AN ARCTIC RESIDENCE 257 



The melting of the snows in early June is at 

 once a miracle and a thing of wonder. Our 

 English springs are a succession of advances and 

 retreats in the programme of Nature, and summer 

 creeps in with alternate frost and sunshine, but 

 in the Arctic regions there is a sudden upheaval. 

 Winter is defeated in one short battle, and summer 

 comes in with a triumphal burst of sunshine and 

 flowers. In one week the snow-clad hillsides are 

 pouring with innumerable torrents, great gaps of 

 brown earth appear, and as it were in a few days 

 the whole of the mountains are clothed with green 

 Alpine plants, vast wreaths of Silene acaulis, Dry as 

 occipetala and myriads of little blue and yellow 

 violets in all the crevices. For a very few weeks 

 this Alpine garden held its brief sway, and then 

 the lake-edges and mountain streams were brilliant 

 for another period with caltha palustris — a smaller 

 form of our own kingcups — ^and a very beautiful 

 blue vetch, Vacca grecca, Trollius and many flowers 

 of which I did not know the names. The colouring, 

 too, of many of the rocks was simply wonderful, 

 whilst all are covered with patches of emerald green 

 or yellow mosses. To the landscape painter all 

 this wealth of colour both on land and sea pre- 

 sented a great difficulty. There was too much 

 colour, and even in the autumn the fiery reds 

 of the decaying vegetation rendered composition 

 extremely difficult. Perhaps the most gorgeous 

 effects of Nature to be seen in these Arctic regions 

 was the wonderful aurora horealis or Northern 

 Lights, which began in late October, and lit up 

 the whole sky and surrounding mountains with the 

 most theatrical display of dazzling colours. The 



