THE GRANITE HARBOUR EXPEDITION 353 



(still in its woolly coat) for its mother. * Baa-aa ! ' he said, 

 quite plainly, like a cross between a lamb and a vigorous 

 young bull. This resounded from the five-hundred-foot 

 granite cliff above, and occasionally the mother re-echoed 

 it from the tide crack where she wisely kept ! I was glad 

 to see about eight seals here. I expect we shall kill most 

 of them ! Trigger caught the young one by the tail, and it 

 bellowed and tried to get away. It took to water readily. 

 There was a well-defined margin of level fixed ice, ten yards 

 wide, following the coast all along. We turned in at midnight 

 tired out and not much worried by the baa-ing of the seals." 



Before turning in we saw a most remarkable sight to the 

 east. Sailing over the Ross Sea towards the south was a fleet 

 of cloud galleons. The hulls appeared as bright white glares 

 separated from each other by dark nimbus. The lower sails 

 were sheets of stratus, and beautiful cumulus floated over 

 each. At the front of each the advancing vapours were 

 curved to form the galleon's bows. 



On the 30th we relayed round the face of Discovery Bluff, 

 leaving one sledge on the firm ice-foot beyond the seals' pool 

 while we marched on with the other to try and find our 

 summer headquarters. The Bay ice was torn every half-mile 

 by huge shear cracks, but luckily they were still narrow and 

 we crossed them readily enough. 



We now opened up a small bay, and I could see a fine 

 camp site just ahead. I made straight for a rough beach 

 which was covered with granite blocks. I was glad to see 

 that lichens and moss were growing here in some abundance, 

 for it indicated that this was a sheltered, sunny spot. 



Behind the beach was a steep slope leading to a little plain 

 about four hundred feet up. I climbed up to this while the 

 others explored the beach and the small cape to westward. 

 Soon I reached the further edge of the plain, and from here 

 I had a magnificent view up the great Mackay Glacier. There 

 was a well-defined glacier entering the bay in the south-west 

 corner, which had a fairly gentle slope. Up this I hoped to 

 find a route to the interior, for the other outlets of the glaciers 

 were crevassed to a greater extent than in any of the other 

 regions. In fact, the ice river resembled a great ploughed 

 field where every furrow was a huge crevasse. Gran said 

 such an area would be called Skauk in Norway. He said 



2 A 



