394 MID-SUMMER. 



the bay, the icebergs were driven out of sight, and 

 the open water was not more than a quarter of a 

 mile distant from us. 



The sun reaching its greatest northern decHnation 

 on the 21st, we were now in the full blaze of summer. 

 Six eventful months had passed over since the Arctic 

 midnight shrouded us in gloom, and now we had 

 reached the Arctic mid-day. And this mid-day was a 

 day of wonderful brightness. The temperature had 

 gone up higher than at any previous time, marking, 

 at meridian, 49°, while in the sun the thermometer 

 showed 57°. The barometer was away up to 30.076, 

 and a more calm and lovely air never softened an 

 Arctic landscape. 



Tempted by the day, I strolled down into the valley 

 south of the harbor. The recent snow had mostly dis- 

 appeared, and valley and hill-side were speckled with a 

 rich carpet of green, with only here and there a patch 

 of the winter snow yet undissolved, — an emerald 

 carpet, fringed and inlaid with silver and sprinkled 

 over with fragments of a bouquet, — for many flow- 

 ers were now in full bloom, and their tiny flices 

 peeped above the sod. A herd of reindeer were 

 browsing on the plain beneath me, and some white 

 rabbits had come from their hiding-places to feed 

 upon the bursting willow-buds. New objects of inter- 

 est led me on from spot to spot — babbling brooks, 

 and rocky hill-sides, and little glaciers, and softening 

 snow-banks, alternating with patches of tender green 

 — until, at length, I came to the base of a loftj^ hill, 

 whose summit was surmounted with an imposing 

 wall which overlooked the sea, seemingly a vast tur- 

 reted castle, guarding the entrance to the valley. I 

 thought of my late comrade, and named it Sonntag's 



