HAYES, HALL AND OTHER ADVENTURERS 299 



tains, with which it is impossible, in this land of green hills and 

 waving woods, to associate any idea other than that of cold repul- 

 siveness. Bright and soft was the sky, and as strangely inspiring 

 as that of Italy. The bergs had lost their cold, frozen look, and 

 glittered in the glow of the brilliant heavens like masses of solid 

 flame or burnished metal. Those near at hand seemed to have been 

 wrought out of Parian marble, and incrusted with shining gems of 

 pearl and opal. One in particular challenged attention by its gran- 

 deur. Its form was not unlike that of the Roman Coliseum, and it 

 lay so far away that half its height was buried beneath the rim of 

 the 'blood-red waters.' As the sun, in its course along the horizon, 

 passed behind it, one might have thought that the old Roman ruin 

 had broken out into a sudden conflagration. 



"Where the bergs cast their silent shadows the water was a 

 rich green; and nothing could be softer or more tender than the 

 gradual coloring of the sea as it shoaled on the sloping tongue or 

 spur of each floating mass. When the ice overhung the water the 

 tint deepened, and a cavern in one of the nearer bergs exhibited the 

 solid color of the malachite mingled with the transparency of the 

 emerald; while, in strange contrast, a broad streak of cobalt shot 

 diagonally through its body. 



''The romantic character of the scene was increased bv the 



j 



numerous tiny cascades which leaped into the sea from these float- 

 ing islands; the water being discharged from lakes of melted snow 

 and ice which tranquilly reposed far up in the valleys separating 

 the icy ridges of their upper surface. From other bergs large pieces 

 were occasionally detached, crashing into the water with deafening 

 roar, while the slow ocean-swell resounded hoarsely through their 

 broken archways." 



But they were soon to find that the beauty of the iceberg may 

 conceal imminent peril. Shortly after leaving Upernavik they had 

 such an experience, having come near a nest of icebergs, on which 

 the current rapidly carried their vessel. An eddy threw them upon 



