186 AN ICE SCENE. 



a band of mainland in the distance of several miles that separated 

 them from me. On ! on ! The scene was one of strange beauty, 

 while words are utterly unable to portray its grandeur. 



The ice and snow of a winter on the hills and plains of north- 

 ern latitudes cannot be described to a dweller in city, country, or 

 town. The few houses of the region, miles apart, hidden by sur- 

 rounding cliffs ; undulating hill tops and deep gorges ; isolated 

 knobs, now high, now low ; near ridges looking far, and far ones 

 looking near, the effects of refraction in a clear, northern air, — 

 all unite with an irregular plain of level bay in being covered 

 everywhere with snow, snow, snow ! A dull glare of ice, and 

 occasional bare places or peaks on the rocky masses of hill — for 

 I can call the whole coast by no other name — relieve occasionally 

 a monotony of snow ; while the clouds above add white masses 

 of stratus to the scene. Tell me, now, how can pen describe what 

 sight and sense almost fail to appreciate ? Arctic travellers (not 

 that I dare assume a place among them) tell of the sights that 

 everywhere greet them and which are indescribable ; yet few beheve 

 them until they likewise catch a glimpse of a similar display of 

 nature's arctic grandeur. In the narrative of explorers, we read of 

 one by one who return to give evidence to their truth and attempt 

 to describe similar experiences. 



The process of walking on rackets is one easier to describe than 

 to attain to perfection. The large size of the rackets occasions an 

 unusual difficulty in walking. The feet must be kept quite wide 

 apart, and usually the proper step requires the leg to be swung in 

 a semicircular direclfton around the racket of the other foot. The 

 effect to the eye is very peculiar and ludicrous to one observing 

 it for the first time ; and, in fact, to me it always appears ludicrous 

 to see a man thus easily, though apparently awkwardly and with 

 difficulty, laboring his way along, claperty-clap, as the big pads 

 fall in their proper step places on the snow, and the person wear- 

 ing them advances rapidly along. 



By this time the novelty of such a scene as that I was gazing 



