At One Time It Was A Knight On Horseback, Clad In Sapphire
Mail, A White Plume Above His Casque.
Or a cathedral
window with shafts of chrysophras, new powdered by a
snow-storm.
Or a smooth sheer cliff of lapis lazuli; or
a Banyan tree, with roots descending from its branches,
and a foliage as delicate as the efflorescence of molten
metal; or a fairy dragon, that breasted the water in
scales of emerald; or anything else that your fancy chose
to conjure up. After a little time, the mist again
descended on the scene, and dulled each glittering form
to a shapeless mass of white; while in spite of all our
endeavours to keep upon our northerly course, we were
constantly compelled to turn and wind about in every
direction - sometimes standing on for several hours at a
stretch to the southward and eastward. These perpetual
embarrassments became at length very wearying, and in
order to relieve the tedium of our progress I requested
the Doctor to remove one of my teeth. This he did with
the greatest ability - a wrench to starboard, - another
to port, and up it flew through the cabin sky-light.
During the whole of that afternoon and the following
night we made but little Northing at all, and the next
day the ice seemed more pertinaciously in our way than
ever; neither could we relieve the monotony of the hours
by conversing with each other on the black boards, as
the mist was too thick for us too distinguish from on
board one ship anything that was passing on the deck of
the other.
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