chap, xxi WIJDE BAY 295 



on the west. The ice stops short at the edge of this 

 glaciated wall, except where it finds its way down ravines 

 cut down into the rocks. Of such ravines there are three 

 large and as many small. Down the large ones flow wide 

 ice tongues, gently sloping, very smooth, and offering a 

 notable contrast in texture and colour to the richly toned 

 and buttressed precipices of gneiss and ancient schists that 

 wall them in on both sides. Their crescent fronts, expand- 

 ing beyond the mouths of their ravines, rise like walls of 

 marble and turquoise from the dark clear waters of the 

 fjord. The delicate sky line of the inland ice above com- 

 pletes the picture. Opposite the second glacier we had the 

 steamer stopped in the midst of this scene of rare beauty, 

 just as the sunshine fell upon the splintered glacier-front 

 and the calm water, whilst the red, riven crags remained 

 behind in gloom. An absolute stillness reigned. Seals 

 peeped forth around us, numbers of fulmar petrels floated 

 upon the water near the boat. The clouds, resting on the 

 snow peaks opposite, moved and somewhat opened, showing 

 the direction of white ridges, and the existence of sharp 

 summits, whilst, up a deep and many-branching reindeer 

 valley, which opened just over against us, was such a deepen- 

 ing and enrichment of colour to an incredible purple in 

 the remotest depth, as I think can seldom have been sur- 

 passed even in an oriental imagination. 



Garwood, whose alertness never failed on land or inland 

 waters, took advantage of the pause to feed and photograph 

 the fulmars. They squealed and quarrelled over the biscuits 

 he threw them, and for a moment, a score of them, for- 

 getting their shyness in the excitement of combat, came 

 close under the steamer's bows. Ted and Battye indus- 

 triously sketched, complaining of the rapidity wherewith 

 lights and colours changed. The cloud roof grew thinner, 

 and there came a shine and glamour on the snow, and in 



