VIII.] ANXIOUS HOURS. 127 



run down West and pick up the land. Luckily the sky 

 was pretty clear, and as we sailed on through open water 

 I really began to think our prospects very brilliant. But 

 about three o'clock on the second day, specks of ice 

 began to flicker here and there on the horizon, then larger 

 bulks came floating by in forms as picturesque as ever — 

 (one, I particularly remember, a human hand thrust up 

 out of the water with outstretched forefinger, as if to warn 

 us against proceeding farther), until at last the whole sea 

 became clouded with hummocks that seemed to gather on 

 our path in magical multiplicity. 



Up to this time we had seen nothing of the island, yet 

 I knew we must be within a very few miles of it ; and now, 

 to make things quite pleasant, there descended upon us a 

 thicker fog than I should have thought the atmosphere 

 capable of sustaining ; it seemed to hang in solid festoons 

 from the masts and spars. To say that you could not see 

 your hand, ceased almost to be any longer figurative; 

 even the ice was hid — except those fragments immediately 

 adjacent, whose ghastly brilliancy the mist itself could 

 not quite extinguish, as they glimmered round. the vessel 

 like a circle of luminous phantoms. The perfect stillness 

 of the sea and sky added very much to the solemnity of 

 the scene ; almost every breath of wind had fallen, scarcely 

 a ripple tinkled against the copper sheathing, as the solitary 

 little schooner glided along at the rate of half a knot or so 

 an hour, and the only sound we heard was the distant wash 

 of waters, but whether on a great shore, or along a belt of 

 solid ice, it was impossible to say. In such weather, — as 

 the original discoverers of Jan Mayen said under similar 

 circumstances, — " it was easier to hear land than to see it." 

 Thus, hour after hour passed by and brought no change. 

 Fitz and Sigurdr — who had begun quite to disbelieve 

 in the existence of the island — went to bed, while I re- 

 mained pacing up and down the deck, anxiously question- 

 ing each quarter of the grey canopy that enveloped us. 

 At last, about four in the morning, I fancied some change 



