CHAPTER XIII
Lakes and Sounds of the Lone Southwest—The Rabbit Curse—Enchanting Manapouri and Te Anau—The Finest Walk in the World—Milford Sound—New Zealand's Lucerne.
In the southwestern part of the South Island, over the tussocky hills and plains of Otago and Southland, is New Zealand's grandest lake region; its magnificent sounds that rival the fiords of Norway; river canyons with cloud-swept rims; and sea-cliffs rising thousands of feet above the tides. Here lakes and sounds, dividing the land among themselves, ramble irregularly over the country, cutting into the heart of mountain ranges, forming islands, peninsulas and promontories, and receiving the waters of innumerable crystal streams. So remarkably indented and isolated is the land between Lakes Te Anau and Manapouri and the Tasman Sea, that from the head of Doubtful Sound to Milford Sound, one hundred miles north, one huge island is almost formed.
The principal sounds are great straggling arms of the sea that run far inland, exploring the hills with long lateral inlets, and here and there almost meeting a large lake or a connecting chain of small lakes. Some of the odd and awkward shapes of these fiords are like gigantic jaws extended to excavate the mountains which bar their further progress.
For one hundred and forty miles the granite coast of
