1 10 
TRAVELS 
earth. The whole land around it did not produce one tree or 
Hi rub ; no, nor fo much as a blade of grafs: there was nothing 
to be feen but naked rocks. The inhabitant of that houfe had 
not any thing but what he brought from a diftance, not even fuel. 
The fun for three months of the year is not vifible ; and if, during 
that fpace of time, the atmofphere were not illuminated by the 
aurora borealis , he would be buried in profound darknefs—Dread¬ 
ful place to live at! The only attraction in thefe abodes is hilling, 
and the love of gain. The nearer one approaches the North 
Cape, the more nature feems to frown : vegetation dies, and leaves 
behind it nothing but naked rocks. 
Proceeding on our voyage, we left on our right the {trait formed 
by Mageron, or Bare Ifland, and the continent. The vaft ex- 
panfe of the Frozen Ocean opened to our left, and we arrived at 
laft at the extremeft point of Europe, known by the name of the 
North Cape, exaCtly at midnight. 
Siftimus hie tandem, nobis ubi defuit orbis.* 
The North Cape is an enormous rock, which projecting far into 
the ocean, and being expofed to all the fury of the waves and the 
outrage of tempefts, crumbles every year more and more into 
ruins. Here every thing is folitary, every thing is fteril, every 
thing fad and defpondent. The fhadowy forefl no longer adorns 
the brow of the mountain; the tinging of the birds, which en¬ 
livened even the woods of Lapland, is no longer heard in this 
* Here then we flood, and touch’d the earth’s laft point. 
6 
feene 
