a mile apart, and in one pass narrowing to a width of five hundred yards. Yet though the bulwarks206 of your ship are near firm earth, the keel is far above it. All the Sounds are deep: when Captain Cook moored207 the Endeavour in Dusky Sound her yards interlocked with the branches of trees. But Milford is probably the deepest of all. There the sounding-line has reached bottom at nearly thirteen hundred feet. Few swirling currents seem to [181]disturb these quiet gulfs; and the sweep of the western gales, too, is shut out from most of the bays and reaches. The force that seems at work everywhere and always is water. Clouds and mists in a thousand changing shapes fleet above the mountain crests, are wreathed round peaks, or drift along the fronts of the towering cliffs. When they settle down the rain falls in sheets: an inch or thereabouts may be registered daily for weeks. But it does not always rain in the Sounds, and when it ceases and the sunshine streams down, the innumerable waterfalls are a spectacle indeed. At any time the number of cascades208 and cataracts209 is great: the roar of the larger and the murmur210 of the smaller are the chief sounds heard; they take the place of the wind that has been left outside the great enclosures. But after heavy rain—and most rains on that coast are heavy—the number of waterfalls defies computation. They seam the mountain-sides with white lines swiftly moving, embroider211 green precipices212 with silver, and churn up the calm sea-water with their plunging213 shock. The highest of them all, the Sutherland, is not on the sea-shore, but lies fourteen miles up a densely214-wooded valley. It is so high—1904 feet—that the three cascades of its descent seem almost too slender a thread for the mighty amphitheatre behind and around them. Than the cliffs themselves nothing could well be finer. Lofty as they are, however, they are surpassed by some of the walls that hem23 in Milford; for these are computed215 to rise nearly five thousand feet. They must be a good second to those stupendous sea-faces[182] in eastern Formosa which are said to exceed six thousand feet. Nor in volume or energy is the Sutherland at all equal to the Bowen, which falls on the sea-beach at Milford in two leaps. Its height in all is, perhaps, but six hundred feet. But the upper fall dives into a bowl of hard rock with such weight that the whole watery mass rebounds216 in a noble curve to plunge217 white and foaming218 to the sea’s edge.
There is no need to measure heights, calculate bulk, or compare one sight with another in a territory where beauty and grandeur are spent so freely. The glory of the Sounds is not found in this cliff or that waterfall, in the elevation of any one range or the especial grace of any curve or channel. It comes from the astonishing succession, yet variety, of grand yet beautiful prospects220, of charm near at hand contrasted with the sternness of the rocky and snowy wilderness which forms the aerial boundary of the background. The exact height of cliffs and mountain-steeps matters little. What is important is that—except on the steepest of the great walls of Milford—almost every yard of their surface is beautified with a drapery of frond221 and foliage. Where the angle is too acute for trees to root themselves ferns and creepers cloak the faces; where even these fail green mosses222 save the rocks from bareness, and contrast softly with the sparkling threads of ever-present water.
IN MILFORD SOUND
Scarcely anywhere can the eye take in the whole of an inlet at once. The narrower fiords wind, the wider are sprinkled with islets. As the vessel slowly moves [183]on, the scene changes; a fresh vista223 opens out with every mile; the gazer comes to every bend with undiminished expectation. The two longest of the gulfs measure twenty-two miles from gates to inmost ends. Milford is barely nine miles long—but how many scenes are met with in those nine! No sooner does the sense of confinement224 between dark and terrific heights become oppressive than some high prospect219 opens out to the upward gaze, and the sunshine lightens up the wooded shoulders and glittering snow-fields of some distant mount. Then the whole realm is so utterly225 wild, so unspoiled and unprofaned. Man has done nothing to injure or wreck85 it. Nowhere have you to avert226 your eyes to avoid seeing blackened tracts227, the work of axe and fire. The absurdities228 of man’s architecture are not here, nor his litter, dirt and stenches. The clean, beautiful wilderness goes on and on, far as the eye can travel and farther by many a league. Protected on one side by the ocean, on the other by the mountainous labyrinth, it stretches with its deep gulfs and virgin valleys to remain the delight and refreshment229 of generations wearied with the smoke and soilure of the cities of men.
