With A Fair Wind We Soon Ran Clear Of The Field-Ice, And By Noon
Had Only The Stray Islands Floating Far And Near Upon The Ocean.
The sun was out bright, the sea of a deep blue, fringed with the
white foam of the waves which ran high before a strong south-wester;
our solitary ship tore on through the water, as though glad to be
out of her confinement; and the ice islands lay scattered upon the
ocean here and there, of various sizes and shapes, reflecting the
bright rays of the sun, and drifting slowly northward before the
gale. It was a contrast to much that we had lately seen, and a
spectacle not only of beauty, but of life; for it required but
little fancy to imagine these islands to be animate masses which
had broken loose from the "thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice,"
and were working their way, by wind and current, some alone,
and some in fleets, to milder climes. No pencil has ever yet
given anything like the true effect of an iceberg. In a picture,
they are huge, uncouth masses, stuck in the sea, while their chief
beauty and grandeur, - their slow, stately motion; the whirling
of the snow about their summits, and the fearful groaning and
cracking of their parts, - the picture cannot give. This is the
large iceberg; while the small and distant islands, floating on
the smooth sea, in the light of a clear day, look like little
floating fairy isles of sapphire.
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