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Yet, in a way, they are water, for they are glaciers, some of them abutting upon the sea-arm, and filling up the gorges that open upon it with facades as precipitous as that of the cliff itself.
Captain Gancy is too busy with his binocular, examining the shores of the sea-arm, while the others, fatigued by their long arduous climb, are seated upon rocks at some distance off, resting. After a time the skipper, re-slinging his glass, makes known the result of his observation, saying, "I can see nothing of the canoes anywhere.
Arriving there, she who is to do the diving prepares for it by attaching a little wicker-basket to her hip, her companion being entrusted to keep the canoe in place, a task which is no easy one in water so rough as that of the sea-arm chances to be now.
With that fearful episode fresh in their thoughts, the castaways require no further counsel to make them cautious in their future movements. The first of them is the pitching their tent, which is set up so as to be screened from view of any canoe passing along the sea-arm; and for their better accommodation, the wigwam is re-roofed, as it, too, is invisible from the water.
On the western coast of this sea-arm was the settlement; in front of it was a little island where the dead were buried, called The Island of the Dead. Ere the in-coming convict passed the purple beauty of this convict Golgotha, his eyes were attracted by a point of grey rock covered with white buildings, and swarming with life.
Yes, the savages are once more in sight, a canoe-full of them just appearing around the point of the cliff, closely followed by another, and another, till four are under view in front of the cove. They are as yet far out on the sea-arm; but as they have come along it from the west, the castaways suppose them to be some of their late assailants, still persistently continuing the pursuit. But no!
This was Point Puer, the place of confinement for boys from eight to twenty years of age. It was astonishing many honest folks averred how ungrateful were these juvenile convicts for the goods the Government had provided for them. From the extremity of Long Bay, as the extension of the sea-arm was named, a convict-made tramroad ran due north, through the nearly impenetrable thicket to Norfolk Bay.
The trees, tall and grand, are of three kinds, almost peculiar to Tierra del Fuego. The sea-arm on which the cove opens is but little over a mile in width, the shore on its farther side being a sheer cliff, rising hundreds of feet above the water, and indented here and there by deep gorges with thickly-wooded sides.
From their high point of view on the ridge's crest, the castaways see a reach of water wider than the sea-arm immediately beneath them, of which, however, it is a continuation.
The rock-fortress of Munkholm, in front of the city, broke the smooth surface of the fjord, whose further shores, dim with passing showers, swept away to the north-east, hiding the termination of this great sea-arm, which is some fifty miles distant. The panorama was certainly on a grand scale, and presented very diversified and picturesque features; but I can by no means agree with Dr.
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