344 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [CHAP. 



manded not only a general view of the country round, 

 but particularly of the town of Bergen itself. The houses 

 which compose it are almost all of wood, and painted 

 white ; and the particular hue of the scattered light 

 during the middle of the eclipse was remarkably brought 

 out by this circumstance. It appeared to me of decidedly 

 a bluish tinge, remarkably cold and unnatural. A fire 

 which happened to be lighted in a ship-builder's yard, 

 and which before had been imperceptible, now threw out 

 a striking red glare. Our countenances appeared wan 

 and colourless ; a chilly feeling caused an involuntary 

 shiver. One bat, escaped apparently from the rents of 

 the fortress, flew about us very energetically ; but some 

 sheep grazing near were remarked not to be sensibly dis- 

 turbed. There was a considerable concourse of people 

 of all classes, but I did not observe any signs of strong 

 emotion. It is not, indeed, the character of the people 

 to express it. The approach of the eclipse had been 

 denoted by the appearance of a great black cloud in the 

 N.W., which gradually rose above the horizon like an 

 approaching storm ; but its boundary (for it was merely 

 the shadow in the sky) was too vague to produce the 

 appalling sense of the onward movement of a real sub- 

 stance, as I had observed on the plains of Piedmont on 

 occasion of the total eclipse of 1842. But the restora- 

 tion of the light the new dawn, when the shadow of 

 the darkness had passed by was perhaps quite as grand : 

 a copper-coloured aurora rose in the N.W., shading off 

 the ill-defined limits of total obscuration, and in a few 

 seconds more we were left in the dull dusky atmosphere 

 of Bergen, which soon resolved itself into its accustomed 

 elements of rain-drops. 



' Before leaving the subject, I will mention a circum- 

 stance which added considerably to the local interest felt 

 in this total eclipse. When a total eclipse was last 

 visible in Norway I am now unable to state, but the 

 popular mind, with singular fidelity to its time-honoured 

 traditions, at once recurred to one which occurred more 

 than eight centuries ago, and which, owing to the 