ON THE CLINTON RIVER
We often call this largest of our national parks a paradise. To apply the term to such a wilderness is a curious instance of change in the use of words. The Persian “paradise” was a hunting-ground where the great king could chase wild beasts without interruption. In our south-west, on the contrary, guns and bird-snaring are alike forbidden, and animal life is [184]preserved, not to be hunted, but to be observed. As most of my readers know, the birds of our islands, by their variety and singularity, atone230 for the almost complete absence of four-footed mammals. The most curious are the flightless kinds. Not that these comprise all that is interesting in our bird-life by any means. The rare stitch-bird; those beautiful singers, the tui, bell-bird, and saddle-back; many marine231 birds, and those friendly little creatures the robins232 and fantails of the bush, amuse others as well as the zoologists233. But the flightless birds—the roa, the grey kiwi, the takahé, the kakapo, the flightless duck of the Aucklands, and the weka—are our chief scientific treasures, unless the tuatara lizard234 and the short-tailed bat may be considered to rival them. Some of our ground-birds have the further claim on the attention of science, that they are the relatives of the extinct and gigantic moa. That monstrous235, and probably harmless, animal was exterminated236 by fires and Maori hunters centuries ago. Bones, eggs, and feathers remain to attest237 its former numbers, and the roa and kiwi to give the unscientific a notion of its looks and habits. The story of the thigh-bone which found its way to Sir Richard Owen seventy years ago, and of his diagnosis238 therefrom of a walking bird about the size of an ostrich239, is one of the romances of zoology240. The earlier moas were far taller and more ponderous241 than any ostrich. Their relationship to the ancient moas of Madagascar, as well as their colossal242 stature243, are further suggestions that New Zealand is what it looks—the relics244 of a submerged [185]southern continent. After the discovery of moa skeletons there were great hopes that living survivors246 of some of the tall birds would yet be found, and the unexplored and intricate south-west was by common consent the most promising247 field in which to search. In 1848 a rail over three feet high—the takahé—was caught by sealers in Dusky Sound. Fifty years later, when hope had almost died out, another takahé was taken alive—the bird that now stands stuffed in a German museum. But, alas248! this rail is the solitary249 “find” that has rewarded us in the last sixty years, and the expectation of lighting250 upon any flightless bird larger than a roa flutters very faintly now. All the more, therefore, ought we to bestow251 thought on the preservation252 of the odd and curious wild life that is left to us. The outlook for our native birds has long been very far from bright. Many years ago the Norway rat had penetrated every corner of the islands. Cats, descended253 from wanderers of the domestic species, are to be found in forest and mountain, and have grown fiercer and more active with each decade. Sparrows, blackbirds, and thrushes compete for Nature’s supplies of honey and insects. Last, and, perhaps, their worst enemies of all, are the stoats, weasels, and ferrets, which sheep-farmers were foolish enough to import a quarter of a century ago to combat the rabbit. Luckily, more effectual methods of coping with rabbits have since been perfected, for had we to trust to imported vermin our pastures would be in a bad case. As it is, the stoat and weasel levy254 toll on many a poultry255 yard, [186]and their ravages256 among the unhappy wild birds of the forest are more deplorable still. In both islands they have found their way across from the east coast to the west: rivers, lakes, rock, snow, and ice have been powerless to stop them. Even the native birds that can fly lose their eggs and nestlings. The flightless birds are helpless. Weasels can kill much more formidable game than kiwi and kakapo; a single weasel has been known to dispose of a kea parrot in captivity257. Pressed, then, by these and their other foes258, the native birds are disappearing in wide tracts of the main islands. Twenty years ago this was sufficiently260 notorious; and at length in the ’nineties the Government was aroused to do something to save a remnant. Throughout the whole of the Great Reserve of the south-west shooting was, and still is, discouraged. But this is not enough. Only on islets off the coast can the birds be safe from ferrets and similar vermin, to say nothing of human collectors and sportsmen.
AT THE HEAD OF LAKE TE-ANAU
It was decided261, therefore, to set aside such island sanctuaries262, and to station paid care-takers on them. There are now three of these insular263 refuges: Resolution Island, off Dusky Sound; Kapiti, in Cook’s Strait; and the Little Barrier Island, at the mouth of the Hauraki Gulf. The broken and richly-wooded Resolution contains some 50,000 acres, and is as good a place for its present uses as could be found. Remote from settlement, drenched by continual rains, it attracts no one but a casual sight-seer. On the other hand, its care-taker is in close touch with the whole region of the [187]fiords, and can watch over and to some extent guard the wild life therein. The experiences of this officer, Mr. Richard Henry, are uncommon enough. For twelve years he lived near lakes Manapouri and Te Anau studying the birds on that side of the wilderness. Since 1900 he has been stationed on the western coast, at Pigeon Island, near Resolution. There, with such society as a boy and a dog can afford him, this guardian of birds passes year after year in a climate where the rainfall ranges, I suppose, from 140 inches to 200 in the twelvemonth. Inured264 to solitude265 and sandflies Mr. Henry appears sufficiently happy in watching the habits of his favourite birds, their enemies the beasts, and their neighbours the sea-fish. He can write as well as observe, and his reports and papers are looked for by all who care for Nature in our country.
It is odd that in so vast a wilderness, and one so densely clothed with vegetation as are the mountains and valleys of the south-west, there should not be room enough and to spare for the European singing-birds as well as the native kind. But if we are to believe the care-taker at Resolution Island—and better testimony266 than his could not easily be had,—the sparrow alone, to say nothing of the thrush and blackbird, is almost as deadly an enemy as the flightless birds have. For the sparrow not only takes a share of the insects which are supposed to be his food, but consumes more than his share of the honey of the rata and other native flowers. Six sparrows which Mr. Henry managed to kill with a lucky shot one summer morning were found to be [188]plump and full of honey—it oozed267 out of their beaks268. Thrushes and blackbirds are just as ready to take to a vegetable diet, so that the angry care-taker is driven to denounce the birds of Europe as “jabbering sparrows and other musical humbugs269 that come here under false pretences270.” Then the native birds themselves are not always forbearing to each other. The wekas, the commonest and most active of the flightless birds, are remorseless thieves, and will steal the eggs of wild ducks or farm poultry indifferently. Though as big as a domestic fowl271, wekas are no great fighters: a bantam cock, or even a bantam hen, will rout102 the biggest of them. On the other hand, Mr. Henry has seen a weka tackle a bush rat and pin it down in its hole under a log. That the weka will survive in considerable numbers even on the mainland seems likely. The fate of the two kinds of kiwi, the big brown roa and his small grey cousin, seems more doubtful.
