Soon After, The Sun Came Out, The Mist Entirely Disappeared,
And Again On The Starboard Hand Shone A Vision Of
The
land; this time not in the sharp peaks and spires we had
first seen, but in a chain of
Pale blue egg-shaped islands,
floating in the air a long way above the horizon. This
peculiar appearance was the result of extreme refraction,
for, later in the day, we had an opportunity of watching
the oval cloud-like forms gradually harden into the same
pink tapering spikes which originally caused the island
to be called Spitzbergen: nay, so clear did it become,
that even the shadows on the hills became quite distinct,
and we could easily trace the outlines of the enormous
glaciers - sometimes ten or fifteen miles broad - that fill
up every valley along the shore. Towards evening the
line of coast again vanished into the distance, and our
rising hopes received an almost intolerable disappointment
by the appearance of a long line of ice right ahead,
running to the westward, apparently, as far as the eye
could reach. To add to our disgust, the wind flew right
round into the North, and increasing to a gale, brought
down upon us - not one of the usual thick arctic mists to
which we were accustomed, but a dark, yellowish brown
fog, that rolled along the surface of the water in twisted
columns, and irregular masses of vapour, as dense as coal
smoke. We had now almost reached the eightieth parallel
of north latitude, and still an impenetrable sheet of
ice, extending fifty or sixty miles westward from the
shore, rendered all hopes of reaching the land out of
the question. Our expectation of finding the north-west
extremity of the island disengaged from ice by the action
of the currents was - at all events for this
season - evidently doomed to disappointment. We were
already almost in the latitude of Amsterdam Island - which
is actually its north-west point - and the coast seemed
more encumbered than ever. No whaler had ever succeeded
in getting more than about 120 miles further north than
we ourselves had already come; and to entangle ourselves
any further in the ice - unless it were with the certainty
of reaching land - would be sheer folly. The only thing
to be done was to turn back. Accordingly, to this course
I determined at last to resign myself, if, after standing
on for twelve hours longer, nothing should turn up to
improve the present aspect of affairs. It was now eleven
o'clock; P. M. Fitz and Sigurdr went to bed, while I
remained on deck to see what the night might bring forth.
It blew great guns, and the cold was perfectly intolerable;
billow upon billow of black fog came sweeping down between
the sea and sky, as if it were going to swallow up the
whole universe; while the midnight sun - now completely
blotted out - now faintly struggling through the ragged
breaches of the mist - threw down from time to time an
unearthly red-brown glare on the waste of roaring waters.
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