BEAUTIFUL DEER-FOREST. 235 



green with succulent mosses, and not less than ten 

 thousand acres in extent ; this plain gradually con- 

 tracted in breadth, until below where I stood, it 

 was only about a mile broad between the hills and 

 the straits, and here it was intersected with dry 

 water-courses, and ridges, and dikes of trap rocks, 

 affording admirable stalking-ground. From the 

 plain up to the rocky hill whereon I stood was a 

 slope or talus, beautifully carpeted with mosses; 

 before me stretched a level plateau, or table-land, 

 and above that a number of grand sheltered cor- 

 ries, with high rugged mountains towering over all. 

 The frost was intense, but the sun shining brightly, 

 the plains and the rocky slopes looked as if cover- 

 ed with a brilliant Turkey carpet, being red, brown, 

 green, yellow, orange, and purple with mosses. The 

 whole scene made up such a picture, or beau-ideal 

 of a deer-forest as I never saw before. 



I did not care about shooting any more deer 

 now, and there seemed to be no chance of that 

 much more exciting quarry, the sea-horse, so we 

 prepared to start. Before leaving the yacht the 

 day before, I had told Mr. Wood to get up his an- 

 chor as soon as Lord David should return on board, 

 and drop down to a well-known anchorage at the 

 southeast corner of the straits, and I would meet 

 him there; but now, as there was nothing to be 

 done in the straits with the walruses, and we had 

 tons of venison on board, I determined to intercept 

 the yacht, and prevent her from coming to an an- 



