106 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [Jan. 



Coulman Island on our bow, and by the morning we had 

 brought it almost abeam ; but by this time the weather bore a 

 still more threatening aspect. A heavy swell came up from 

 the south and the glass was falling. There could be little 

 doubt that a gale was brewing, and in order that it should not 

 carry us far to the north I thought it wise to try to seek shelter 

 under Coulman Island. We turned in and were soon amongst 

 the loose pack-ice and in smoother water, but the wind was 

 momentarily increasing, and we were obliged to light up our 

 second boiler in order to gain the open-water shelter which we 

 could now see under the high cliffs of the island. 



Coulman Island, like all the coastal land, is a mass of 

 volcanic rock, rising about 2,000 feet above the sea. It is 

 comparatively fiat on the top, which is covered with an ice-cap 

 of considerable thickness, and it is surrounded by steep and 

 in some places almost vertical cliffs. Beneath the heaviest 

 falls of neve from the ice-cap, and clinging to the steep cliffs, 

 are fan-shaped masses of ice with vertical faces, rising as much 

 as 100 feet above the sea. These have all the appearance of 

 glacier tongues, though they can scarcely be called by that 

 name, and they form an intermittent ice-foot fringing the 

 coast. The land as we approached it looked illusively near ; 

 the sky was overcast, and the higher land was hidden in cloud, 

 but beneath this sheet of grey the black rocks stood out with 

 such distinctness that one was wholly deceived as to their 

 distance. So strong was this deception that the engines were 

 eased when we were nearly two miles from the cliffs, under the 

 impression that they were only a few hundred yards away ; we 

 only discovered our mistake when we saw a colony of pen- 

 guins, and found that even with glasses it was impossible to 

 distinguish the individuals. I find also 1 noted in my diary 

 that there was on our right ' a curious indentation like the 

 crater of a volcano,' and this was really the strait between the 

 island and the mainland, some ten miles across. 



Afterwards in our winter quarters, and during our sledge 

 journeys, we got to know very well how easily one could be 

 deluded in respect to distance, and what extraordinarily false 