Both are the most timid, harmless, and helpless of birds. All their strength and faculties272 seem concentrated in the long and sensitive beaks with which they probe the ground or catch insects that flutter near it. In soft peat or moss they will pierce as deeply as ten inches to secure a worm; and the extraordinary powers of hearing and scent83 which enable them to detect prey273 buried so far beneath the surface are nothing short of mysterious. Their part in the world that man controls would seem to be that of insect destroyers in gardens and orchards. Perhaps had colonists274 been wiser they would have been preserved and bred for this purpose [189]for the last fifty years. As it is man has preferred to let the kiwis go and to import insectivorous allies, most of which have turned out to be doubtful blessings275. Among both kiwis and wekas the males are the most dutiful of husbands and fathers. After the eggs are laid they do most of the sitting, and at a later stage provide the chicks with food. The female kiwi, too, is the larger bird, and has the longer beak—points of interest in the avifauna of a land where women’s franchise277 is law. Very different is the division of labour between the sexes in the case of the kakapo or night-parrot. This also is classed among flightless birds, not because it has no wings—for its wings are well developed—but because ages ago it lost the art of flying. Finding ground food plentiful278 in the wet mountain forests, and having no foes to fear, the night-parrot waxed fat and flightless. Now, after the coming of the stoat and weasel, it is too late for its habits to change. The male kakapo are famous for a peculiar130 drumming love-song, an odd tremulous sound that can be heard miles away. But though musical courtiers, they are by no means such self-sacrificing husbands as other flightless birds. They leave hatching and other work to the mothers, who are so worn by the process that the race only breeds in intermittent279 years. Tame and guileless as most native birds are apt to be, the kakapo exceeds them all in a kind of sleepy apathy280. Mr. Henry tells how he once noticed one sitting on wood under a drooping281 fern. He nudged it with his finger and spoke282 to it, but the bird only muttered hoarsely283, and [190]appeared to go to sleep again as the disturber moved away.
Kapiti, in Cook’s Strait, containing, as it does, barely 5000 acres, is the smallest of the three island sanctuaries, but unlike the other two it has made some figure in New Zealand history. In the blood-stained years before annexation284 it was seized by the noted marauder Rauparaha, whose acute eye saw in it a stronghold at once difficult to attack, and excellently placed for raids upon the main islands, both north and south. From Kapiti, with his Ngatitoa warriors285 and his fleet of war-canoes, he became a terror to his race. His expeditions, marked with the usual treachery, massacre286, and cannibalism287 of Maori warfare288, reached as far south as Akaroa in Banks’ Peninsula, and indirectly289 led to the invasion of the Chathams, and the almost complete extirpation290 of the inoffensive Moriori. Rauparaha’s early life might have taught him pity, for he was himself a fugitive291 who, with his people, had been hunted away first from Kawhia, then from Taranaki, by the stronger Waikato. He lived to wreak292 vengeance—on the weaker tribes of the south. No mean captain, he seems only to have suffered one reverse in the South Island—a surprise by Tuhawaiki (Bloody293 Jack294). Certainly his only fight with white men—that which we choose to call the Wairau massacre—was disastrous295 enough to us. In Kapiti itself, in the days before the hoisting296 of the union Jack, Rauparaha had white neighbours—I had almost said friends—in the shape of the shore whalers, whose [191]long boats were then a feature of our coastal297 waters. They called him “Rowbulla,” and affected298 to regard him with the familiarity which breeds contempt. On his side he found that they served his purpose—which in their case was trade—well enough. Both Maori and whaler have long since passed away from Kapiti, and scarce a trace of them remains, save the wild goats which roam about the heights and destroy the undergrowth of the forest. The island itself resembles one side of a high-pitched roof. To the west, a long cliff, 1700 feet high, faces the famous north-west gales of Cook’s Strait, and shows the wearing effects of wind and wave. Eastward299 from the ridge the land slopes at a practicable angle, and most of it is covered with a thick, though not very imposing forest. Among the ratas, karakas, tree ferns and scrub of the gullies, wild pigeons, bell-birds, tuis, whiteheads, and other native birds still hold their own. Plants from the north and south mingle175 in a fashion that charms botanists300 like Dr. Cockayne. This gentleman has lately conveyed to Kapiti a number of specimens301 from the far-away Auckland isles302, and if the Government will be pleased to have the goats and cattle killed off, and interlopers, like the sparrows and the Californian quail303, kept down, there is no reason why Kapiti should not become a centre of refuge for the rarer species of our harassed304 fauna276 and flora.
THE BULLER RIVER NEAR HAWK’S CRAIG
Twice as large as Kapiti, and quite twice as picturesque, the Little Barrier Island, the northern bird-sanctuary, is otherwise little known. It has no [192]history to speak of, though Mr. Shakespear, its care-taker, has gathered one or two traditions. A sharp fight, for instance, between two bands of Maori was decided on its shore; and for many years thereafter a tree which stood there was pointed out as the “gallows” on which the cannibal victors hung the bodies of their slain305 enemies. At another spot on the boulders of the beach an unhappy fugitive is said to have paddled in his canoe, flying from a defeat on the mainland. Landing exhausted306, he found the islanders as merciless as the foes behind, and was promptly307 clubbed and eaten. However, the Little Barrier is to-day as peaceful an asylum308 as the heart of a persecuted309 bird could desire. The stitch-bird, no longer hunted by collectors, is once more increasing in numbers there, and has for companion the bell-bird—the sweetest of our songsters, save one,—which has been driven from its habitat on the main North Island. Godwits, wearied with their long return journey from Siberia, are fain, “spent with the vast and howling main,” to rest on the Little Barrier before passing on their way across the Hauraki Gulf. Fantails and other wild feathered things flutter round the care-taker’s house, for—so he tells us—he does not suffer any birds—not even the friendless and much-disliked cormorant—to be injured. Along with the birds, the tuatara lizard (and the kauri, pohutu-kawa, and other trees, quite as much in need of asylum as the birds) may grow and decay unmolested in the quiet ravines. The island lies forty-five miles from [193]Auckland, and nearly twenty from the nearest mainland, so there is no need for it to be disturbed by anything worse than the warm and rainy winds that burst upon it from north-east and north-west.
