# Through South Westland/Part 2/Chapter 10

CHAPTER X.
THE SILVER CONE
“Spirit of ice and snow, Goddess, whose hands are laid
Upon the brows of men who needs must go
To seek thy loneliness, immortal maid, Within thy fastness of thy frozen place;
Dost thou their toil behold?
Thine heart is dull with cold,
Cold is thy shrine, and colder thine embrace.”
And now we began to see the full beauty and the solemn grandeur of the place. To right and left the mountains converged till the whole valley was blocked by a mighty mass, well-nigh perpendicular, whose summits were snow-covered to within a few hundred feet of their tops, where the black rocks ran up in pyramids too steep for snow. Along this wall the eye travelled eastwards over pure snowfields to a magnificent ice-fall, looking from here as if it must actually be moving, its colour exquisite in its tones of green below the snow-white waves. And then, just as last year it was described to me on the West Coast, rose clear and pure the “great Silver Cone against the blue.” One unbroken wave of snow seemed to run up one side to the very top, which, looked at with the naked eye, appeared almost a point, but the field-glasses revealed a double crown. The face towards us was only lightly powdered with snow: it was almost sheer. From where it rose, the mountains presented a savagely broken view of riven rock and snow-field, culminating in a mighty curved wave of glacier, which overhung a sheer precipice—a purple, misty gulf, so deep and dark we could only guess its probable depth at a thousand feet or more. Farther up it looked like a great cleft in the mountain wall; and another glacier blocked the head of it—an awesome chasm.
All I had been told was true, and more; and as ​we gazed in silence we saw the whole lip of the curved wave break and plunge downwards, the roar reaching our waiting ears like artillery. It is always so strange when you see the actual avalanche shoot down, to hear it only when it has practically been turned to powder.
I was so fascinated by this sight that Mr. Macpherson, growing impatient, went on ahead to search for the Ice-caves. We followed him up a brawling torrent, over terraces of stones and tumbled fragments of the hills, till we came to a cleft where the rocks rose in two huge slabs, and wedged between them in a ravine was a mass of ice. From a magnificent archway in its face, large enough for three coaches to drive in abreast, the torrent gushed forth. The archway must have been quite forty feet high, its roof within curiously wrought as though kneaded by gigantic knuckles, and hung all over with big drops that fell incessantly—but in winter time these must be icicles. Looking into its vasty depths, one saw it bend round in a curve where the dim light gave way to almost utter blackness. We ventured in, stepping from stone to stone, balancing with fingers touching those strange ice-walls. On down this weird tunnel, till a light ahead and a deafening roar told us we were within sight of where the waterfall pours into a great black hole it has bored right through the ice. We could go no farther—water filled all the space from wall to wall, and there were no stepping-stones to be seen in the dim light. Deadly ​cold was gripping us; nor was it safe to remain after the great heat outside, and so we turned to go. As we emerged round the bend the blaze of sunshine without dazzled our eyes for a moment, and then we saw a sight few have seen. There, framed by the arch of ice, rose the Silver Cone—all that pure curve of snow, with its every rock, every purple shadow, sharp and distinct against a blue so intense, it seemed dark against the snow. From the cave we looked straight into the chasm below the peak, but could see neither to the bottom nor to the end of that misty gulf—only up to the glacier curling over the black precipice.
I needs must see how the water entered the cave. We climbed up on to the top of it, and proceeded over a slippery surface, rather sloppy in the hot sunshine, till we stood below the waterfall which shoots in unbroken volume into a round, black hole. A cloud like steam rises out of it, and hangs around the opening. Looking upwards you see the fall comes down in a succession of three grand leaps, having their beginnings in a glacier poised some thousands of feet above. I don’t know whether it is more weirdly strange to stand up there at the edge of the uncanny pot-hole, or in the dimness of the cave to hear the water thundering down without.
We clambered round a buttress of cliff beyond the Ice-cave, and came to the second wonder. I have no doubt it had once been very similar to the first, because a waterfall at the end of a ​short gully came down in a very similar manner, but the middle portion was gone, and what remained was a perfect ice-arch. Through this, one saw a second arch with the river foaming under. They were magnificent, and here, too, we had to climb on top, and Macpherson and I were photographed as we stood in the centre of the bridge. At this point he left us: we wanted, if possible, to get some good photographs, and he said he was going to find an easier way back—it may have been shorter, but easier it was not, and involved some terrific gymnastics in the way of scrambling.
I sat down on a boulder in front of the cave, glad to be alone, and free to look in silence—filled with that exultation that comes to the heart of the lover of mountains; and filled, too, with the strange yearning to be one with it all—to understand—to let the solemn majesty of the mountains sink into one’s being. Awe they inspire; and fear too!
At last, from far down near the bush, came a haloo, and we knew Macpherson was getting impatient at our long tarrying, and we started homewards. We had to cross the ice-torrent first, and here, after so many experiences, I nearly disgraced myself by slipping back off a rock; but Transome rescued me, and pulled me safely ashore.
Mr. Macpherson must have whittled away many sticks while waiting, and was confident his new ​route would bring us to the horses in half the time. Plunging down gullies, scrambling up slippery slopes through ferns and bush, we did at last come out, very hot and tired, on the grassy terraces, and threw ourselves down beside the lunch-bag. It was past four o’clock, and we had not eaten since the start; and I think he enjoyed his meal as much as we did. Then the horses were saddled, and in the yellow afternoon sunlight we rode down the west Matukituki valley, well pleased.
Mrs. Macpherson had made a famous redcurrant tart as a crown to her other hospitable efforts, and we sat chatting over our supper till the moon rose above the valley walls. The last tints of sunset vanished from the mountains, and a great peace fell upon all things. As we rode, for the last time, towards the “Gate of Death,” I turned and said good-bye to the Lone Shieling. It was all so still: the children had gone indoors to bed, and the soft, dark curtain of the night was falling across the mountains; we had come into the circle of the lonely home for a space, and now we vanished as suddenly as we had come; but I think we will never in after years forget.