XL] A BROWN FOG. 1S1 



brilliant hues were quite a relief to the colourless scenes 

 which surrounded us, and the dangling chain now only 

 served to remind me of what firm dependence I could 

 place upon its wearer. 



Soon after, the sun came out, the mist entirely disap- 

 peared, and again on the starboard hand shone a vision of the 

 land j this time not in the sharp peaks and spires we had first 

 seen, but in a chain of pale blue egg-shaped islands, floating 

 in the air a long way above the horizon. This peculiar ap- 

 pearance was the result of extreme refraction, for, later in 

 the day, we had an opportunity of watching the oval cloud- 

 like forms gradually harden into the same pink tapering 

 spikes which originally caused the island to be called Spitz- 

 bergen : nay, so clear did it become, that even the shadows 

 on the hills became quite distinct, and we could easily trace 

 the outlines of the enormous glaciers — sometimes ten or 

 fifteen miles broad — that fill up every valley along the shore. 

 Towards evening the line of coast again vanished into the 

 distance, and our rising hopes received an almost intole- 

 rable disappointment by the appearance of a long line of ice 

 right ahead, running to the westward, apparently, as far as 

 the eye could reach. To add to our disgust, the wind flew 

 right round into the North, and increasing to a gale, brought 

 down upon us — not one of the usual thick arctic mists to 

 which we were accustomed, but a dark, yellowish brown fog, 

 that rolled along the surface of the water in twisted columns, 

 and irregular masses of vapour, as dense as coal smoke. 

 We had now almost reached the eightieth parallel of north 

 latitude, and still an impenetrable sheet of ice, extending 

 fifty or sixty miles westward from the, shore, rendered all 

 hopes of reaching the land out of the question. Our ex- 

 pectation of finding the north-west extremity of the island 

 disengaged from ice by the action of the currents was — at all 

 events for this season — evidently doomed to disappointment. 

 We were already almost in the latitude of Amsterdam Island 

 — which is actually its north-west point — and the coast 

 seemed more encumbered than ever. No whaler had ever 



