266 THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA 



canvas boat in tow of the launch, which boat has saved us many a 

 wetting in boarding and in leaving the launch. We go ashore in 

 relays, one man remaining on the launch. This evening, while 

 Cattle, Burbury and I were on the beach wood-cutting and tent- 

 pitching, I heard Cattle shout, and, looking round, saw, to my dis- 

 gust, the canvas boat already some twenty yards out and drifting 

 quickly away from the beach. The wind had caught her broadside 

 on, and she was being blown out into the current beyond the calm 

 of our sheltering promontory. Cattle and I ran down to the 

 shingle, casting off our clothes as we went. I thought we were in 

 for a long swim, no pleasant prospect In that ice-cold water among 

 the floes. But, as luck would have it, there was a little point of 

 land projecting from the cliff of the promontory, and to this we 

 made our hurried way, leaving behind us a spoor of shed garments. 

 We arrived in the nick of time to secure the boat, and Cattle 

 rowed her round to the beach beyond the camp. 



" There is one enormous glacier visible almost due north. It 

 had evidently been throwing many bergs of late. We called it the 

 Giant's Glacier. This glacier is marked with double lines of 

 brown reaching from the clouds right down to the margin of the 

 water, for all the world like the tracks of the chariot wheels of 

 some giant. We are now very much in the kingdom of the ice. 

 Away beyond the immediate foreground of the shores and forests 

 is spread a panorama of unnamed peaks. The silence is seldom 

 broken save by the scream of the wind or the crashing fall of some 

 mass of ice from the glaciers. 



" I find my camera has been damaged. This is unfortunate, 

 but hardly to be wondered at. It is a difficult matter to prevent 

 mischief when the launch rolls and everything gets adrift, and 

 one's time is taken up with keeping one's balance, steering, or in 

 doing the myriad litde jobs that crowd one upon the other. 

 Although the camera reposed in the sheltering care of various 

 rugs in the after- hatch, the heavy weather defeated all our pre- 

 cautions. In this difficulty a novel of Miss Marie Corelli's has 

 been of the utmost assistance, and saved us from the misfortune of 

 being unable to take photographs. The colonial edition of the 

 ' Master Christian ' has a thick red cover, and with the help of 



