EGMONT, THE BEAUTIFUL.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1978, 7 February 1914, Page 11

EGMONT, THE BEAUTIFUL.

[BY IMOGEN.]

THE LURK OF THE MOUNTAIN,

It is really only quite recently that many people aro beginning, to find out thero aro other places in New Zealand almost as well worth visiting as Rotorua, with its surrounding thermal district, and the Cold Lakes country in the South Island, and although New Zealanders aro said to bo the most vagrant people in tho world, their own country is sometimes tho last place in which they chooso to wander. Perhaps that is not so surprising after all. Large sums of money havo been spent by the Government, past and present, upon the Hermitage '_ at Mt. Cook and upon Rotorua with' its weird and wonders, c with the result that visitors from various parts of tho world aro attracted to our shores, but there is yet another beauty spot to bo brought home to people in the shape of Mt. Egmont. Taranaki people, no doubt, aro well acquainted with their exquisitely beautiful mountain, the second nearly perfect cone in the world, but the tourist often passes through tho Dominion without ever knowing there is yet something more to visit and to climb. We have no Lafcatlio Hearn to write of this dream mountian as he wrote of Fujiyama, twin-brother in beauty to 'Egmont,' and although its misty brooding solitudes are often invaded. ' it is as yet more by the native-born than by English and Continental travellers, so on© is told. With Tane the Tree-Cod. . There is no difficulty in reaching any of the hostels which have been erected on different sides of the mountain — Egmont,. Dawson Falh, and Stratford, —the Ausual way of reaching them .being ■. to drive . either ■ by buggy or try motor-car from New Plymouth, Inglewood, Eltham, or Stratford, whichever town one chooses to start from. Once thero. a different, world unfolds itself, and one becomes steeped in beauty, lost in the dreaming silences that.have taken the bush into their keeping for countless centures, and have held their kingdom against all

tho fleeting creatures of a day. For the last live or sis miles of tho way the traveller passes through magnificent primeval forest,with an area of 72,000 acres that completely encircles the base and lower reaches .'of the snow-clad mountain, which towers far into ' the clouds above—"Taranaki the cloudpiercer"—an altogether unforgettable experience. How long it has been there no one seems able to tell; all that is surmised is that' it must be very, nearly as old as tho' mountain itself. Century after century it has stood there facing the howling mountain storms, reaching up to the sunshine, its monster trees, many of them with trunks twelve or more feet in diameter dying of sheer old age, and their place being taken by v the younger generation that is pressing so eagerly upward from the sunless depths in which they were born. Tho rush of lifo is tremendous, of resistless energy and strength, and its intense determination to live and fulfil its destiny can almost bo felt. The'struggle for existence is as grim, as relentless here as it is in all other forms of life, the difference being ■ that its aspect is one of unbelievable beauty and grace. Far above the thick undergrowth that jostles for life below, and' sometimes lays sinister' fingers upon.its sturdier brothers; tower magnificent whifo pines, totaras, and konini trees of a height undreamt of elsewhere, the red,' rather raggity bark of the latter making delightful splashee of colour, against the waving curtain of moss, lichen, grasses, and creeping ferns with which branches and trunks are,thickly.coated. Beech trees there are-in .hosts,. ratas, and many other varieties, but chief among them all for beauty is the New Zealand cedar, red-barked; straight, cleaving the air far into the sunshine above. Tano, the Tree-god, is in his home, and it is .here surely that his most loving care must be oxpeuded, while, as though in defence of • his kingdom, the trees have so thickly interlaced their innumerable moss-draped branches that an almost impenetrable barrier lis interposed against tho invasion of man. Everywhere is the breath of the bush, tho exquisite, porvading scent of tree, of leaf, of moss, of earth, mingled into one indefinable whole that is like nothing elso in tho w0r1d.... By Pool and Waterfall Yet another beauty is to bo found in tho numberless streams that rise from tho snows of Egmont,, tear their way down its rent and chaotic sides, and, in tho heart of tho bush-clad slopes, fall, in gleaming showers of diamonds, veiled with diaphanous mist, into rocky pools far below. Dawson Falls are famous in the land, but there are others that are almost equally beautiful within its near Small wonder that the Maoris, imaginative, poeti,cal people that they arc, peoplo these regions with the creations of their fancy and of their religious beliefs, and made Egmont the haunt of their gods. Although it does not by any means rank as one of the big mountain climbs, the ascent of. Egmont is sufficiently laborious te satisfy the beginner or the moderately ambitious climber, while to ,tha geologist it is, ono ia told, of en-

