212 A summer's cruise TO NOR-rtlERN LABRADOR. 



hue of its heights cannot compare with that of the Cam- 

 den Hills. Those of Labrador, however, maintain their 

 supremacy above even the'se — above all. They look 

 frozen sky. Or one might fancy that a vast heart or 

 core of amethyst was deeply overlaid with colorless 

 crystal, and shone through with a softened, lucent ray. 

 Such transparency, such intense delicacy, such refine- 

 ment of hue ! Sometimes, too, there is seen in the deep 

 hollows between the lofty billows of blue, a purple that 

 were fit to clothe the royalty of immortal kings, while 

 the blue itself is fiecked as it were with a spray of white 

 light, which one might guess to be a precipitate of sun- 

 shine. 



"This was wonderful ; but more wonderful and most 

 ■wonderful was to come. It was given me once and once 

 again to look on a vision, an enchantment, a miracle of 

 all but impossible beauty, incredible until seen, and 

 -even when seen scarcely to be credited, save by an act of 

 faith. We had sailed up a deep bay and cast anchor in 

 a fine large harbor of the exactest horse-shoe shape. It 

 was bordered immediately by a gentle ridge some three 

 hundred feet high, which was densely wooded with 

 ■spruce, fir, and larch. Beyond this ridge to the west 

 rose mountainous hills, while to the south, where was 

 the head of the harbor, it was overlooked immediately 

 by a broad, noble mountain. It had been one of those 

 white-skied days when the heavens are covered by a uni- 

 form filmy fleece, and the light comes as if it had been 

 filtered through milk. But just before sunset this fleece 

 was rent, and a river of sunshine streamed across the 

 ridge at the head of the harbor, leaving the mountain 

 beyond, and the harbor itself with its wooded sides, still 



