88 BUCHAN AND FRANKLIN. 



were attacked upon a beach, near Magdalena Bay, the 

 first discharge of muskets drove all those who could 

 crawl into the sea ; but, immediately upon their panic 

 subsiding, they returned to the shore and dragged their 

 wounded companions into the water, either by main 

 force, or by rolling them over with their tusks. 



On the 28th of May, the weather being foggy and 

 severe, with heavy falls of snow, the ships separated, 

 and the Trent stood to the northward toward Magdalena 

 Bay, the place of rendezvous, along the edge of the 

 main body of ice : they met here, and, seeing it impos- 

 sible to penetrate the marginal line of the ice, and the 

 season being very early, the commander determined on 

 passing a few days in that bay, in which they anchored 

 on the 3d of June. The ice was in the cove arid upper 

 part of the harbor, but was in a rapidly decaying state, 

 and, on revisiting their anchorage here in the beginning 

 of August, it had entirely disappeared. Magdalena Bay 

 is rendered conspicuous by four glaciers, the smallest 

 two hundred feet above the sea, on the slope of a moun- 

 tain. It is called the Hanging Iceberg, and seems, so 

 Beechey says, as if a very slight matter would detach 

 it from the mountain, and precipitate it into the sea. 

 The largest of the four extends two or three miles in- 

 .and : owing to the great rents in the surface, it has 

 been named the Wagon-way, from the resemblance of 

 the fissures to ruts made by wheels. Several glaciers 

 similar to those were observed near Dane's Gut, the 

 largest about ten thousand feet in length by two or three 

 hundred feet in perpendicular height. In the vicinity of 

 these icebergs a strict observance of silence is neces- 

 sary the explosion of a gun scarcely ever fails to bring 

 down one of these masses. Mr. Beechey says that on 

 two occasions they witnessed avalanches on the most 

 magnificent scale. 



