g, white down to the waist, brown to the feet
with the sunshine full on their faces, the blue sky overhead, and the
bluer sea below.

If the Southern Alps surpass the Kaikouras in beauty it is because of
the contrast they show on their western flanks, between gaunt grandeur
aloft, and the softest luxuriance below. The forest climbs to the snow
line, while the snow line descends as if to meet it. So abrupt is the
descent that the transition is like the change in a theatre-scene.
Especially striking is the transformation in the passage over the
fine pass which leads through the dividing range between pastoral
Canterbury and Westland. At the top of Arthur's Pass you are among the
high Alps. The road winds over huge boulders covered with lichen,
or half hidden by koromiko, ferns, green moss, and stunted beeches,
grey-bearded and wind-beaten. Here and there among the stones are
spread the large, smooth, oval leaves and white gold-bearing cups of
the shepherd's lily. The glaciers, snowfields, and cliffs of Mount
Rolleston lie on the left. Everything drips with icy water. Suddenly
the saddle is passed and the road plunges down into a deep gulf. It is
the Otira Gorge. Nothing elsewhere is very like it. The coach zig-zags
down at a gentle pace, like a great bird slowly wheeling downwards to
settle on the earth. In a few minutes it passes from an Alpine desert
to the richness of the tropics. At the bottom of the gorge is the
river foaming among scarlet boulders--scarlet because of the lichen
which coats them. On either side rise slopes which are sometimes
almost, sometimes altogether precipices, covered, every inch of them,
with thick vegetation. High above these tower the bare crags and peaks
which, as the eye gazes upwards, seem to bend inwards, as though a
single shock of earthquake would make them meet and entomb the gorge
beneath. In autumn the steeps are gay with crimson cushion-like masses
of rata flowers, or the white blooms of the ribbon-wood and koromiko.
Again and again waterfalls break through their leafy coverts; one
falls on the road itself and sprinkles passengers with its spray. In
the throat of the gorge the coach rattles over two bridges thrown from
cliff to cliff over the pale-green torrent.

In an hour comes the stage where lofty trees succeed giant mountains.
As the first grow higher the second diminish. This is the land of
ferns and mosses. The air feels soft, slightly damp, and smells
of moist leaves. It