CHAP. v. BEAUTIFUL EFFECT OF THE SUN ON THE ICE. 67 



impulse, as we passed some stupendous sheets of ice 

 hanging over the edge of a perpendicular rock, at least 

 150 feet above the river. Blue and white masses of 

 pure ice --in fact, an icicle on a gigantic scale - 

 glistened in the light of the evening sun. Clumps of 

 birch in full leaf, growing out of crevices in the rock, 

 hung tenderly over the cold white below, as if to pro- 

 tect it from the destroying warmth, which to them was 

 vigour and even life itself. On each side of this beau- 

 tiful sheet of white, fringed with delicate green, the 

 red rocks rose stern and unchangeable. White, green, 

 and red, ice, trees, and rocks, blended in exquisite har- 

 mony, created a picture at which even the Indians gazed 

 with silent admiration, mechanically dipping their paddles 

 into the water to keep the canoe from drifting down the 

 stream. 



This was one of those unexpected and beautiful scenes 

 which go at once to the heart of the most callous and ap- 

 parently insensible man. Even Louis, so rude and rough, 

 gazed through the matted hair which hung over his face, 

 throwing it aside time after time with a jerk of the head, 

 as the coarse unyielding masses slowly fell over his eye- 

 brows with each motion of the canoe. The spell was 

 broken by an exclamation which I involuntarily made as 

 we advanced between the setting sun and the pendent 

 drapery of ice. From pale bluish-white to exquisite rose- 

 red, the change was instantaneous : it was like a pro- 

 longed flash of distant lightning like the rose-coloured 



o O o 



streamer of an aurora, vivid, soft, and fleeting, but fixing 

 its image on the memory, like the pictures painted by the 

 sun. ' How lovely ! ' ' How beautiful ! ' ' How wonderful ! ' 



F -2 