Water, the force that beautifies the west and south-west, has been the chief foe259 of their explorers. The first whites to penetrate their gorges and wet forests found their main obstacles in rivers, lakes, and swamps. Unlike pioneers elsewhere, they had nothing to fear from savages310, beasts, reptiles311, or fever. Brunner, one of the earliest to enter Westland, spent more than a year away from civilisation, encountering hardship, but never in danger of violence from man or beast. Still, such a rugged and soaking labyrinth could not be traversed and mapped out without loss. There is a death-roll, though not a very long one. Nearly all the deaths were due to drowning. Mr. Charlton Howitt, one of the Anglo-Victorian family of writers and explorers, was lost with two companions in Lake Brunner. The one survivor245 of Howitt’s party died from the effects of hardship. Mr. Townsend, a Government officer, who searched Lake Brunner for Howitt’s body, was himself drowned not long after, also with two companions. Mr. Whitcombe, surveyor, perished in trying to cross the Teremakau in a canoe. Von Haast’s friend, the botanist Dr. Sinclair, was drowned in a torrent in the Alps of Canterbury. Quintin M’Kinnon, who did as much as any one to open up the region between the southern lakes and the Sounds, [194]sank in a squall while sailing alone in Lake Te Anau. Professor Brown, of the University of Otago, who disappeared in the wilds to the west of Manapouri, is believed to have been swept away in a stream there. The surveyor Quill312, the only man who has yet climbed to the top of the Sutherland Falls, lost his life afterwards in the Wakatipu wilderness. Only one death by man’s violence is to be noted in the list—that of Dobson, a young surveyor of much promise, who was murdered by bush-rangers in northern Westland about forty years ago. I have named victims well known and directly engaged in exploring. The number of gold-diggers, shepherds, swagmen, and nondescripts who have gone down in the swift and ice-cold rivers of our mountains is large. Among them are not a few nameless adventurers drawn313 westward314 by the gold rushes of the ’sixties. It is a difficult matter to gauge315 from the bank the precise amount of risk to be faced in fording a clouded torrent as it swirls316 down over hidden boulders and shifting shingle. Even old hands miscalculate sometimes. When once a swagman stumbles badly and loses his balance, he is swept away, and the struggle is soon over. There is a cry; a man and a swag are rolled over and over; he drops his burden and one or both are sucked under in an eddy—perhaps to reappear, perhaps not. It may be that the body is stranded on a shallow, or it may be that the current bears it down to a grave in the sea.
The south-western coast was the first part of our islands seen by a European. Tasman sighted the [195]mountains of Westland in 1642. Cook visited the Sounds more than once, and spent some time in Dusky Sound in 1771. Vancouver, who served under Cook, anchored there in command of an expedition in 1789; and Malaspina, a Spanish navigator, took his ship among the fiords towards the end of the eighteenth century. But Tasman did not land; and though the others did, and it is interesting to remember that such noted explorers of the southern seas came there in the old days of three-cornered hats, pigtails, and scurvy318, still it must be admitted that their doings in our south-western havens319 were entirely320 commonplace. Vancouver and the Spaniards had no adventures. Nothing that concerns Cook can fail to interest the student; and the story of his anchorages and surveys, of the “spruce beer” which he brewed321 from a mixture of sprigs of rimu and leaves of manuka, and of his encounters with the solitary family of Maori met with on the coast, is full of meaning to the few who pore over the scraps322 of narrative which compose the history of our country prior to 1800. There is satisfaction in knowing that the stumps323 of the trees cut down by Cook’s men are still to be recognised. To the general reader, however, any stirring elements found in the early story of the South Island were brought in by the sealers and whalers who came in the wake of the famous navigators, rather than by the discoverers themselves. One lasting324 service the first seamen325 did to the Sounds: they left plain and expressive326 names on most of the gulfs, coves, and headlands. Doubtful Sound, Dusky Sound, Wet Jacket [196]Arm, Chalky Island, Parrot Island, Wood Hen Cove51, speak of the rough experiences and everyday life of the sailors. Resolution, Perseverance, Discovery have a salt savour of difficulties sought out and overcome. For the rest the charm of the south-west comes but in slight degree from old associations. It is a paradise without a past.
BREAM HEAD, WHANGAREI HEADS
The sealers and whalers of the first four decades of the nineteenth century knew our outlying islands well. Of the interior of our mainland they knew nothing whatever; but they searched every bay and cove of the butt-end of the South Island, of Rakiura, and of the smaller islets for the whale and fur seal. The schooners327 and brigs that carried these rough-handed adventurers commonly hailed either from Sydney, Boston, or Nantucket, places that were not in those days schools of marine politeness or forbearance. The captains and crews that they sent out to southern seas looked on the New Zealand coast as a No Man’s Land, peopled by ferocious329 cannibals, who were to be traded with, or killed, as circumstances might direct. The Maori met them very much in the same spirit. Many are the stories told of the dealings, peaceable or warlike, of the white ruffians with the brown savages. In 1823, for instance, the schooner328 Snapper brought away from Rakiura to Sydney a certain James Caddell, a white seaman330 with a tattooed331 face. This man had, so he declared, been landed on Stewart Island seventeen years earlier, as one of a party of seal-hunters. They were at once set upon by the [197]natives, and all killed save Caddell, who saved his life by clutching the sacred mantle332 of a chief and thus obtaining the benefit of the law of Tapu. He was allowed to join the tribe, to become one of the fighting men, and to marry a chief’s daughter. At any rate, that was his story. It may have been true, for he is said to have turned his back on Sydney and deliberately333 returned to live among the Maori.
