MOUNTAIN EXCURSION. 



65 



how we were to get material for a fire ; but Sterry, who had been 

 so much in this arctic region, well knew its resources. Where all 

 looked barren to me, he soon found moss and some low brush- 

 wood, like the running hemlock of the States. It is a tough 

 shrub, with small leaves and white blossoms, which produce black 

 berries with red sweet juice. Dwarf willow, heather, and small 

 undergrowth wood of various description are intermixed. The 

 dead wood, the leaves, stalks, and limbs of preceding years, are 

 thickly interspersed with the growing portions of this fuel, and it 

 was with it that Sterry so quickly made a fire. A result follow- 

 ed, however, that we little expected. The abundance of such fuel 

 around caused the fire to spread rapidly, and as a strong breeze 

 was now blowing, it soon got beyond our control. Sterry, how- 

 ever, very calmly said, "Never mind; let it burn. Of what use 

 is this to any body, hemmed in here by these mountains ?" So I 

 very quietly made myself content, and sat down to the primitive 

 meal — a carpet of heather for our table, and huge precipices yawn- 

 ing close by, with high, broken mountains that pierced the sky 

 grimly looking down upon us. 



There is philosophy in every thing, especially in eating. The 

 world eats too much. Learn to live — to live as we ought. A 

 little food well eaten is better for any one than much badly eat- 

 en. Our pleasures have a higher relish when properly used. 

 Thus we thoroughly enjoyed our food, and, after a short nap, 

 started on the return journey. 



As we passed along, I noticed several large rocks, thousands of 

 tons in weight, that had evidently fallen from the tops of two 

 lofty mountains, the detached portions corresponding in shape to 

 the parts vacated. Every where was seen the effects of the freez- 

 ing of the water that percolates into the crevices. The tremen- 

 dous workings of Nature in these mountains of Greenland during 

 the arctic 'winter often result in what many of the inhabitants 

 think to be earthquakes, when, in fact, the freezing of water is 

 alone the cause ! In descending, we encountered several little 

 clear, babbling brooks, innumerable flowers, and shrub-fuel in 

 abundance. Peat was also plentiful. Fox-holes in numbers were 

 seen, and a natural canal, with an embankment, in appearance 

 much like the levee at New Orleans. 



On arriving at the beach,, which was a quarter of a mile long, we 

 found it as smooth and inviting as that of Cape May. The limit 

 of this beach was next to an abrupt bank with millions of broken 



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