214 A summer's cruise TO NORtIiERN LABRADOR. 



— not more than a mile or two away. Rock, cavern, cliff, 

 all the details of rounded swell, rising peak, and long- 

 descending slope could be seen with entire distinctness. 

 The mountains rose close upon us, broad, massive, real 

 — but all in this glorious, this truly ineffable transforma- 

 tion. It was not distance that lent enchantment hcre» 

 It was not lent; it was real as rock, as Nature ; it con- 

 fronted, outfaced, overwhelmed you ; for enchantment 

 so immediate and on such a scale of grandeur and gor- 

 geousness — who could stand up before it ? 



"In sailing out of the bay next day, we saw this and 

 the neighbor mountain under noon sunshine (lat, 55° 

 20'). They were the handsomest we saw, apparently 

 composed in part of some fine mineral, perhaps pure 

 labradorite. In the full light of day these spaces 

 shone like polished silver. My first impression was that 

 they must be patches of snow, but a glance at real spots 

 of snow corrected me. These last, though more di.s- 

 tinctly white, had not the high, soft, silver shine of the 

 mineral. Doubtless it \^as these mountain-gems which, 

 under the magic touch of sunset light, had the evening 

 before appeared like vast rubies, blazing amidst the rose 

 which surrounded them. 



"And this evening the spectacle of the preceding 

 one was repeated, though more distantly and on a larger 



scale. Ph thought it the finer of the two. Far away 



the mountain height towered, a marvel of atJrial blue, 

 while broad spurs reaching out on either side were 

 clothed, the one in shiny rose-red, the other in ethereal 

 roseate tints superimposed upon azure ; and farther 

 away, to the southeast, a mountain range lay all in 

 solid carmine along the horizon, as if the earth blushed 



