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this mountain is equal to Sarmiento in height, I am not certain,
as the measurements obtained did not rest upon satisfactory
data ; but the result of those measures gave 6,800 feet for its
elevation above the sea. This, as an abstract height, is small,
but taking into consideration that it rises abruptly from the
sea, which washes its base, and that only a short space intervenes
between the salt water and the lofty frozen summit, the effect
upon an observer’s eye is extremely grand, and equal, probably,
to that of far higher mountains which are situated at a distance
inland, and generally rise from an elevated district.
We stopped to cook and eat our hasty meal upon a low
point of land, immediately in front of a noble precipice of solid
ice; the cliffy face of a huge glacier, which seemed to cover the
side of a mountain, and completely filled a valley several
leagues in extent.
Wherever these enormous glaciers were seen, we remarked
the most beautiful light blue or sea green tints in portions of
the solid ice, caused by varied transmission, or reflection of
light. Blue was the prevailing colour, and the contrast which
its extremely delicate hue, with the dazzling white of other
ice, afforded to the dark green foliage, the almost black precipices,
and the deep, indigo blue water, w'as very remarkable.
Miniature icebergs surrounded u s ; fragments of the cliff,
which from time to time fall into a deep and gloomy basin
beneath the precipice, and are floated out into the channel by
a slow tidal stream. In the first volume the frequent falling
of these masses of ice is noticed by Captain King in the Strait
of Magalhaens, and in the narrative of my first exploring visit
to this arm of the Beagle Channel; therefore I will add no further
remark upon the subject.
Our boats were hauled up out of the water upon the sandy
point, and we were sitting round a fire about two hundred
yards from them, when a thundering crash shook us—down
came the whole front of the icy cliff—and the sea surged up in
a vast heap of foam. Reverberating echoes sounded in every
direction, from the lofty mountains which hemmed us in ; but
our whole attention was immediately called to great rolling waves
which came so rapidly that there was scarcely time for the most
active of our party to run and seize the boats before they were
tossed along the beach like empty calabashes. By the exertions
of those who grappled them or seized their ropes, they
were hauled up again out of reach of a second and third roller ;
and indeed we had good reason to rejoice that they were just
saved in time ; for had not Mr. Darwin, and two or three of
the men, run to them instantly, they would have been swept
away from us irrecoverably. Wind and tide would soon have
drifted them beyond the distance a man could swim; and then,
what prizes they would have been for the Fuegians, even if we
had escaped by possessing ourselves of canoes. At the extremity
of the sandy point on which we stood, there were many
large blocks of stone, which seemed to have been transported
from the adjacent mountains, either upon masses of ice, or by
the force of waves such as those which we witnessed. Had our
boats struck those blocks, instead of soft sand, our dilemma
would not have been much less than if they had been at once
swept away.
Embarking, we proceeded along a narrow passage, more like
a river than an arm of the sea, till the setting sun warned us to
seek a resting-place for the n ight; when, selecting a beach
very far from any glacier, we again hauled our boats on shore.
Long after the sun had disappeared from our view, his setting
rays shone so brightly upon the gilded icj' sides of the summits
above us, that twilight lasted an unusual time, and a fine clear
evening enabled us to watch every varying tint tiU even the
highest peak became like a dark shadow, whose outline only
could be distinguished. No doubt such scenes are familiar to
many, but to us, surrounded even as we so often were by their
materials, they were rare ; because clouds continually hang
over the heights, or obscure the little sunshine which falls to
the lot of Tierra del Fuego.
The following day (30th) we passed into a large expanse of
water, which I named Darwin Sound—after my messmate,
who so willingly encountered the discomfort and risk of a long
cruise in a small loaded boat. Desirous of finding an opening