128 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VIII. 



was going to take place ; the heavy wreaths of vapour 

 seemed to be imperceptibly separating, and in a few 

 minutes more the solid roof of grey suddenly split asunder, 

 and I beheld through the gap — thousands of feet over- 

 head, as if suspended in the crystal sky — a cone of illumi- 

 nated snow. 



You can imagine my delight. It was really that of an 

 anchorite catching a glimpse of the seventh heaven. There 

 at last was the long-sought-for mountain actually tumbling 

 down upon our heads. Columbus could not have been more 

 pleased when, after nights of watching, he saw the first fires 

 of a new hemisphere dance upon the water ; nor, indeed, 

 scarcely less disappointed at their sudden disappearance 

 than I was, when, after having gone below to wake Sigurdr, 

 and tell him we had seen bona fide terra-firma, I found, on 

 returning upon deck, that the roof of mist had closed again, 

 and shut out all trace of the transient vision. However, I 

 had got a clutch of the island, and no slight matter should 

 make me let go my hold. In the meantime there was 

 nothing for it but to wait patiently until the curtain lifted ; 

 and no child ever stared more eagerly at a green drop-scene 

 in expectation of "the realm of dazzling splendour" pro- 

 mised in the bill, than I did at the motionless grey folds that 

 hung round us. At last the hour of liberation came : a 

 purer light seemed gradually to penetrate the atmosphere, 

 brown turned to grey, and grey to white, and white to trans- 

 parent blue, until the lost horizon entirely reappeared, 

 except where in one direction an impenetrable veil of haze 

 still hung suspended from the zenith to the sea. Behind 

 that veil I knew must lie Jan Mayen. 



A few minutes more, and slowly, silently, in a manner you 

 could take no count of, its dusky hem first deepened to a 

 violet tinge, then gradually lifting, displayed a long line of 

 coast — in reality but the roots of Beerenberg — dyed of the 

 darkest purple ; while, obedient to a common impulse, the 

 clouds that wrapped its summit gently disengaged themselves, 

 and left the mountain standing in all the magnificence of his 



