220 THE LAST ORUISE OV THE MIRANDA. 



before we readied the ship ? Oh, liow cold it was ! and when 

 we hmded on that island how I shivered, and how the others 

 — good fellows as they were— almost smothered me with 

 blankets and overcoats ; and how my chattering teeth bit off 

 the stem of a. pipe before I had taken a single puff ; and how 

 we ran and danced, and swung our arms to keep the blood in 

 motion ! And that same night how the auroras streaked the 

 sky, now here, now there, with their long lines of quivering 

 light looking like spears in the trembling hands of giants ! 

 And afterwards on the Rigel, what a magnificent aurora that 

 was swinging over our heads, its great folds beaming with rose 

 and purple light, trembling as though shaken by some 

 mysterious power ! And another night on the Miranda, 

 when a rainbow appeared longer and wider than any we 

 had ever seen, with the most beautiful and varying tints, with 

 streamers shooting upward and downward from the great 

 arch, and with the trembling, wavy motion so characteristic 

 of the " Merry Dancers of the North/' 



I remember you were in the party that took two dories and 

 rowed twenty-four miles up the Isortok fiord, in Greenland, to 

 visit some glaciers. What a fine sight was that Ave witnessed 

 on our return, as the sun sank behind that long line of moun- 

 tains whose top, notched like a saw, was clear cut against the 

 sky. What exquisite colors : how they changed and varied in 

 tint, and how long the twilight lasted, with its after-glow ! 

 Mr. Stokes, the artist of Peary's first expedition, gave an ex- 

 hibition here in Pittsburgh of his paintings of Arctic scenerj-, 

 sunsets, auroras, etc. Nearly every one who saw these views 

 thought them exaggerated — that such a coloring of nature 

 was impossible. We know better, for we have seen it, not 

 once or twice, but repeated and varied day after day and night 

 after night ; to see such colors is worth all it costs, even if 

 one loses all his worldly goods and is obliged to come home on 

 a fishing smack. 



