82 THE " MIDNIGHT SUN." 



sun, like drift of beech leaves in the October air. 

 Far to the north, the sun lay in a bed of saffron 

 light over the clear horizon' of the Arctic Ocean. 

 A few bars of dazzling orange cloud floated above 

 him, and still higher in the sky, where the saffron 

 melted through delicate rose colour into blue, hung 

 light wreaths of vapour, touched with pearly 

 opaline flushes of pink and golden grey. The sea 

 was a web of pale slate colour, shot through and 

 through with threads of orange and saffron, from 

 the dance of a myriad shifting and twinkling 

 ripples. The air was filled and permeated with 

 the soft mysterious glow, and even the very azure 

 of the southern sky seemed to shine through a net 

 of golden gauze. The headlands of this deeply 

 indented coast the capes of the Laxe and Por- 

 sanger Fjords, and of Mageroe lay around us, in 

 different degrees of distances, but all with forebeads 

 touched with supernatural glory. Far to the north- 

 east was Nordkyn, the most northern point of the 

 mainland of Europe, gleaming rosily and faint in 

 the full beams of the sun ; and just as our watches 

 denoted midnight, the North Cape appeared to the 

 westward a long line of purple bluff, presenting 

 a vertical front of 900 feet in height to the Polar 

 Sea. Midway between these two magnificent 

 headlands stood the midnight sun, shining on us 

 with subdued fires, and with the gorgeous colour- 