trancing interest. In Alpine climbing in tho south the actual start is usually mado from a fairly high altitude, but to climb this northern mountain (8260ft 1 . in height) ono has to start from the very'foot, and cover rough ground the whole way —exceedingly rough ground in somo parts, unless tho climber takes to the snow as soon as it is reached, far and away the best plan to pursue. It is very possiblo to mako tho ascent in two hours, but record-breaking not being ono of tho writer's ambitions, it was made in something more, how much more it is not necessary to state. Climbing the Mountain. Between tho pauses for breath' and a rest, it.was interesting to- noto the various stages of growth upon tho mountain side—first of all the thick, interlacing, moss-grown, curiouslysilent_ bush, which gradually decreased in height until it ended, and scrub began. After the scrub camo tho moss belt, starred, though rather sparsely, with mountain flowers —tho buttercup, tho violet (tiniest and daintiest of all mountain flowers), and gnaphalium, cousin to tho edelweiss, tho latter flower, strange to say, not growing thero at all. There were others, hut memory fails to recall them at the present moment. At tho same time, Egmont does not give a wido variety of mountain flowers such as aro to be found on some of the other mountains. After tho moss bolt came the scoria— anightmaro of horror, but tho guide, in his wisdom and mercifulness, made it as short as possible by cutting across at right angles, and getting upon the snow. The remainder of the climb, about 2000 ft., was made upon tho snow, sometimes loose and soft, into which one kicked foothold, and sometimes frozen hard where footsteps had to be cut. It yas hero that ono learnt how deceptive distances can be, at any rate mountain distances. Slopes thai looked comparatively short and near at hand stretched into apparently unending distances andj almost hypnotised by the snow (seen through goggled eyes) and the steady rhythm of the footsteps, one plodded doggedly onwards determined to do or fall down the mountain side, and dreamily wondering when the end would come. The Delight of Achievement. ■ To reach the summit was to be compensated to the utmost limit for all tho stress and toil of the climb. In between tho great fleecy rolls and swathes of clouds that lay pile upon pile, one caught glimpses of the wide countryside outspread far below. Even as ono sat watching and glimpsing through the rifts, tho great mass of snowy vapour suddenly lifted and clear-

Ed and veiled in a delicate blue haze was to be seen practically the wholo of the Taranaki Province with the far faint outlines of Ruapehu and Ngauruhoo descried against the horizon. So deeply ethereally blue was the bordering ocean with floating islands of snowy clouds passing and repassing that it was difficult to tell whore it merged into sky and sky into ocean. It was surely the pathway that led to the Land of Heart's Desire, the dreamland of all with Celtic blood in their-veins, those unsatisfied ones whose impossible visions haunt them throughout the days of their life. The Writing of the Gentries. Quiescent for unknown centuries, its grim, gashed sides covered with hieroglyphics that told of titanic fury, Egmont broods in. lofty solitude, over tho land it. seems to guard, immovable, unyielding, defying life, defying all things. One would not like to have its dreams broken, and it ' surely must have been just such a silence, just such a solitude, that Mr. W. B. Yeats had in his'mind when he ■wrote tho startling lino— "And God stands winding His lonely horn." There are times when Egmont wakes from dreams, and wrapped in a shroud of impenetrable mist, takes heavy toll upon those who treat its power and aloofness with lightness. x