chap, xi FULMAR VALLEY 171 



falling would have effected the result, but we were beyond 

 caring even for a deluge. A hideous draught blew along 

 the rut and drove the rain before it. There was practically 

 no vegetation on the bog slopes, save here and there in 

 patches, where wet lumps of brilliant-coloured moss, red, 

 yellow, brown, and green, emphasised spots more than 

 usually moist. 



When the ponies were almost dead-beat, we reached the 

 ice-foot below the glacier wall. It was surprisingly small 

 for so great a glacier front, and small was the river flowing 

 from the ice. There was something quite unusual about 

 the glacier too. It had hardly any moraine, and it ended 

 so abruptly, more like a wall of ice built across a valley 

 than the end of an ice-river flowing into it. The ice-foot 

 was in fact formed not by the glacier in front, but by a 

 smaller one on our left. The great glacier contributed 

 merely a few little cascades, whilst away to the right, round 

 a corner, were indications of another stream coming in. 

 We afterwards learned that this flows from a lake at the foot 

 of yet another side glacier, which was wholly hidden from 

 us by an intervening ridge. If we had gone up Turnback 

 Glacier, and had steered our way correctly over the ice-sheet, 

 it is down this glacier we should have come. The ponies 

 were almost dropping with fatigue, so here camp had to be 

 pitched on the first flat place. Dry places there were not. 

 We set the tents up in a bog (370 feet). 



