is so incongruous with that pure holy majesty of the pinnacled snow. Little wonder that mountaineers are generally reverent and religious.
Now we cross the rapid Rakaia over a very long wooden bridge. At every country town in the South Island among the most prominent features are the great granaries and stores of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company. They seem to be ubiquitous. The company provide weighbridges and platforms for their customers at all the large stations free of charge. The neat churches, too, are a constant feature. Here is a malthouse; there a flour or saw-mill. Here again is a granary; there is a woolshed. Seed-cleaning machinery is of frequent occurrence; so too are steam ploughs, traction engines, reaping machines. Indeed, all the most modern forms of agricultural labour-saving appliances are common sights. The faces we see are ruddy and fresh and brimful of intelligence. Corn-ricks and farmhouses stud the plains.
Through the Rakaia Gorge we get a peep beyond the snowy barrier into the inner mountainous country. The gorge discloses ever a grander succession of snowy peaks and glistening glaciers. A region untrodden by human foot, and sacred to the sway of nature's mightiest activities. It is a sealed workshop, where Titanic forces are ceaselessly at play.
Now, far ahead, the white buildings of Ashburton gleam in the sun. It is verily a City of the Plains. We find it a busy, thriving centre of a populous
