136 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES [VIII. 



Of our run to Hammerfest I have nothing particular to 

 say. The distance is eight hundred miles, and we did it in 

 eight days. On the whole, the weather was pretty fair, 

 though cold, and often foggy. One day indeed was per- 

 fectly lovely, — the one before we made the coast of Lapland, 

 — without a cloud to be seen for the space of twenty-four 

 hours ; giving me an opportunity of watching the sun per- 

 forming his complete circle overhead, and taking a meridian 

 altitude at midnight. We were then in 70 25' North lati- 

 tude ; i.e., almost as far north as the North Cape; yet the 

 thermometer had been up to 8o° during the afternoon. 



Shortly afterwards the fog came on again, and next morn- 

 ing it was blowing very hard from the eastward. This was 

 the more disagreeable, as it is always very difficult, under the 

 most favourable circumstances, to find one's way into any 

 harbour along this coast, fenced off, as it is, from the ocean 

 by a complicated outwork of lofty islands, which, in their 

 turn, are hemmed in by nests of sunken rock, sown as thick 

 as peas, for miles to seaward. There are no pilots until you 

 are within the islands, and no longer want them, — no light- 

 houses or beacons of any sort ; and all that you have to go 

 by is the shape of the hill-tops ; but as, on the clearest day, 

 the outlines of the mountains have about as much variety as 



the teeth of a saw, and as on a cloudy day, which happens 

 about seven times a week, you see nothing but the line of 

 their dark roots, — the unfortunate mariner, who goes poking 

 about for the narrow passage which is to lead him between 

 the islands, — at the back of one of which a pilot is waiting 

 for him, — will, in all probability, have already placed his 

 vessel in a position to render that functionary's further 

 attendance a work of supererogation. At least, I know it 



