VIII.] " CLANDEBOYE CREEK." 133 



With considerable difficulty, and after a good hour's climb, 

 Ave succeeded in dragging the figure-head we had brought 

 ashore with us, up a sloping patch of snow, which lay 

 in a crevice of the cliff, and thence a little higher, to a 

 natural pedestal formed by a broken shaft of rock ; where 

 — after having tied the tin box round her neck, and duly 

 planted the white ensign of St. George beside her,— we left 

 the superseded damsel, somewhat grimly smiling across 

 the frozen ocean at her feet, until some Bacchus of a bear 

 should come to relieve the loneliness of my wooden 

 Ariadne. 



On descending to the water's edge, we walked some little 

 distance along the beach without observing anything very 

 remarkable, unless it were the network of vertical and hori- 

 zontal dikes of basalt which shot in every direction through 

 the scoriae and conglomerate of which the cliff seemed to be 

 composed. Innumerable sea-birds sat in the crevices and 

 ledges of the uneven surface, or flew about us with such 

 confiding curiosity, that by reaching out my hand I could 

 touch their wings as they poised themselves in the air along- 

 side. There was one old sober-sides with whom I passed a 

 good ten minutes tete-a-tete, trying who could stare the other 

 out of countenance. 



It was now high time to be off. As soon then as we had 

 collected some geological specimens, and duly christened 

 the little cove, at the bottom of which we had landed. 

 " Clandeboye Creek," — we walked back to the gig. But — 

 so rapidly was the ice drifting down -upon the island, — : we 

 found it had already become doubtful whether we should 

 not have to carry the boat over the patch which — during the 

 couple of hours we had spent on shore — had almost cut her 

 off from access to the water. If this was the case with the 

 gig, it was very evident the quicker we got the schooner out 

 to sea again the better. So immediately we returned on 

 board, having first fired a gun in token of adieu to the deso- 

 late land we should never again set foot on, the ship was 

 put about, and our task of working out towards the open 



