428 ARCTIC MIRAGE. 



in the air, changing shape with each changing mo- 

 ment. Distant icebergs and floating ice-fields, and 

 coast-lines and mountains were thus brought into 

 view ; sometimes preserving for a moment their nat- 

 ural shapes, then widening or lengthening, rising and 

 falling as the wind fluttered or fell calm over the sea. 

 The changes were as various as the dissolving images 

 of a kaleidoscope, and every form of which the imagi- 

 nation could conceive stood out against the sky. At 

 one moment a sharp spire, the prolonged image of a 

 distant mountain-peak, would shoot up ; and this 

 would fashion itself into a cross, or a spear T or a hu- 

 man form, and would then die away, to be replaced 

 by an iceberg which appeared as a castle standing 

 upon the summit of a hill, and the ice-fields coming 

 up with it flanked it on either side, seeming at one 

 moment like a plain dotted with trees and animals ; 

 again, as rugged mountains ; and then, breaking up 

 after a while, disclosing a long line of bears and dogs 

 and birds and men dancing in the air, and skipping 

 from the sea to the skies. To, picture this strange 

 spectacle were an impossible task. There was no end 

 to the forms which appeared every instant, melting 

 into other shapes as suddenly. For hours we watched 

 the "insubstantial pageant/' until a wind from the 

 north ruffled the sea ; when, with its first breath, the 

 whole scene melted away as quickly as the tt baseless 

 fabric " of Prospero's " vision ; " and from watching 

 these dissolving images, and wooing the soft air, we 

 were, in a couple of hours, thrashing to windward 

 through a fierce storm of rain and hail, under close- 

 reefed sails. 



We had some ugly knocking about and some nar- 

 row escapes in the thick atmosphere, before we 



