( JO THE SEA. 



two months I must have travelled fully six hundred miles, myself and the dogs living- on 

 game and seals killed by the way. 



" My theory was that I should suddenly emerge into a warm and fertile country as 

 soon as I should reach the point at which,, according to all the books, the earth was flattened, 

 and on which the sun in summer never sets. It seemed to me that if the sun should 

 remain for six months above the horizon, without any nights, the effect would be to give a 

 very warm climate. I had a good silver watch, of which I had always taken the greatest 

 care, and I kept a record of every day, so that I should not lose my reckoning. I will 

 not dwell on the perils and privations of my journey, except to say that with streaming 

 eyes I had killed my faithful dogs to save me from starvation, when on the 20th of June, 

 1860, according to my calendar, I passed out of a crevice or gorge between two great 

 walls of ice, just in time to escape death from a falling mass larger than a ship, into an 

 open space of table-land, from which I could see below me, and stretching away as far 

 as the eye could reach, a land more beautiful than England or any other country I had 

 ever seen." 



The narrator says that his feelings becoming calmer after the surprise he had 

 experienced, he descended the mountain, at the foot of which was a village, where the 

 people were celebrating a festival or carnival. Overcome by the heat and excitement, he 

 fainted, and some time afterwards found himself closely guarded in the house of some priests, 

 where, however, he was kindly treated. The curious things which he had in his possession 

 convinced them that their prisoner was worth keeping alive. He explained their use by 

 signs, in which they were greatly interested. The watch pleased them the most, and 

 they easily understood the division of time. "When he drew a figure of the earth, 

 with the parallels of latitude and longitude, pointing out the positions of the various 

 countries, including their own, they were greatly astonished, and treated him with increased 

 kindness. 



He was taken before their chief the Jarl who lives in a stone palace, built as 

 solidly as the pyramids. " Glass is unknown, and curtains or draperies take its place in 

 the windows. Oil-lamps are used, except in the palaces of the nobility and in public 

 places, where an electric light, much brighter than gas, is substituted." Precious stones, 

 gold, and silver, abound. ''The Jarl drives out with four large moose, or mastodon, 

 attached to his chariot, which are harnessed in pairs, the inside horns of each being cut 

 so that they will not interlock. His pleasure barge is drawn by walruses." Barges and 

 boats were commonly drawn by domesticated seals and walruses. Their arts and productions 

 are described in detail, and are about the same as those of Northern Europe a thousand 

 years ago. The people are numerous, and live in peace and happiness. The sun is their 

 great spirit ; shut in by eternal snow and ice, although their own climate is not very severe, 

 they naturally look upon cold as the essence of all that is evil, and ice as its embodiment. 

 When the genial rays of the sun disperse the ice and snow they worship and rejoice. 

 And carrying out the same idea, the infernal regions are stated to be cold, not hot. We 

 all remember the worthy divine in the north of Scotland, who knowing that he could 

 not terrify his shivering congregation by depicting the terrors of fire, painted in its place 

 an Arctic Hell. So Dante, in " The Divine Comedy," makes the frozen Lake of Cocytus 



