1833.] ADVENTURE WITH A GLACIER. 227 



and four thousand feet, with one peak above six thousand 

 feet. They are covered by a wide mantle of perpetual snow, 

 and numerous cascades pour their waters, through the 

 woods, into the narrow channel below. In many parts, 

 magnificent glaciers extend from the mountain side to the 

 water's edge. It is scarcely possible to imagine anything 

 more beautiful than the beryl-like blue of these glaciers, 

 and especially as contrasted with the dead white of the 

 'upper expanse of snow. The fragments which had fallen 

 from the glacier into the water were floating away, and 

 the channel with its icebergs presented, for the space of a 

 mile, a miniature likeness of the Polar Sea. The boats 

 being hauled on shore at our dinner-hour, we were admiring 

 from the distance of half a mile a perpendicular cliff of ice, 

 and were wishing that some more fragments would fall. 

 At last, down came a mass with a roaring noise, and 

 immediately we saw the smooth outline of a wave travel- 

 ling towards us. The men ran down as quickly as they 

 could to the boats ; for the chance of their being dashed to 

 pieces was evident. One of the seamen just caught hold of 

 the bows as the curling breaker reached it ; he was 

 knocked over and over, but not hurt ; and the boats, 

 though thrice lifted on high and let fall again, received no 

 damage. This was most fortunate for us, for we were a 

 hundred miles distant from the ship, and we should have 

 been left without provisions or firearms. I had previously 

 observed that some large fragments of rock on the beach 

 had been lately displaced ; but until seeing this wave, I 

 did not understand the cause. One side of the creek was 

 formed by a spur of mica-slate ; the head by a cliff of ice 

 about forty feet high ; and the other side by a promontory 

 fifty feet high, built up of huge rounded fragments 01 

 granite and mica-slate, out of which old trees were grow- 

 ing. This promontory was evidently a moraine, heaped 

 up at a period when the glacier had greater dimensions. 



When we reached the western •mouth of this northern 

 branch of the Beagle Channel, we sailed amongst many 

 unknown desolate islands, and the weather was wretchedly 

 bad. We met with no natives. The coast was almost 

 everywhere so steep that we had several times to pull many 

 miles before we could find space enough to pitch our two 

 tents ; one night we slept on large round boulders, with 

 putrefying seaweed between them ; and when the tide rose, 

 we had to get up and move our blanket-bags. The farthest 



