BEAR HUNTING. 429 



of the coast consists chiefly of gneiss, with alter- 

 nate layers of red felspar. The scanty vegetation already 

 showed signs of budding. From the point one perceives 

 a large bay (Bessel Bay) to the north, with the mouth of 

 several fjords ; to the east nothing was to be seen but ice 

 and the north end of Shannon, with its soft undulatinof 

 mountains. The rosy sloping masses of Koldewey 

 Island, in the north-east, looked in the splendour of the 

 setting sun like fairy-land. An endless snowy waste of 

 bluish-grey shadows lay between it and us. Half we 

 had already traversed. 



Near us rose the high, wild, Alpine front of the 

 geologically interesting island of Kuhn ; to the west lay 

 a rough mountainous district, the interior of which 

 had never yet been trodden by the foot of man, and in 

 which Clavering mistakenly makes a fjord (called Rose- 

 neath Inlet) penetrate, which really never existed. 



From Cape Heer to Cape Seebach (west of Haystack) 

 ran a beautiful bay, opening to the south, which, from its 

 position, one would be inclined to say would form a 

 perfect harbour for the winter. But what irreparable 

 danger we should have run if, in the previous summer, we 

 had found this bay free from ice, and had taken posses- 

 sion of it, instead of that to the south of Sabine Island ! 

 Now it was blocked with ice — perhaps had been for a 

 decade — certainly for some years. Even the deep pools 

 south of Haystack lay upon ice several years old. 



In the course of the afternoon's march we had a bear- 

 hunt, though an unsuccessful one. A she-bear and her 

 two cubs — the latter very like poodles, and from their 

 dirty yellow colour and black noses perceptible for a 

 long distance — were making quickly towards us, but 



