232 THE EASTERN SLEDGE JOURNEY 



the precipice. A halt was made at a safe distance, and 

 I went in advance to look over. To my surprise I found 

 that there was open water right in to the wall of ice. 

 We had expected the sea-ice to extend a good way out 

 still, seeing it was so early in summer; but there lay 

 the sea, almost free of ice as far as the horizon. Black 

 and threatening it was to look at, but still a beneficent 

 contrast to the everlasting snow surface on which we 

 had now tramped for 300 geographical miles. 



" The perpendicular drop of 100 feet that forms the 

 boundary between the dead barrier and the sea, with 

 its varied swarm of life, is truly an abrupt and im- 

 posing transition. The panorama from the top of the 

 ice-wall is always grand, and it can be beautiful as well. 

 On a sunny day, or still more on a moonlit night, it has 

 a fairylike beauty. To-day a heavy, black sky hung 

 above a still blacker sea, and the ice-wall, which shines 

 in the light with a dazzling white purity, looked more 

 like an old white-washed wall than anything else. There 

 was not a breath of wind; the sound of the surf at 

 the bottom of the precipice now and then reached my 

 ears — this was the only thing that broke the vast 

 silence. One's own dear self becomes so miserably 

 small in these mighty surroundings; it was a sheer 

 relief to get back to the company of my comrades." 



As things now were, with open water up to the 

 Barrier itself, our prospect of getting seals here at the 

 edge of the ice seemed a poor one. Next morning. 



