116 THE OCEAN. 



versed; that terrible "Cape of Storms,"* the south 

 era point of Africa, was doubled ; a new world wa& 

 discovered in the western hemisphere; and commer- 

 cial enteprise led the hardy sons of western Europe 

 to dare even the icy horrors of the Poles. Of these 

 the Biscayans seem to have been the first, for wc 

 find them engaged in the northern whale fishery as 

 early as the year 1575. Before the end of the six- 

 teenth century, the English had engaged in the same 

 enterprise, fishing first on the coast of North Ame- 

 rica, and after a while in the vicinity of Spitzbergen. 

 The Dutch soon followed, and other nations were not 

 slow in prosecuting the same lucrative employment. 

 Nature in these regions wears an aspect of awful 

 majesty and grandeur, unrelieved by the softer and 

 gentler beauties which distinguish her in the south. 

 In the islands of these seas no meadows smile 

 in emerald verdure, no waving corn-fields gladden 

 the heart of man with their golden undulations ; 

 no songs of jocund birds usher in the morning, 

 nor is the evening soothed with the indefinable 

 murmur of myriads of humming insects. All is 

 dreary solitude; and the death-like silence that 

 pervades the scene, inspires a feeling of involun- 

 tary awe, as if the hardy explorer had intruded 

 into a region where he ought not to be. The 

 most northern land known to exist is that of the 

 islands of Spitzbergen, the extreme point of whieh 

 approaches to within ten degrees of the Pole. The 



* This was the name given to the extreme point of Africa by its dis- 

 cqvorer, Bartholomew Diaz: but, on his return to Portugal, King John 

 J I. considered the discovery so auspioious, that lie changed the name to 

 "The Cape of Good Hope," which it still retains. 



