24 AMONG THE ICEBERGS. 



oflf its cloud mantle, and standing squarely out before 

 us in austere magnificence, — its broad valleys, its 

 deep ravines, its noble mountains, its black, beetling 

 clifis, its frowning desolation. 



As the fog lifted and rolled itself up like a scroll 

 over the sea to the westward, iceberg after iceberg 

 burst into view, like castles in a fairy tale. It seemed, 

 indeed, as if we had been drawn by some unseen hand 

 into a land of enchantment, rather than that we had 

 come of our own free will into a region of stern real- 

 ities, in pursuit of stern purposes ; — as if the elves 

 of the North had, in sportive playfulness, thrown a 

 veil about our eyes, and enticed us to the very " seat 

 eternal of the gods." Here was the Valhalla of the 

 sturdy Vikings ; here the city of the sun-god Freyer, 

 — Alfheim, with its elfin caves, — and Glitner, with its 

 walls of gold and roofs of silver, and Gimle, more 

 brilliant than the sun, — the home of the happy ; and 

 there, piercing the clouds, was Himinborg, the Ce- 

 lestial Mount, where the bridge of the gods touches 

 Heaven. 



It would be difficult to imagine a scene more sol- 

 emnly impressive than that which was disclosed to us 

 by the sudden change in the clouded atmosphere. 

 From my diary I copy the following brief description 

 of it : — 



"Midnight. — I have just come below, lost in the 

 wondrous beauty of the night. The sea is smooth as 

 glass ; not a ripple breaks its dead surface, not a 

 breath of air stirring. The sun hangs close vipon the 

 northern horizon ; the fog has broken up into light 

 clouds ; the icebergs lie thick about us ; the dark 

 headlands stand boldly out against the sky ; and the 

 clouds and sea and bergs and mountains are bathed in 



