chap, xxv A SUMMER RESORT 341 



is the most interesting part of these seas, for the bays and 

 sounds at the north-west were the centre of the whaling 

 industry in its flourishing days in the seventeenth century. 

 Every point is the scene of some tragic event, some ship- 

 wreck or disastrous wintering. 



From the mouth of Ice Fjord the northward way for 

 large steamers lies outside Prince Charles's Foreland, a long 

 partly submerged range of mountains of fine form, which 

 have never been climbed, nor even properly mapped. 

 Smaller boats can go up the more interesting narrow 

 channel between these mountains and the mainland, peer- 

 ing into various secluded bays as they pass, and perhaps 

 even looking into the beautiful English Bay, so well de- 

 cribed by Lord Dufferin in " Letters from High Latitudes." 

 Beyond the Foreland come the seven great glaciers or 

 " Seven Icebergs," flowing down side by side from the 

 inland ice to the sea. Then follows the " Pearl of Arctic 

 Scenery," Magdalena Bay, alone worth a journey to be- 

 hold. The narrow bay is enclosed by precipitous peaks 

 and draped with glaciers. A little low promontory on its 

 south shore contains the ruins of numerous graves. It 

 was the English burying-place in whaling days. Beyond 

 this bay are the craggy and snow - decked Danes and 

 Amsterdam Islands, which shelter Dutch Bay from the 

 western ocean. By either of two narrow entries the large 

 secluded harbour may be gained, where the main body of 

 the whaling fleet used to ride, and on whose shore was 

 planted the Dutch summer settlement, Smeerenburg, of 

 which scarcely a brick remains. Here the wildness of the 

 scenery culminates, the rocks are all splintered by frost, 

 snow frequently lies deep by the very margin of the sea 

 even at midsummer, whilst, in many years, the ice-pack of 

 the Arctic Ocean reaches down to the immediate neighbour- 

 hood, so that its nature and expansion may be estimated 



