They Are
Covered By A Wide Mantle Of Perpetual Snow, And Numerous
Cascades Pour Their Waters, Through The Woods, Into The Narrow
Channel Below.
In many parts, magnificent glaciers extend
from the mountain side to the water's edge.
It is
scarcely possible to imagine anything more beautiful than
the beryl-like blue of these glaciers, and especially as
contrasted with the dead white of the upper expanse of snow.
The fragments which had fallen from the glacier into the
water were floating away, and the channel with its icebergs
presented, for the space of a mile, a miniature likeness of
the Polar Sea. The boats being hauled on shore at our
dinner-hour, we were admiring from the distance of half a
mile a perpendicular cliff of ice, and were wishing that some
more fragments would fall. At last, down came a mass with
a roaring noise, and immediately we saw the smooth outline
of a wave travelling towards us. The men ran down as
quickly as they could to the boats; for the chance of their
being dashed to pieces was evident. One of the seamen just
caught hold of the bows, as the curling breaker reached it:
he was knocked over and over, but not hurt, and the boats
though thrice lifted on high and let fall again, received no
damage. This was most fortunate for us, for we were a
hundred miles distant from the ship, and we should have
been left without provisions or fire-arms. I had previously
observed that some large fragments of rock on the beach had
been lately displaced; but until seeing this wave, I did not
understand the cause. One side of the creek was formed
by a spur of mica-slate; the head by a cliff of ice about
forty feet high; and the other side by a promontory fifty
feet high, built up of huge rounded fragments of granite
and mica-slate, out of which old trees were growing. This
promontory was evidently a moraine, heaped up at a period
when the glacier had greater dimensions.
When we reached the western mouth of this northern
branch of the Beagle Channel, we sailed amongst many unknown
desolate islands, and the weather was wretchedly bad.
We met with no natives. The coast was almost everywhere
so steep, that we had several times to pull many miles before
we could find space enough to pitch our two tents: one night
we slept on large round boulders, with putrefying sea-weed
between them; and when the tide rose, we had to get up and
move our blanket-bags. The farthest point westward which
we reached was Stewart Island, a distance of about one hundred
and fifty miles from our ship. We returned into the
Beagle Channel by the southern arm, and thence proceeded,
with no adventure, back to Ponsonby Sound.
February 6th. - We arrived at Woollya. Matthews gave
so bad an account of the conduct of the Fuegians, that Captain
Fitz Roy determined to take him back to the Beagle;
and ultimately he was left at New Zealand, where his brother
was a missionary.
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