chap, xx SEVEN ISLANDS 267 



to either shore. One glacier ends just north of the Dead 

 Man. Farther up comes a second and wider glacier, with 

 a great northern tributary. The wide crescent front of the 

 second glacier loomed out of fog, its edge broken into blue- 

 faced seracs. The ice-cliff, doubtless ioo feet high, produced 

 no impression of altitude, but only of width, and the glaciers 

 of flatness and extension, a whole world removed from the 

 appearance of Alpine glaciers. A mountain mass followed, 

 unbroken by big glaciers as far as St. John's Bay. Low rain- 

 clouds hung above the mist, and rain-besoms swept across 

 in front. The very universe seemed melting away. 



We were now hurrying up the narrow sound, named 

 Keerwyk, dividing Prince Charles's Foreland (named after 

 Charles, Prince of Wales, afterwards King Charles I.) from 

 Spitsbergen. The Foreland is a submerged mountain range 

 with submarine banks of debris piled about its foot. The 

 southern extremity, Saddle Point, seems to have been an 

 island at the time of the discovery, but is now connected with 

 the rest by a low flat, a few feet above sea level. Unluckily 

 all the mountains of the Foreland, some of the finest and 

 loftiest in Spitsbergen, were buried in cloud. We could only 

 see the mouths of gloomy valleys, and the bases of massive 

 buttresses, solemn rock-forms dignified in their mystery of 

 cloud-envelopment. Our little boat, plunging into the short 

 seas, or leaping on to them, seemed dancing with life ; she 

 had a rollicking way with her, and shook off the water from 

 her back like a duck. Our pace was not more than eight 

 knots, but we had a greater sense of swift movement than 

 I ever before experienced at sea ; water, air, and boat all 

 seemed to be flying along. It was strange how little float- 

 ing ice we met, though in close proximity to so many 

 glaciers ending in the sea. It would seem that a wide 

 serac'd glacier front should be fringed with fallen ice, but 

 it was not so. The channel grew narrower ; glaciers came 