A more dramatic tale is that of the fate of a boat’s crew from the General Gates, American sealing ship. In 1821 her captain landed a party of six men somewhere near Puysegur Point to collect seal-skins. So abundant were the fur seals on our south-west coast in those days that in six weeks the men had taken and salted 3563 skins. Suddenly a party of Maori burst into their hut about midnight, seized the unlucky Americans, and, after looting the place, marched them off as prisoners. According to the survivors, they were compelled to trudge145 between three and four hundred miles, and were finally taken to a big sandy bay on the west coast of the South Island. Here they were tied to trees and left without food till they were ravenously334 hungry. Then one of them, John Rawton, was killed with a club. His head was buried in the ground; his body dressed, cooked, and eaten. On each of the next three days another of the wretched seamen was seized and devoured335 in the same way, their companions looking on like Ulysses in the cave of the Cyclops. As a crowning horror the starving seamen were offered some of the baked human flesh and ate it. [198]After four days of this torment336 there came a storm with thunder and lightning, which drove the natives away to take shelter. Left thus unguarded, Price and West, the two remaining prisoners, contrived337 to slip their bonds of flax. A canoe was lying on the beach, and rough as the surf was, they managed to launch her. Scarcely were they afloat before the natives returned and rushed into the sea after them, yelling loudly. The Americans had just sufficient start and no more. Paddling for dear life, they left the land behind, and had the extraordinary fortune, after floating about for three days, to be picked up, half dead, by the trading schooner Margery. The story of their capture and escape is to be found in Polack’s New Zealand, published in 1838. Recently, Mr. Robert M’Nab has unearthed338 contemporary references to the General Gates, and, in his book Muri-huku, has given an extended account of the adventures of her skipper and crew. The captain, Abimelech Riggs by name, seems to have been a very choice salt-water blackguard. He began his career at the Antipodes by enlisting339 convicts in Sydney, and carrying them off as seamen. For this he was arrested in New Zealand waters, and had to stand his trial in Sydney. In Mr. M’Nab’s opinion, he lost two if not three parties of his men on the New Zealand coast, where he seems to have left them to take their chance, sailing off and remaining away with the finest indifference340. Finally, he appears to have taken revenge by running down certain canoes manned by Maori which he chanced to meet in Foveaux [199]Straits. After that coup341, Captain Abimelech Riggs vanishes from our stage, a worthy precursor342 of Captain Stewart of the brig Elisabeth, the blackest scoundrel of our Alsatian period.
LAWYER’S HEAD
Maori history does not contribute very much to the romance of the south-west. A broken tribe, the Ngatimamoe, were in the eighteenth century driven back to lurk343 among the mountains and lakes there. Once they had owned the whole South Island. Their pitiless supplanters, the Ngaitahu, would not let them rest even in their unenviable mountain refuges. They were chased farther and farther westward, and finally exterminated. A few still existed when the first navigators cast anchor in the fiords. For many years explorers hoped to find some tiny clan344 hidden away in the tangled9 recesses345 of Fiordland; but it would seem that they are gone, like the moa.
The whites came in time to witness the beginning of a fresh process of raiding and dispossession—the attacks on the Ngaitahu by other tribes from the north. The raids of Rauparaha among the Ngaitahu of the eastern coast of the South Island have often been described; for, thanks to Mr. Travers, Canon Stack, and other chroniclers, many of their details have been preserved. Much less is known of the doings of Rauparaha’s lieutenants346 on the western coast, though one of their expeditions passed through the mountains and the heart of Otago. Probably enough, his Ngatitoa turned their steps towards Westland in the hope of annexing347 the tract29 wherein is found the [200]famous greenstone—a nephrite prized by the Maori at once for its hardness and beauty. In their stone age—that is to say, until the earlier decades of the nineteenth century—it furnished them with their most effective tools and deadliest weapons. The best of it is so hard that steel will not scratch its surface, while its clear colour, varying from light to the darkest green, is far richer than the hue348 of oriental jade349. Many years—as much as two generations—might be consumed in cutting and polishing a greenstone meré fit for a great chief.[5] When perfected, such a weapon became a sacred heirloom, the loss of which would be wailed350 over as a blow to its owner’s tribe.
[5] See Mr. Justice Chapman’s paper on the working of greenstone in the Transactions of the N.Z. Institute.
A MAORI CHIEFTAINESS
The country of the greenstone lies between the Arahura and Hokitika rivers in Westland, a territory by no means easy to invade eighty years ago. The war parties of the Ngatitoa reached it, however, creeping along the rugged sea-coast, and, where the beaches ended, scaling cliffs by means of ladders. They conquered the greenstone district (from which the whole South Island takes its Maori name, Te Wai Pounamou), and settled down there among the subdued351 natives. Then, one might fancy, the Ngatitoa would have halted. South of the Teremakau valley there was no greenstone; for the stone, tangi-wai, found near Milford Sound, though often classed with greenstone, is a distinct mineral, softer and much less valuable. Nor were there any more tribes with villages worth [201]plundering. Save for a few wandering fugitives352, the mountains and coast of the south-west were empty, or peopled only by the Maori imagination with ogres and fairies, dangerous to the intruder. Beyond this drenched and difficult country, however, the Ngatitoa resolved to pass. They learned—from captives, one supposes—of the existence of a low saddle, by which a man may cross from the west coast to the lakes of Otago without mounting two thousand feet. By this way, the Haast Pass, they resolved to march, and fall with musket353 and meré upon the unexpecting Ngaitahu of Otago. Their leader in this daring project was a certain Puoho. We may believe that the successes of Rauparaha on the east coast, and the fall, one after the other, of Omihi, the two stockades355 of Akaroa, and the famous pa of Kaiapoi, had fired the blood of his young men, and that Puoho dreamed of nothing less than the complete conquest of the south. He nearly effected it. By a daring canoe voyage from Port Nicholson to southern Westland, and by landing there and crossing the Haast Saddle, this tattooed Hannibal turned the higher Alps and descended upon Lake Hawea, surprising there a village of the Ngaitahu. Only one of the inhabitants escaped, a lad who was saved to guide the marauders to the camp of a family living at Lake Wanaka. The boy managed to slip away from the two captors who were his guards, and ran all the way to Wanaka to warn the threatened family—his own relatives. When the two guards gave chase, they found the intended victims prepared for them; they fell into an ambuscade and were both [202]killed—tomahawked. Before the main body of the invaders356 came up, the Ngaitahu family was far away. At Wanaka, Puoho’s daring scheme became more daring still, for he conceived and executed no less a plan than that of paddling down the Clutha River on rafts made of flax sticks—crazy craft for such a river. The flower stalks or sticks of the native flax are buoyant enough when dead and dry; but they soon become water-logged and are absurdly brittle357. They supply such rafts as small boys love to construct for the navigation of small lagoons358. And that strange river, the Clutha, while about half as long as the Thames, tears down to the sea bearing far more water than the Nile. Nevertheless the Clutha did not drown Puoho and his men: they made their way to the sea through the open country of the south-east. Then passing on to the river Mataura, they took another village somewhere between the sea and the site of a town that now rejoices in the name of Gore359. Then indeed the fate of the Ngaitahu hung in the balance, and the Otago branches of the tribe were threatened with the doom360 of those of the northern half of the island. They were saved because in Southland there was at the moment their one capable leader in their later days of trouble—the chief Tuhawaiki, whom the sealers of the south coast called Bloody Jack. Hurrying up with all the warriors he could collect, and reinforced by some of the white sealers aforesaid, this personage attacked the Ngatitoa by the Mataura, took their stockade354 by escalade, and killed or captured the band. Puoho [203]himself was shot by a chief who lived to tell of the fray361 for more than sixty years afterwards. So the Ngaitahu escaped the slavery or extinction362 which they in earlier days had inflicted363 on the Ngatimamoe. For, three years after Puoho’s raid, the New Zealand Company appeared in Cook’s Strait, and thereafter Rauparaha and his braves harried364 the South Island no more.
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1
gorge
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| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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thermal
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| adj.热的，由热造成的；保暖的 | |
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entrenched
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| adj.确立的，不容易改的(风俗习惯) | |
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ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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entangled
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| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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torrents
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| n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断 | |
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cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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lichen
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| n.地衣, 青苔 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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alpine
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| adj.高山的；n.高山植物 | |
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redeemed
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| adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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hem
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| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
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24
blanched
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| v.使变白( blanch的过去式 )；使（植物）不见阳光而变白；酸洗（金属）使有光泽；用沸水烫（杏仁等）以便去皮 | |
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25
thorny
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| adj.多刺的，棘手的 | |
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spiky
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| adj.长而尖的，大钉似的 | |
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27
conspire
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| v.密谋，（事件等）巧合，共同导致 | |
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spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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29
tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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30
regularity
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| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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31
watershed
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| n.转折点，分水岭，分界线 | |
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32
oases
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| n.（沙漠中的）绿洲( oasis的名词复数 )；（困苦中）令人快慰的地方（或时刻）；乐土；乐事 | |
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33
flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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34
botanist
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| n.植物学家 | |
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35
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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39
shingle
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| n.木瓦板；小招牌(尤指医生或律师挂的营业招牌)；v.用木瓦板盖（屋顶）；把（女子头发）剪短 | |
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40
glacier
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| n.冰川，冰河 | |
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41
glaciers
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| 冰河，冰川( glacier的名词复数 ) | |
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42
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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43
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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44
penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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45
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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46
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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47
satirist
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| n.讽刺诗作者，讽刺家，爱挖苦别人的人 | |
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48
apprehensive
