290 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [Aug. 



to bathe in that brilliant flood of light, and from its flashing 

 rays to drink in new life, new strength, and new hope. This 

 glorious sun was bringing the light of day and some measure 

 of warmth to the bleak, desolate region about us, and heaven 

 only knows how far prophetic thoughts took us over its track- 

 less wastes before those beneficent rays should again vanish 

 and sombre darkness once more descend. And so we gazed, 

 saying little but thinking much, until the chill of the air 

 reminded us that, however great the promise, summer itself 

 was not yet upon us. 



' With full daylight each detail of our landscape once more 

 stands clear, and the view from Crater Hill is magnificent. 



' From Arrival Bay a line of rocky ridges runs towards 

 Castle Rock, facing the north-west and gradually rising in 

 height, with four distinct eminences, of which two are well- 

 formed craters ; the fourth is almost on a level with Crater 

 Hill, and therefore nearly touches the sky-line; behind it 

 Castle Rock, rising to 1,350 feet, shows in sharp precipitous 

 outline, a black shadow against the snowy background of 

 Erebus. It is a high, hilly country, this foreground, with 

 many a black mass of rock and many a slope of smooth 

 white snow ; in itself it might be called a fine rugged scene, 

 but how dwarfed it all is by that mighty mountain behind, 

 which, in spite of its twenty geographical miles of distance, 

 seems to frown down on us. Even Castle Rock, with its 

 near bold eminence, is but a pigmy to this giant mass, which 

 from its broad spreading foot-slopes rises, with fold on fold of 

 snowy whiteness, to its crater summit, where, 13,000 feet above 

 the sea, it is crowned with a golden cloud of rolling vapour. 



' The eastern slope of Erebus dips to a high saddle-backed 

 divide, beyond which the snowy outline rises to the summit of 

 Terror, whence a long slope runs gradually down to sea-level 

 far to the east. From point to point these two huge mountains 

 fill up nearly 90 of our horizon, and from this southern 

 side offer almost a complete prospect of snow-covered land. 

 Beyond Castle Rock commences the low isthmus which con- 

 nects our small peninsula to the main island, and as it bends 



