» 
, PROVEN HILLS, 
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iii . .. "• ' >1 CHAPTER XLVI. 
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'A . . I ^ 
The port of Proven is securely sheltered by its mon- 
ster hills. But they can not he said to smile a wel- 
come upon the navigator. A smiling country, like a 
smiling face, needs some provision of fleshly integu- 
ments; and no earthly covering masks the grinning 
rocks of Proven. They look as if the process of crum- 
bling, and wrinkling, and splitting, and splintering 
had been at work on them since the first Arctic frost 
succeeded the last metamorphic fire ; and even now 
great ledges are wedged off from the hillsides by the 
ice, and roll clattering down the slopes into the very 
midst of the settlement. 
Summer comes slowly upon Proven. When we 
arrived, the slopes of the hills were heavily patched 
with snow, and the surface, where it showed itself, 
was frozen dry. The water-line was toothed with 
fangs of broken ice, which scraped against the beach 
