chap, in TO SPITSBERGEN 39 



water with apparently motionless wings. There were Mandt's 

 guillemots, Briinnich's guillemots, black guillemots, kittiwakes, 

 Arctic terns, Arctic puffins, and a pair of Pomatorrhine 

 skuas, all duly and immediately recognised by Trevor-Battye 

 with a readiness that seemed magical to me, who distin- 

 guish with difficulty between a thrush and a blackbird. 



About two a.m. on the 17th, Bear Island was sighted to the 

 eastward, but all we saw of it was the lower part of its 

 northern extremity between a floor of grey sea and a low 

 roof of grey cloud. We held steadily on our way, hour after 

 hour, through the cold miserable air, and over the more 

 miserable heaving sea. Shortly after noon the first fragments 

 of ice were passed, while along the eastern horizon hung 

 a curtain of the coldest white conceivable, like sunlight on 

 a cloud seen through a veil of mist. It was an Ice Blink, 

 sign of the presence of an ice-pack in that direction. An 

 hour later we were in the middle of drift ice, and had to 

 slow down and wind about to avoid the pieces. These were 

 of all shapes and sizes, distributed with average distance 

 between them of perhaps a hundred yards or less. On the 

 horizon they appeared like breakers. Nearer at hand they 

 took the queerest shapes, like swans, rearing horses, people 

 seated at table, camels, lions, buildings, what-you-please. 

 Often there was a covering of old white snow on the top ; 

 then a thickness cut through or undermined by the wash of 

 the waves, or hollowed out into caves. This part was always 

 divinely blue, with a blueness more delicate and pure than 

 that of an Alpine glacier's crevasse. The mass below the 

 water had a flat upper surface, and was much broader and 

 more solid than the part above. It showed a light bluish 

 green tint through the water. The waves breaking over this 

 greenish base swished and flopped under the overhanging 

 masses, and no doubt were rapidly destroying them. Some 

 larger fragments of dirty land-ice intruded themselves amongst 

 these delicate creations of the bays or the open sea. 



