292 NIGHTS BEGIN TO GET DARK. 



floes of Spitzbergen. As those desolate shores 

 faded from our view, I repeated to myself the 

 sublime lines of Longfellow *, — 



" There vre hunted the walrus, the narwal and the seal. 

 Aha ! 'twas a noble game : 

 And like the lightning's flame, 

 riew our harpoons of steel." 



As we sailed down the west coast we had 

 much calm, and the weather was actually 

 milder than we had had it all the summer. 

 There is evidently an enormous difference of 

 climate between this part of Spitzbergen and 

 the east coast — caused, no doubt, by the great 

 extent of glacier and the vast fields of floating 

 ice in the more immediate vicinity of the 

 latter, as well as by the presence of the fag- 

 end of the Gulf Stream, before alluded to, on 

 this coast. 



It begins to get a little darkish now from 

 ten till two in the night. One could not have 

 seen to shoot a seal at 10-30 on the 6th, We 

 lighted the cabin and binnacle lamps for the 

 first time to-night at 10 o'clock ; and so rapid 

 is the decline of the sun in those latitudes 

 when he once commences to go below the 



* Discoverer of the North Cape. 