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| adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的 | |
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49
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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50
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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51
cove
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| n.小海湾，小峡谷 | |
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52
geologist
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| n.地质学家 | |
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53
ascend
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| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
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54
strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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55
ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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56
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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58
elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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59
gorges
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| n.山峡，峡谷( gorge的名词复数 )；咽喉v.（用食物把自己）塞饱，填饱( gorge的第三人称单数 )；作呕 | |
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60
attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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61
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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62
tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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63
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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64
venerated
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| 敬重（某人或某事物），崇敬( venerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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65
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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66
notably
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| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
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67
imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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68
premier
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| adj.首要的；n.总理，首相 | |
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bespeak
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| v.预定；预先请求 | |
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70
boisterous
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| adj.喧闹的，欢闹的 | |
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71
sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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72
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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73
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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74
blisters
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| n.水疱( blister的名词复数 )；水肿；气泡 | |
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75
gales
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| 龙猫 | |
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76
gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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avalanches
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| n.雪崩( avalanche的名词复数 ) | |
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dwellers
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| n.居民，居住者( dweller的名词复数 ) | |
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80
dormant
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| adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的 | |
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81
invader
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| n.侵略者，侵犯者，入侵者 | |
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82
ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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84
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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85
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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89
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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boulders
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| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
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94
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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confiding
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| adj.相信人的，易于相信的v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的现在分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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protruded
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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100
spines
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| n.脊柱( spine的名词复数 )；脊椎；（动植物的）刺；书脊 | |
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101
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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102
rout
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| n.溃退，溃败；v.击溃，打垮 | |
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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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104
regain
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| vt.重新获得，收复，恢复 | |
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105
hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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106
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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107
precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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108
berths
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| n.（船、列车等的）卧铺( berth的名词复数 )；（船舶的）停泊位或锚位；差事；船台vt.v.停泊( berth的第三人称单数 )；占铺位 | |
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109
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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110
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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111
shunned
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| v.避开，回避，避免( shun的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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112
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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113
scramble
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| v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料 | |
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114
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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115
hew
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| v.砍；伐；削 | |
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116
adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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117
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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118
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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119
toll
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| n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟) | |
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120
levied
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| 征（兵）( levy的过去式和过去分词 )； 索取； 发动（战争）； 征税 | |
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121
thwarted
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| 阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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122
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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123
plodding
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| a.proceeding in a slow or dull way | |
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124
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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125
pelted
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| （连续地）投掷( pelt的过去式和过去分词 )； 连续抨击； 攻击； 剥去…的皮 | |
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126
onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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127
apex
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| n.顶点，最高点 | |
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128
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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129
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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130
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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131
coveted
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| adj.令人垂涎的；垂涎的，梦寐以求的v.贪求，觊觎(covet的过去分词)；垂涎；贪图 | |
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132
pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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133
forestalled
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| v.先发制人，预先阻止( forestall的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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134
surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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135
ascertained
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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136
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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137
beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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138
wade
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| v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉 | |
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139
numbed
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| v.使麻木，使麻痹( numb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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140
swirling
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 ) | |
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141
encumbered
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| v.妨碍，阻碍，拖累( encumber的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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142
scoop
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| n.铲子，舀取，独家新闻；v.汲取，舀取，抢先登出 | |
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143
subterranean
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| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
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144
trudged
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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145
trudge
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| v.步履艰难地走；n.跋涉，费力艰难的步行 | |
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146
pangs
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| 突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 )； 悲痛 | |
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147
nauseating
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| adj.令人恶心的，使人厌恶的v.使恶心，作呕( nauseate的现在分词 ) | |
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148
tributaries
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| n. 支流 | |
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149
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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150
feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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151
crests
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| v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的第三人称单数 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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152
bouts
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| n.拳击（或摔跤）比赛( bout的名词复数 )；一段（工作）；（尤指坏事的）一通；（疾病的）发作 | |
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153
incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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154
stamina
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| n.体力；精力；耐力 | |
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155
exertions
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| n.努力( exertion的名词复数 )；费力；（能力、权力等的）运用；行使 | |
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156
rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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157
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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158
rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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159
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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160
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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161
efficiently
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| adv.高效率地，有能力地 | |
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162
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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163
converging
