3-077-756 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Te-Anau Lake, [The Lake of the Mists, in the Western Highlands of Otago,] New Zealand, 1890. 'Our correspondent, Mr. Samuel H. Moreton, an artist residing at Invercargill, sends a view of Te-Anau, which is surrounded by the peaked ranges of the Kepler, Murchison, Stuart, Franklin, and Earl Shelmartie Mountains...He writes: "The Maori name, Te-Anau, is wonderfully appropriate, for the lake...is never free from mist...To the west the mountains rise, almost, sheer from the water's edge, and there are three fjords, which stretch still farther west, the scenery of which is very fine. Among these fjords and the separating ranges is the battle-ground of wind and mist...one is enraptured by the ever-shifting forms of vapour - now dense and thick, hanging, covering, and hiding the mountains from view: but, in a few seconds, some rush of wind has riven the curtain, and scattered its torn fragments...to be dissolved in filaments, revealing an unsuspected panorama of snowclad peaks...The Illustration represents that portion of the lake reached immediately from the waggon-road...At the entrance of the fjord...are a succession of timbered islands, of exquisite beauty, sprinkled on a surface of liquid silver. It is a sight worth going any distance to see'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.