THE VOYAGE OF THE HURON AND THE HUNTRESS 



land rose into this haze. It extended as far as we could see to the east and 

 the west. The top was everywhere veiled by a high mist, and this mist 

 had within it a mysterious light, which is one of the most startling of 

 all with polar effects. As we drew nearer, we noticed that the land was 

 not as it at first appeared, an endless wall of ice, but rough, irregular and 

 disconnected, though it was buried under a mantle of glacial ice, extend- 

 ing to the water's edge. Here and there were large bays, and one directly 

 over our bowsprit, was so wide that it offered us a temporary path south- 

 ward. Now the maps were carefully studied that we might fix our posi- 

 tion on paper, but in this effort we failed. 



"Over the starboard bow rose two beautiful headlands, mountains of 

 moderate height. ... In front of these remarkable headlands there was 

 a bay, and beyond a long series of mountains, clothed in the same sheet 

 of perennial ice. Eastward there were a number of small islands, mostly 

 free of ice, and beyond, low under the southeastern sky, was the dim 

 outline of an extensive white country. We set our course somewhat east 

 of south to examine the interruptions between the high mountainous land 

 before us and the more even country eastward. . . . 



"During the few hours of the night we rested . . . and in the morning 

 we found ourselves well into the bight (Hughes Inlet) which we entered. 

 ... At 5 o'clock the sun had already arisen over the snowy heights of 

 the east and . . . our positions at the time was in the center of a wide 

 waste of water almost twelve miles away from the nearest land . , . 

 every projection seemed a continuous mass of impenetrable crystal 

 solitude. . . ."^^ 



There can be no question as to Captain Davis' recognition of this great shore 

 line, stretching in all its icy magnificence far into the snowy distances, with 

 black, precipitous peaks showing above the frozen snow which held it captive. 

 Having preceded in this place those other explorers, who so clearly described 

 it three-quarters of a century later, the master of the Huron is the earliest 

 mariner who we know to have recorded the exact location of this portion of the 

 Antarctic Continent, and who was, in addition, responsible for the first recorded 

 landing on these continental shores.'^" 



[54] 



