224 NOTES OF A NATURALIST. 



coves many more will be found to offer good anchorage ; 

 but few are now known, and the distance that can 

 be run during the short winter days is not great. We 

 were told that our halt for the night was to be at 

 Eden Harbour, less than twenty miles south of the 

 English Narrows, and to my great satisfaction we 

 dropped anchor about 3.30 p.m., when there was still 

 a full hour of daylight. Our good-natured captain 

 put off dinner for an hour, and with all convenient 



speed I went ashore with Mr. H and two officers 



of the ship. 



Eden Harbour deserves its name. A perfectly 

 sheltered cove, with excellent holding-ground, is 

 enclosed by steep forest-clad slopes, culminating to 

 the north in a lofty conical hill easily recognized by 

 seamen. The narrow fringe between the forest and 

 the beach is covered with a luxuriant growth of ferns 

 and shrubby plants, many of them covered in summer 

 with brilliant flowers, blooming in a solitude rarely 

 broken by the passage of man. After scrambling 

 over the rocks on the beach, the first thing that struck 

 us was the curious nature of the ground under our 

 feet. The surface was crisp and tolerably hard, but 

 each step caused an undulation that made one feel as 

 if walking on a thick carpet laid over a mass of 

 sponge. Striking a blow with the pointed end of my 

 ice-axe, it at once pierced through the frozen crust, 

 and sank to the hilt over four feet into the semifluid 

 mass beneath, formed of half-decomposed remains of 

 vegetation. 



At every step plants of this region, never before 

 seen, filled me with increasing excitement. Several 