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| adj.收敛[缩]的，会聚的，趋同的v.（线条、运动的物体等）会于一点( converge的现在分词 )；（趋于）相似或相同；人或车辆汇集；聚集 | |
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164
tributary
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| n.支流；纳贡国；adj.附庸的；辅助的；支流的 | |
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165
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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166
cataract
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| n.大瀑布，奔流，洪水，白内障 | |
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167
descends
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| v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜 | |
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168
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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169
clefts
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| n.裂缝( cleft的名词复数 )；裂口；cleave的过去式和过去分词；进退维谷 | |
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170
pinnacles
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| 顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 )； 顶点； 尖顶； 小尖塔 | |
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171
evergreen
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| n.常青树；adj.四季常青的 | |
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172
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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173
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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174
perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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175
mingle
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| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
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176
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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177
cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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178
pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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179
complement
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| n.补足物，船上的定员；补语；vt.补充，补足 | |
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180
coves
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| n.小海湾( cove的名词复数 )；家伙 | |
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181
blatant
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| adj.厚颜无耻的；显眼的；炫耀的 | |
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182
syllables
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| n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
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183
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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184
alabaster
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| adj.雪白的；n.雪花石膏；条纹大理石 | |
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185
aspiring
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| adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求 | |
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186
cosmos
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| n.宇宙；秩序，和谐 | |
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187
cavil
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| v.挑毛病，吹毛求疵 | |
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188
appellations
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| n.名称，称号( appellation的名词复数 ) | |
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189
scenic
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| adj.自然景色的，景色优美的 | |
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190
watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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191
labyrinth
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| n.迷宫；难解的事物；迷路 | |
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192
indent
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| n.订单，委托采购，国外商品订货单，代购订单 | |
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193
littoral
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| adj.海岸的；湖岸的；n.沿（海）岸地区 | |
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194
bluffs
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| 恐吓( bluff的名词复数 )； 悬崖； 峭壁 | |
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195
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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196
dub
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| vt.（以某种称号）授予，给...起绰号，复制 | |
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197
perseverance
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| n.坚持不懈，不屈不挠 | |
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198
sublimity
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| 崇高，庄严，气质高尚 | |
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199
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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200
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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201
granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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202
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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203
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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204
tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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205
distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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206
bulwarks
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| n.堡垒( bulwark的名词复数 )；保障；支柱；舷墙 | |
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207
moored
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| adj. 系泊的 动词moor的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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208
cascades
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| 倾泻( cascade的名词复数 )； 小瀑布（尤指一连串瀑布中的一支）； 瀑布状物； 倾泻（或涌出）的东西 | |
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209
cataracts
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| n.大瀑布( cataract的名词复数 )；白内障 | |
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210
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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211
embroider
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| v.刺绣于(布)上；给…添枝加叶，润饰 | |
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212
precipices
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| n.悬崖，峭壁( precipice的名词复数 ) | |
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213
plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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214
densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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215
computed
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| adj.[医]计算的，使用计算机的v.计算，估算( compute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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216
rebounds
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| 反弹球( rebound的名词复数 )； 回弹球； 抢断篮板球； 复兴 | |
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217
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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218
foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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219
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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220
prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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221
frond
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| n.棕榈类植物的叶子 | |
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222
mosses
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| n. 藓类, 苔藓植物 名词moss的复数形式 | |
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223
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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224
confinement
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| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
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225
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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226
avert
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| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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227
tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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228
absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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229
refreshment
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| n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点 | |
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230
atone
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| v.赎罪，补偿 | |
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231
marine
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| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
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232
robins
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| n.知更鸟，鸫( robin的名词复数 )；（签名者不分先后，以避免受责的）圆形签名抗议书（或请愿书） | |
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233
zoologists
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| 动物学家( zoologist的名词复数 ) | |
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234
lizard
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| n.蜥蜴，壁虎 | |
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235
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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236
exterminated
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| v.消灭，根绝( exterminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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237
attest
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| vt.证明，证实；表明 | |
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238
diagnosis
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| n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断 | |
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239
ostrich
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| n.鸵鸟 | |
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240
zoology
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| n.动物学，生态 | |
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241
ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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242
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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243
stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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244
relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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245
survivor
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| n.生存者，残存者，幸存者 | |
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246
survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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247
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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248
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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249
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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250
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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251
bestow
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| v.把…赠与，把…授予；花费 | |
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252
preservation
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| n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持 | |
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253
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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254
levy
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| n.征收税或其他款项，征收额 | |
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255
poultry
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| n.家禽，禽肉 | |
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256
ravages
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| 劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹 | |
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257
captivity
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| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
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258
foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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259
foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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260
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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261
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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262
sanctuaries
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| n.避难所( sanctuary的名词复数 )；庇护；圣所；庇护所 | |
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263
insular
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| adj.岛屿的，心胸狭窄的 | |
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264
inured
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| adj.坚强的，习惯的 | |
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265
