AN ANTAECTIC PAKALLEL 305 



course I have seen nothing to compare for mass and con- 

 tinuity with Victoria Land, but the mountains, especially 

 Kinchin-jhow, are beyond all description beautiful ; from 

 whichever side you view this latter mountain, it is a castle 

 of pure blue glacier ice, 4000 feet high and 6 or 8 miles long. 

 I do wish I were not the only person who has ever seen it 

 or dwelt among its wonders. Now I have been N., S., E., 

 and W. of it, up it, down it, to 16,000, 17,000, and 18,000 

 feet ; and every view enchants rne more than another. 



. . . I was greatly pleased with finding my most Antarctic 

 plant, Lecanora miniata, at the top of the Pass, and to-day 

 I saw stony hills at 19,000 feet stained wholly orange- red 

 with it, exactly as the rocks of Cockburn Island were in 

 64 South 1 ; is not this most curious and interesting ? To 

 find the identical plant forming the only vegetation at the 

 two extreme limits of vegetable life is always interesting ; 

 but to find it absolutely in both instances painting a land- 

 scape, so as to render its colour conspicuous in each case 

 five* miles off, is wonderful. 



1 See Himalayan Journals, ii. 130 and 165. 



