Winding and hanging plants festoon everything, and everything is bearded with long streamers of moss, not grey but rich green and golden.

Always some river rushes along in sight or fills the ear with its noise.

Tree ferns begin to appear and grow taller and taller as the coach descends towards the sea, where in the evening the long journey ends.
On the western coast glaciers come down to within 700 feet of the sea-level.

Even on the east side the snow is some 2,000 feet lower than in Switzerland.

This means that the climber can easily reach the realm where life is not, where ice and snow, rock and water reign, and man feels his littleness.
Though Aorangi has been ascended to the topmost of its 12,349 feet, still in the Southern Alps the peaks are many which are yet unsealed, and the valleys many which are virtually untrodden.