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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266
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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267
oozed
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| v.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出( ooze的过去式和过去分词 )；使（液体）缓缓流出；（浓液）渗出，慢慢流出 | |
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268
beaks
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| n.鸟嘴( beak的名词复数 )；鹰钩嘴；尖鼻子；掌权者 | |
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269
humbugs
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| 欺骗( humbug的名词复数 )； 虚伪； 骗子； 薄荷硬糖 | |
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270
pretences
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| n.假装( pretence的名词复数 )；作假；自命；自称 | |
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271
fowl
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| n.家禽，鸡，禽肉 | |
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272
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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273
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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274
colonists
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| n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
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275
blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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276
fauna
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| n.(一个地区或时代的)所有动物，动物区系 | |
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277
franchise
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| n.特许，特权，专营权，特许权 | |
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278
plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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279
intermittent
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| adj.间歇的，断断续续的 | |
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280
apathy
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| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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281
drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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282
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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283
hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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284
annexation
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| n.吞并，合并 | |
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285
warriors
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| 武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 ) | |
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286
massacre
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| n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀 | |
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287
cannibalism
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| n.同类相食；吃人肉 | |
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288
warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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289
indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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290
extirpation
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| n.消灭，根除，毁灭；摘除 | |
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291
fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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292
wreak
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| v.发泄；报复 | |
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293
bloody
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|
| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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294
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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295
disastrous
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|
| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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296
hoisting
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| 起重，提升 | |
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297
coastal
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|
| adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的 | |
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298
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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299
eastward
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|
| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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300
botanists
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| n.植物学家，研究植物的人( botanist的名词复数 ) | |
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301
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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302
isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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303
quail
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| n.鹌鹑；vi.畏惧，颤抖 | |
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304
harassed
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| adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
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305
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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306
exhausted
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|
| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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307
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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308
asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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309
persecuted
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|
| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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310
savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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311
reptiles
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| n.爬行动物，爬虫( reptile的名词复数 ) | |
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312
quill
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| n.羽毛管；v.给（织物或衣服）作皱褶 | |
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313
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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314
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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315
gauge
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| v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器 | |
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316
swirls
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|
| n.旋转( swirl的名词复数 )；卷状物；漩涡；尘旋v.旋转，打旋( swirl的第三人称单数 ) | |
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317
junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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318
scurvy
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| adj.下流的，卑鄙的，无礼的；n.坏血病 | |
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319
havens
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| n.港口，安全地方( haven的名词复数 )v.港口，安全地方( haven的第三人称单数 ) | |
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320
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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321
brewed
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| 调制( brew的过去式和过去分词 )； 酝酿； 沏（茶）； 煮（咖啡） | |
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322
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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323
stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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324
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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325
seamen
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| n.海员 | |
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326
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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327
schooners
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| n.（有两个以上桅杆的）纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 ) | |
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328
schooner
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| n.纵帆船 | |
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329
ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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330
seaman
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| n.海员，水手，水兵 | |
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331
tattooed
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| v.刺青，文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
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332
mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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333
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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334
ravenously
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| adv.大嚼地，饥饿地 | |
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335
devoured
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|
| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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336
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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337
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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338
unearthed
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| 出土的（考古） | |
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339
enlisting
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| v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的现在分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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340
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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341
coup
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| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
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342
precursor
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| n.先驱者；前辈；前任；预兆；先兆 | |
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343
lurk
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| n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏 | |
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344
clan
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| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
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345
recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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346
lieutenants
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| n.陆军中尉( lieutenant的名词复数 )；副职官员；空军；仅低于…官阶的官员 | |
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347
annexing
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|
| 并吞( annex的现在分词 )； 兼并； 强占； 并吞（国家、地区等） | |
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348
hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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349
jade
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| n.玉石；碧玉；翡翠 | |
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350
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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351
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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352
fugitives
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| n.亡命者，逃命者( fugitive的名词复数 ) | |
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353
musket
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| n.滑膛枪 | |
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354
stockade
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| n.栅栏，围栏；v.用栅栏防护 | |
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355
stockades
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| n.（防御用的）栅栏，围桩( stockade的名词复数 ) | |
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356
invaders
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| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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357
brittle
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| adj.易碎的；脆弱的；冷淡的；(声音)尖利的 | |
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358
lagoons
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| n.污水池( lagoon的名词复数 )；潟湖；（大湖或江河附近的）小而浅的淡水湖；温泉形成的池塘 | |
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359
gore
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| n.凝血，血污；v.（动物）用角撞伤，用牙刺破；缝以补裆；顶 | |
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360
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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361
fray
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| v.争吵；打斗；磨损，磨破；n.吵架；打斗 | |
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362
extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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363
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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364
harried
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| v.使苦恼( harry的过去式和过去分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
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