POLAR SCENERY. 345 



our way along the ice-foot with much the same for- 

 tune as had befallen us since striking the shore above 

 Cape Napoleon. The coast presented the same feat- 

 ures — great wall-sided cliffs rising at our left, with 

 a jagged ridge of crushed ice at our right, forming a 

 white fringe, as it were, to the dark rocks. We were, 

 in truth, journeying along a winding gorge or valley, 

 formed by the land on one side and the ice on the 

 other ; for this ice-fringe rose about fifty feet above 

 our heads, and, except here and there where a cleft 

 gave us an outlook upon the sea, we were as com- 

 pletely hemmed in as if in a canon of the Cordille- 

 ras. Occasionally, however, a bay broke in upon the 

 continuity of the lofty coast, and as we faced to the 

 westward along its southern margin, a sloping ter- 

 raced valley opened before us, rising gently from the 

 sea to the base of the mountains, which rose with im- 

 posing grandeur. I was never more impressed with 

 the dreariness and desolation of an Arctic landscape. 

 Although my situation on the summit of the Green- 

 land mer de glace, in October of the last year, had ap 

 parently left nothing unsupplied to the imagination 

 that was needed to fill the picture of boundless steril- 

 ity, yet here the variety of forms seemed to magnify 

 the impression on the mind, and to give a wider play 

 to the fancy ; and as the eye wandered from peak to 

 peak of the mountains as they rose one above the 

 other, and rested upon the dark and frost-degraded 

 cliffs, and followed along the ice-foot, and overlooked 

 the sea, and saw in every object the silent forces of 

 Nature moving on through the gloom of winter and 

 the sparkle of summer, now, as they had moved for 

 countless ages, unobserved save by the eye of God 

 ^alone, I felt how puny indeed are all men's works and 



