moment to lose if they were to regain some lower point of comparative security; for March is the first month of autumn in South New Zealand, and the evenings then begin to draw in. So Mr. Green had to retreat when within either a few score feet or a few score yards of the actual goal. As it was, night closed in on the party when they were but a short way down, and they spent the dark hours on a ledge less than two feet wide, high over an icy ravine. Sleep or faintness alike meant death. They stood there hour after hour singing, stamping, talking, and listening to the rain pattering on rock and hissing on snow. All night long the wind howled: the wall at their backs vibrated to the roar of the avalanches: water streaming down its face soaked their clothing. For food they had three meat lozenges each. They sucked at empty pipes, and pinched and nudged each other to drive sleep away. By the irony of fate it happened that close beneath them were wide and almost comfortable shelves. But night is not the time to wander about the face of a precipice, looking for sleeping berths, 10,000 feet above the sea. Mr. Green and his guides were happy to escape with life and limb, and not to have to pay such a price for victory as was paid by Whymper’s party after scaling the Matterhorn. Mr. Green’s climb, the tale of which is told easily in his own bright and workmanlike book, gave an enlivening shock to young New Zealand. It had been left to a European to show them the way; but the lesson was not wasted. They now understood that mountains were something more than rough country, some of which carried sheep, while some did not. They learned that they had an alpine playground equal to any in the Old World--a new realm where danger might be courted and exploits put on record. The dormant spirit of mountaineering woke up at last. Many difficulties confronted the colonial lads. They had everything to learn and no one to teach them. Without guides, equipment, or experience--without detailed maps, or any preliminary smoothing of the path, they had to face unforeseen obstacles and uncommon risks. They had to do everything for themselves. Only by endangering their necks could they learn the use of rope and ice-axe. Only by going under fire, and being grazed or missed by stones and showers of ice, could they learn which hours of the day and conditions of the weather were most dangerous, and when slopes might be sought and when ravines must be shunned. They had to teach themselves the trick of the _glissade_ and the method of crossing frail bridges of snow. Appliances they could import from Europe. As for guides, some of them turned guides themselves. Of course they started with a general knowledge of the climate, of “roughing it” in the hills, and of life in the open. They could scramble to the heights to which sheep scramble, and could turn round in the wilderness without losing their way. Thews and sinews, pluck and enthusiasm, had to do the rest, and gradually did it.