202 IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 



they are either foutid inapt or are forgotten wholly, until, after a 

 paltry show of defence, braggart Philosophy fairly takes to his 

 heels, and leaves us abandoned to the will of old mother Nature. 

 Now, indeed, arrives the tug; and I, for my part, pity the man 

 who, however savagely resolute, does not feel and own her 

 power. The adieus of those one loves are, at best, that is, for 

 the shortest absence, sufficiently unpleasant; but wlien there 

 lie years, and, to the eye of affection, dangers, in the way of the 

 next meeting, as the old Scotch ballad has it, * O but it is sair 

 to parti* I should, I confess, were I iree to choose, prefer the 

 ignominy of cowardly flight to the greatest triumph, firmness 

 ever yet achieved, and be constrained to hear and respond to that 

 last long *good bye.'" 



POETICAL APPEARANCE OF AN ICE-ISLAND IN 

 THE DARK BLUE SEA. 



"On the second of August we passed within the immediate 

 atmosphere of a huge iceberg. We had for some time previous 

 been enveloped in fog, which suddenly lifting, showed us this 

 isle of ice, and two other smaller ones. 



"The main island, by which we were most attracted, lay 

 about a quarter of a mile to leeward, of dazzling whiteness, and 

 picturesque of form, having at one end a lofty cone-shaped 

 mountain, and at the other an angular bold mound, crowned 

 by what we decided to be an extensive Gothic fortacile or castle, 

 not unworthy the ice king himself, if bent on a summer trip 

 round the gulf stream; between these promontories lay a deep 

 valley, thickly tenanted by tribes of the white gull. 



"Three sides of castle hill were regularly scarped, the fourth 

 communicated by a neatly kept slope with the valley, and 

 along this radiated a number of well-trodden paths, all uniting 

 at the castle gate, at once giving evidence of considerable popu- 

 lation, and great hospitality on the part of the worthy castellan." 



FEELINGS AT FIRST APPROACHING THE LAND OF 

 THE NEW WORLD. 



" I had often, and with much pleasure, heard intelligent 

 Americans describe the restless anxiety with which they approach 

 the shores of Britain ; the almost painful degree of excitement 

 created by the various associations crowding on the imagination, 

 and jostling each other for supremacy, as they looked lor the 

 first time on their father-land. 



