THE STKAIT OF MAGELLAN. 483 



The 11th was a day of indescribable beauty. Before I 

 left my cabin in the morning I noticed, with wondering ad- 

 miration, the golden light on the bare syenitic hills ; and on 

 coming on deck I found, to my delight, that the entire mass 

 of a magnificent solitary mountain* a little to the north- 

 ward, in general shrouded more or less in mist, and the 

 summit of which we had never seen, was revealed, without a 

 cloud to dim the dazzling splendour of its jagged snowy peaks, 

 the extensive snow-fields which clothed its sides and the deep 

 blue crevassed glaciers which filled its gorges. The sky was 

 cloudless, save for a few delicate cirri, the air perfectly still, 

 and the entire mass of the mountain, the rugged granite 

 hills around, and the trees on the islands, were all reflected on 

 the unruffled surface of the lake-like water. There was that 

 aspect of quiet sublimity over the whole landscape which only 

 occurs when there is a tinge of frost in the air. All day long 

 the prospect remained clear, and exhibited a seiies of effects 

 impossible to describe, but ineffaceable from the memory ; and 

 as the sun declined, the white form of Mount Burney became 

 first suffused with rose-colour, and then steeped in deep 

 purple. 



On the 12th we left the Otter Islands, passing southwards 

 to Good's Bay. The weather was fine, but the sky again covered 

 with cloud, and the tops of the higher mountains concealed 

 from view. Here we anchored to await the return of several of 

 the boats absent on surveying work, and as usual several of us 

 spent the day in the exploration of the vicinity. A Nycticorax 

 obscuTUS, a black cormorant {Phalacrocorax Brasilianus), and 

 some kelp-geese, were shot, and the preservation of a specimen 

 of a fine male of the last-named birds occupied me pretty fully 

 on the 13th, during which much rain fell. The two folio w- 



* Mount Burney, nearly six tliousand feet in height. 



