CHAP. IV.] REFLECTIONS. 189 



feet ; and, where the resisting barrier was pre- 

 cipitous, huge masses had been successively 

 lifted up, pile on pile, until they presented the 

 appearance of bergs, for which indeed they were 

 taken. A stranger combination of ruin and con- 

 fusion with the softness and harmony of the most 

 beautiful tints, from the faintest emerald to the 

 deep cerulean blue, it would have been difficult 

 for the most imaginative mind to conceive. 

 Then from the sterile summit of the hill to gaze, 

 far as the eye could stretch, upon a dreary plain 

 of rocky ice, relieved only by the frost-smoke 

 issuing here and there from a few holes or lanes 

 of water, and suddenly to turn to the small dark 

 speck which denoted the ship, the abode, alas how 

 frail ! of living men imprisoned amidst this " abo- 

 mination of desolation." What a multitude of 

 reflections rushed into the mind! — the might of 

 nature — the physical feebleness of man — and yet 

 again the triumph of spirit over matter — man, 

 trusting in his own unquenchable energy and the 

 protection of an omnipresent Providence, braving 

 nature in the very strongholds of her empire, 

 and if not successful in the encounter, yet 

 standing up unvanquished and undismayed ! It 

 was indeed a scene not readily to be forgotten. 



The rocks seemed to be a striated granite sin- 

 gularly placed; some having a parallel inclination 

 with open spaces between, and others again 



