202 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
outer edge of the belt that hems in eastern Greenland. 
About three A. M. it cleared up a little. By breakfast 
time the sun reappeared, and we could see five or six 
miles ahead of the vessel. It was shortly after this, 
that as I was standing in the main rigging peering 
out over the smooth blue surface of the sea, a white 
twinkling point of light suddenly caught my eye about 
a couple of miles off on the port bow, which a telescope 
soon resolved into a solitary isle of ice, dancing and 
dipping in the sunlight. As you may suppose, the 
news brought everybody upon deck, and when almost 
immediately afterwards a string of other pieces—glit¬ 
tering like a diamond necklace-hove in sight, the 
excitement was extreme. 
Here at all events was honest blue salt water 
frozen solid, and when—as we proceeded—the scattered 
fragments thickened, and passed like silver argosies 
on either hand, until at last we found ourselves en¬ 
veloped in an innumerable fleet of bergs,—it seemed as 
if we could never be weary of admiring a sight so 
strange and beautiful. It was rather in form and colour 
than in size that these ice islets were remarkable ; 
anything approaching to a real iceberg we neither saw, 
