VIEW FROM AN ICEBERG. 53 



was further shown when I had reached the top of the 

 berg. Off to the southeast a high rocky bluff threw 

 its dark shadow upon the w r ater, and the dividing line 

 between sunlight and shade was so marked that it re- 

 quired an effort to dispel the illusion that the margin 

 of sunlight was not the edge of a fathomless abyss. 



It is difficult for the mind to comprehend the im- 

 mense quantity of ice which floated upon the sea 

 around me. To enumerate the separate bergs was 

 impossible. I counted five hundred, and gave up in 

 despair. Near by they stood out in all the rugged 

 harshness of their sharp outlines ; and from this, soft- 

 ening with the distance, they melted away into the 

 clear gray sky ; and there, far off upon the sea of 

 liquid silver, the imagination conjured up effigies both 

 strange and w r onderful. Birds and beasts and human 

 forms and architectural designs took shape in the dis- 

 tant masses of blue and white. The dome of St. Pe- 

 ter's loomed above the spire of Old Trinity ; and under 

 the shadow of the Pyramids nestled a Byzantine tower 

 and a Grecian temple. 



To the eastward the sea was dotted with little islets, 

 — dark specks upon a brilliant surface. Icebergs, 

 great and small, crowded through the channels which 

 divided them, until in the far distance they appeared 

 massed together, terminating against a snow-covered 

 plain that sloped upward until it was lost in a dim 

 line of bluish whiteness. This line could be traced 

 behind the serrated coast as far to the north and 

 south as the eye would carry. It was the great mer 

 tie glace which covers the length and breadth of the 

 Greenland Continent. The snow-covered slope was a 

 glacier descending therefrom, — the parent stem from 

 which had been discharged, at irregular intervals, 



y 



