250 A VOYAGE IN THI5 NORTH SEAS. 



tale seemed here realized. In one direction seemed to be a large 

 fleet of ships at anchor, with the tall spires and battlemented towers 

 of a magnificent city towering up behind them. Rows of palaces, 

 with ornamented porticoes, crowned with sculptured bears and lions, 

 were given to the sight, and the grinding of the floating ice at a dis- 

 tance, sounding like the hum of a mighty capital, completed the illu- 

 sion. Here were a squadron of armed vessels in full sail, so distinctly 

 seen that the very outline of the spars, ropes, and sails seemed per- 

 fectly denned to the eye ; there the coast appeared to be clothed with 

 a vast forest, whose naked branches were so accurately represented, 

 that the eye, deceived by the imagination, sought at first to catch their 

 motion swinging in the breeze, or to discover some living inhabitant 

 of the frozen forest. The aurora borealis, whose brilliant bodies of 

 light are described by the Indian, in the untaught poetry of nature, 

 as " the spirits of his fathers roaming through the land of souls," had 

 now disappeared. In these high latitudes the splendour of this 

 beautiful celestial phenomenon is not to be conceived by those who 

 have not been eye witnesses of its continually varying appearances. 

 Sometimes in forms of the most exquisite symmetry, the bodies of 

 light radiated from the zenith to the horizon, presenting an appear- 

 ance like that of an immense grained arch, supporting with its bril- 

 liant architecture the starry roof of the world. Quicker than thought 

 this wondrous palace of pillars, with their sculptured architraves and 

 silver pedestals, would dissolve into showers of liquid lightning, 

 which, with inconceivable brilliancy, darted from one quarter of the 

 heavens to the other, mingling, separating, disappearing, and again 

 bursting forth in renewed splendour. Sometimes they seemed to 

 flutter across the whole heavens, like innumerable banners agitated 

 by the wind. Sometimes, assuming more definite forms, they trod 

 a sprightly measure on the spangled floor of the sky, looking like 

 the radiant forms of angels sporting in the elements. But though 

 the lights of the " norther morning" had disappeared, they had oc- 

 casional glimpses of other celestial phenomena of equal interest. 

 Before the sun skirted the horizon, he was sometimes seen surrounded 

 with halos, the glowing concentric circles of which seemed like so 

 many infant rainbows coiled up in rest near their parent luminary ; 

 while parhelia or mock-suns, sometimes to the number of four or five, 

 shone in different quarters of the firmament. The hues of the sky 

 were occasionally of the most gorgeous brilliancy; bright fiery-edged 

 clouds hovered about the sun at his rising and setting, whilet he op- 

 posite parts of the heavens glowed with deep purple, gradually as it 

 ascended, becoming softer, clearer, and more rosy, till it faded away 

 in a blush-colour of the most exquisite delicacy. 



It is not to be imagined, however, that the contemplation of these 

 beautiful celestial appearances was constantly or even frequently per- 

 mitted. Fogs sometimes darkened the air, brash ice was frequently 

 their only prospect, and the horrible discord of the bustling mariners 

 poling, or towing, or warping the ship through ice, the only audible 

 sound. Towards the middle of June, however, the weather became 

 more steady and clear. Flora had entirely recovered her health arid 

 strength, and began to find that in the society of a cultivated and cour- 



