The  Government  is  making  improvements  in  this
part  of  our  route — grading  the  track  and  building
huts  in  the  uninhabited  valley.  To  the  sound  traveller,


FOREST  AND  ICE  253

however,  a  little  hardship  comes  no  more  amiss  than
salt  does  with  his  meat,  and  the  track  is  already
(1912)  quite  fair  in  one  sense  of  the  word.  In
another,  it  is  fair  exceedingly.  Passing  through  some
preliminary  Bush  (one  wants  an  opening  in  it,  to
permit  a  view  of  the  rivers  meeting) ,  we  find  ourselves
ascending  a  true  deep  narrow  mountain-valley :  grimly
fine  with  grey  crags  far  above,  fairified  with  Bush  and
ferns  and  mosses  beneath,  and  with  its  depths
thundered  through  by  a  swift  stream,  blue  as  a  bright
blue  sapphire.  This  is  the  Copland  Valley.  Keep  all
the  luxuriant  loveliness  of  green,  the  charm  of  rocky
creeks  rushing  with  song  and  sunshine  down  through
leafy  glooms,  the  noble  nakedness  above,  the  pervasive
forest-breath  of  romance :  substitute  for  the  dark
spiring  pines  the  verdurous  maze  of  birch-boughs,  and
soothe  your  river  from  flashing  blue  to  clear  gleaming
green:  then,  without  diminishing  one  whit  the
grandeur,  add  a  certain  delicate,  unnamable,
enchanted  loveliness — and  you  might  be  ascending
the  Clinton  Valley  instead  of  the  Copland;
though  as  you  advance  you  realise  that  the
Copland  is  on  the  larger  scale.
