chap, xxii WESTERN BAYS 305 



After drinking our rill of the fine prospect, we turned 

 about and headed for the sea, making our way through 

 many great masses of floating ice — seracs fallen from the 

 glacier cliff, and already melted into the most fantastic 

 forms. One was of such beautiful outline and colour 

 that we came to alongside of it to give the artists time for 

 sketching. Then away to the sea, and the recongregat- 

 ing fogs and clouds, which utterly hid the end of King 

 Charles's Foreland. Once round Quade Hook wind and 

 waves were dead against us. The mountains on either hand 

 of Keerwyk were invisible. Only a narrow strip of beach 

 or rock divided the watery heavens from the misty sea. 

 Landmarks were hidden ; the boat had to be steered by 

 dead reckoning through the shallows. As there was nothing 

 to be seen we turned in, and only the skipper kept the 

 deck, planted in his little elevated steering-box just forward 

 of the funnel. A rude shock fetched us suddenly from the 

 land of dreams. We had touched bottom on the Bar, the 

 bank which Barendsz discovered and could not sail over. A 

 second and more prolonged bump followed, then a third. 

 Our strong little craft gave a kind of jump, and we were 

 over, lurching and rolling as before. A few moments later 

 all were asleep again. 



The orders were to run straight for Bell Sound, passing 

 the mouth of Ice Fjord. Gregory was to be landed at 

 Cape Lyell, where is a famous bed of fossil plants. Garwood 

 and Trevor-Battye desired to explore Axel Island. I wished 

 to see the head of Low Sound, and to have another look 

 up the valley of the Shallow River, visited from Cairn 

 Camp by Garwood and me on June 28. It was about seven 

 A.M. (Aug. 11), when we awoke off the mouth of Bell Sound 

 and prepared to put our plans into execution. Clouds were 

 on the hill-tops, but below them the air was clear, and the 

 eye ranged afar. I had to rouse myself to observe, for I 



u 



