135 
Bessie’s cove. 
with a brick-dust or brown stain. It is true that we 
could not see the “ Crimson” of Sir John Ross, who 
gave to this spot its somewhat euphonious title ; but 
the locality was not without indications which should 
excuse this gallant navigator from imputations against 
his veracity of narrative. The bright red outcroppings 
of the feldspar, the scarlet patches of a lichen {Lepra- 
ria) which was in extreme abundance, and, finally, 
the excretions of the numerous birds that resort to 
these cliffs, might, in favoring seasons, combine with 
the snow in such a manner as to give at a distance 
the tint which he has described. 
But it fell calm, and I had an opportunity of visit- 
ing the shore. The place where we landed was in 
latitude 76° 04' N., nearly. It was a little cove, bor- 
dered on one side by a glacier ; on the other, watered 
by distillations from it, and green with luxuriant 
mosses. It was, indeed, a fairy little spot, brightened, 
perhaps, by its contrast with the icy element, on which 
I had been floating for a month and a half before ; yet 
even now, as it comes back to me in beautiful com- 
panionship with many sweet places of the earth, I am 
sure that its charms were real. 
The glacier came down by a twisted circuit from a 
deep valley, which it nearly filled. As it approached 
the sea, it seemed unable to spread itself over the horse- 
shoe-like expansion in which we stood ; but, retaining 
still the impress marks of its own little valley birth- 
place, it rose up in a huge dome-like escarpment, one 
side frozen to the cliffs, the other a wall beside us, and 
the end a rounded mass protruding into the sea. 
Close by the foot of its precipitous face, in a fur- 
rowed water-course, was a mountain torrent, which, 
emerging from the point at which the glacier met the 
