Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/293

too rich and abundant;—alas, how fleeting was this opinion!

Next day, January 28, we sledged several miles up the glacier, but spent all the afternoon examining a beautiful hanging glacier which lay like a great white mantle flung on the northern wall of the Ferrar Valley. To reach this side glacier we had to cross a much weathered portion of the Ferrar's surface. Large dome-covered ponds into which we fell at frequent intervals made one of us remark, 'Just like a promenade on the roof of the Crystal Palace.'

As usual the rock slopes were fringed by a colonnade of gigantic pinnacles thirty feet high separated by narrow crevasses. The sun glistening on the icy minarets and beautiful icicles made a most impressive sight. Beyond this we soon reached the talus or débris slopes below the 'Double Curtain' glacier. A stiff climb up this brought us to the snout of the tributary, and we found that this 'mantle of ice' ended in a vertical face forty feet thick. While Wright and Debenham investigated this region, I climbed up 2500 feet and stood on the shoulder of the Kukri Hills.

A wonderful panorama was spread out before me which was especially striking to the south-west. Here jutted out the three grand gables—like the roof of a Gothic cathedral—which were so appropriately named the Cathedral Rocks. Below this we were to leave our first depôt.

As we returned to the tent some two miles off we came across several parties of Emperor penguins stolidly