THE ARCTIC SEAS. 103 



rible " Cape of Storms," * the southern point of 

 Africa, was doubled ; a new world was discovered 

 in the western hemisphere, and commercial enter- 

 prise 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 we find 

 them engaged in the northern whale fishery as early 

 as the year 1575. Before the end of the sixteenth 

 century, the English had engaged in the same enter- 

 prise, fishing first on the coast of North America, 

 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 eveninfr soothed with the indefinable murmur 

 of myriads of humming insects. All is dreary soli- 

 tude ; and the death-like silence that pervades the 

 scene, inspires a feeling of involuntary 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 which approaches to within ten 



* This was the name given to the extreme point of Africa by ita 

 discoverer, Bartholomew Diaz : but, on his return to Portugal, 

 King John II. considered the discoveiy so auspicious, that he 

 changed the name to " The Cape of Good Hope," which it atill 

 retains. 



