288 FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
soft grey clouds. The sea's surface is a pale, pinky 
violet. In the west we see Mount Haddington for the 
second time, but viewed from a more southerly point than 
before. For a few hours I kept myself at work sketching 
below in my bunk, then gave in to the temptation to 
merely enjoy nature without caricaturing her. I climbed 
up to the crow's-nest and enjoyed the view of wild rocks 
and black cliffs and glaciers. The land lay distant about 
eight miles, but the cliffs and snow slopes were so large 
and the air so clear that they seemed much closer. The 
Active lay underneath the mountain, close to the reddish- 
coloured rocky islands that lie to the south of the 
entrance to Admiralty Inlet ; she had stayed here waiting 
for whales whilst we were sealing. The view of these 
dark cliffs, each topped with its white ice cap, towering 
terrace above terrace till they disappeared in the over- 
hanging clouds, was grand in the extreme. Feathery soft 
clouds hung like smoke on the- black faces, and blew up the 
wild white gorges in fantastic swirls. The clouds hid the 
crags at about 4000 feet, but beneath them we could see 
part of the snow slope leading up to the greatest height. 
We see the land stretching for some thirty miles to the 
S.W., low and undulating, covered with a white sheet of 
snow, with only two table-topped crags jutting out of the 
whiteness. This seems to extend some fifty miles, and 
sweeps into the sea in a very gradual slope, and then 
must sweep round to the west, giving me the impression 
that there is a deep inlet running west, or a strait into 
Hughes Bay. Farther to the S.E. a stretch of unbroken 
smooth ice extends some twenty miles in an easterly 
