l around, of every
form and altitude. There are domes, cones, and pyramids; ridges with
terraced sides and table-tops; peaks, spires, and castellated pinnacles,
some of them having resemblance to artificial masonwork, as if of
Titans! In the midst of this picturesque conglomeration, towering
conspicuously above all, as a giant over ordinary men, is the snow-cone
of Mount Darwin, on the opposite side of the strait, fit mate for
Sarmiento, seen in the same range, north-westward. Intersecting the
mountain chains, and trending in every direction, are deep ravine-like
valleys, some with sloping sides thickly-wooded, others presenting
facades of sheer cliffs, with rocks bare and black. Most of them are
narrow, dark, and dismal, save where illumined by glaciers, from whose
glistening surface of milky-white and beryl-blue the sun's rays are
vividly reflected. Nor are they valleys at all, but are arms of the
sea, straits, sounds, channels, bays, inlets, many of them with water as
deep as the ocean itself. Of every conceivable shape and trend are
they; so ramifying and communicating with one another, that Tierra del
Fuego, long supposed to be a mainland, is but an archipelago of islands
closely clustered together.

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. It extends eastward beyond the
verge of vision, all the way straight as an artificial canal, and so
like one in other ways as to suggest the idea of having been dug by the
same Titans who did the masonwork on the mountains. It occupies the
entire attention of Seagriff, who, looking along it toward the east, at
length says, "Thet's the Beagle Channel; the way we were to hev gone but
fur the swampin' of our boat. An' to think we'd 'a' been runnin' 'long
it now, 'nstead o' stannin' helpless hyar! Jest our luck!"

To his bitter reflection no one makes response. 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.
Probably they've put into some other cove along shore to the westward.
At all events, we may as well keep on down."

And down they go, the descent