Brialmont Bay.
Cape Murray.
Sunrise and Sunset, Together, over the Eastern Shore of Belgica Strait.
The view which we obtained from the upper slopes of the land-ice was superb indeed. To the east was an island (Two Hummock Island) with two bare hummocks about two thousand five hundred feet high, and from these, expanding in every direction, was a bed of ice and snow many hundred feet deep. Beyond this, just barely visible and about fifty miles from our position, was the feeble snowy outline of the great country (Dancoland) which offered us no hope for a passage eastward. Scattered about in the channel were numerous icebergs with petrels on their crests, as tenants. Near one of these rested the Belgica as easy and as stationary as if at anchor. We were on an island; except at the sea line, however, there was not the slightest indication of land. Everything was buried under a weight of snow and ice, about five hundred feet in thickness. There were dome-like elevations and some irregularities, but all was cold, white and lifeless. To the west of this island there was a canal with several arms offering excellent harbour facilities, and beyond, apparently within a stone’s throw, though really five miles off, was Liege Island with Mount Brugmann, making the most glorious snowy landscape I ever saw.
Later in the day we followed this land northward and then proceeded to our first landing-place. It was a clear, silvery day, with only an occasional cloud rising out of the black waters of the north. The temperature was close to the freezing point, but the air was calm and dry. We were dressed in ordinary clothing, without overcoats, and when engaged in rowing, or climbing, our jackets were removed. Even lightly dressed, we perspired while trying to scale the cliffs of ice. The water was a joy to behold. It was like a mill-pond. Easy ripples deflected the sunbeams on the mirrored surface, and everywhere, on the surface and under it, could be seen the soft whiteness of the land-ice and the savage blackness of the noonataks. We kept the coast within five miles on our port side; at this distance it presented a scene such as one sees nowhere else in the world. There were in the foreground a few rocks too steep for snow to rest upon, black except on the north-eastern face, where a little moss added a flush of red and green; in the background everything was loaded down by continental ice. The inland ice, unlike that of Greenland, was irregular, and took the general outline of the mountain ridge under it. There was in view, for a distance of twenty miles, extending north-east and south-west, an unbroken series of mountains and ice-walls.
View Eastward from Neumayer Channel.
Part of Wiencke Island. Sierre Du Fief in the Background.
