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CHAPTER V 



ALONG THE GREAT BARRIER 



Strange Footprints — Landing under Mount Terror — The Last Record 

 Left — Along the Great Barrier — New Land — Foggy Weather — 

 Surrounded by Bergs — We Lose our Bearings — Decision to Turn 

 Back— Good View of King Edward's Land— Landing on the Barrier 

 — Balloon Ascent — Return to Victoria Land. 



She skirts the icy margin of the main, 



And where unchanging from the first of time 



Snows swell on snows amazing to the sky, 



And icy mountains high on mountains pil'd 



Seem to the shivering sailor from afar 



Shapeless and white, an atmosphere of cloud. — THOMSON. 



In our journey from Cape Washington to the south we had 

 already done something to justify the despatch of the expedition. 



A coastline which had hitherto been seen only at a great 

 distance, and reported so indefinitely as to leave doubts in 

 many minds with regard to its continuity, had been resolved 

 into a concrete chain of mountains ; the positions and forms 

 of individual heights, with the curious ice formations and the 

 general line of the coast, had been observed. The lofty peaks 

 of Northern Victoria Land had been seen to be succeeded by 

 a comparatively low mountainous country of peculiarly sugges- 

 tive topographical outline, behind which a vast interior ice-cap 

 appeared to rise to greater heights. Towards the 78th parallel 

 the flanking ranges of the continent again rose to great 

 altitudes, and yet farther south we could see no tendency in 

 them to turn towards the east as had been supposed. 



In all this we had been aided by the most astonishingly 



