A VOYAGE IN THE NORTH SEAS, 391 



CHAPTER V. 



41 As a Luge stone is sometimes seen to lie 



Couched on the bald top of an eminence ; 

 Wonder to all who do the same espy, 



By what means it could thither come and whence ; 



****** *- 



Such seem'd this man." WORDSWORTH. * 



ABOUT the beginning of August slight showers of snow began to 

 fall, though the temperature of the earth was yet too warm to allow 

 it to remain. The elevation of the sun became daily 'less ; and when 

 he skirted the horizon, throwing only a slanting and enfeebled ray 

 upon the higher grounds, the atmosphere became filled with minute 

 particles of ice, woven into the form of gossamer-netting, while the 

 whole surface of the sea was covered with the frost smoke occasioned 

 by the water being of a higher temperature than the superincumbent 

 air. Already the island began to be depopulated of many of the 

 animal and vegetable tribes which had enlivened it during the 

 summer. The flowers had faded, the insect tribes perished or retired 

 to sleep away the long winter in the quarters appointed them by 

 Nature, and the small birds had ceased their songs and were pre- 

 paring to return to warmer climates. The partridge and ptarmigan 

 began to change their mottled summer coats for the pure white 

 plumage, which enables them to resist the intense cold of an Arctic 

 winter; and the aquatic tribes were gathering together, and com- 

 mencing those evolutions by which they discipline themselves for 

 their long flights. It may well be supposed that these signs of the 

 dismal and protracted winter's approach were not observed by Flora 

 and Arundel without the most intense and solemn feelings. Their 

 destiny was now closing around them; and wherever their eyes 

 turned, they were met by proofs of the nearing danger. The neces- 

 sity, however, of now using all dispatch in procuring provisions, since 

 the period when they could be preserved had arrived, prevented 

 Frank from sinking into despondency. On the summit of the moun- 

 tain which overhung their dwelling, he had erected a pole with a 

 sea-jacket extended at its top, for the purpose of attracting any of 

 the Indians who might be roaming about within sight of it. To this 

 place he had been accustomed almost daily to repair, and cast a 

 longing eye around the neighbouring coasts, and to the wide expanse 

 of ocean which might be seen from it. 



It was about their usual hour of rising, one morning in the middle 

 of August, that they were alarmed by the quivering of their rocky 

 dwelling, as if it had been shaken by an earthquake, accompanied by 

 several quick stunning explosions. Running out in the utmost alarm, 

 they saw that several huge pinnacles of the ice-cliff, which, as we 

 have before said, shut in one side of the bay, had been precipitated 

 from the body of the frozen mass into the abyss below. The rending 

 and quivering still continued, and it was evident that what they had 

 for some time anticipated from the undermined state of the iceberg, 



