SILENCE. 
211 
yet I knew we must be within a very few miles of 
it; and now, to make tilings quite pleasant, there 
descended upon us a thicker fog than I should have 
thought the atmosphere capable of sustaining; it seemed 
to hang in solid festoons from the masts and spars. 
To say that you could not see your hand, ceased 
almost to be any longer figurative; even the ice was 
hid—except those fragments immediately adjacent, 
whose ghastly brilliancy the mist itself could not quite 
extinguish, as they glimmered round the vessel like 
a circle of luminous phantoms. The perfect stillness 
of the sea and sky added very much to the solemnity 
of the scene; almost every breath of wind had fallen, 
scarcely a ripple tinkled against the copper sheathing, 
as the solitary little schooner glided along at the rate 
of half a knot or so an hour, and the only sound we 
heard was a distant wash of waters, but whether on 
a great shore, or along a belt of solid ice, it was im¬ 
possible to say. In such weather,—as the original dis¬ 
coverers of Jan Mayen said under similar circumstances, 
—“it was easier to hear land than to see it.” Thus, 
hour after hour passed by and brought no change. 
Fitz and Sigurdr—who had begun quite to disbelieve 
p 2 
