200 
A VOYAGE TO SFITZBERGEN. 
vapoury cloud floats like a girdle in mid air, and above 
this again, the thousand needle-like peaks of the moun¬ 
tains rise to a prodigious height; the mountain tops 
are clad in snow, and stand out in bold relief against 
the leaden sky. Snow lies in patches on the precipitous 
sides of these mountains wherever it can find a resting 
place out of range of the sun’s rays. This pure white 
contrasts strangely with the rocks around. Their 
sombre hue is due to a clothing of a curious lichen, 
inky black in colour, and this black colour is intensi¬ 
fied by the play of light upon the surface of the rocks 
it clothes like a garment, the effect of the transparent 
atmosphere being to bring out the lurid white of the 
pure snow, and to give a strange aspect of deep mourn¬ 
ing to the veil of lichen thrown over all. Nothing 
could harmonise more perfectly with this awfully 
solemn aspect of nature, or add more to its grandeur 
than the colour of the sea beneath. It is possible that 
even scenery like this may have no attraction to some 
who have witnessed it. To us it is all absorbing, and 
we linger long over the multitude of combinations 
which everywhere arrest the gaze ; as we sit and look 
upon the wondrous sight spread out before us a great 
curtain of fog slowly descends and shuts out from view 
every trace of the magic scene. 
All through the next day the ship is being forced 
