The Distance From
Hammerfest To Alten Is About Forty Miles, Along A Zigzag
Chain Of Fiords.
It was six o'clock in the evening, and
we had already sailed two-and-thirty miles, when it again
fell almost calm.
Impatient at the unexpected delay, and
tempted by the beauty of the evening, - which was indeed
most lovely, the moon hanging on one side right opposite
to the sun on the other, as in the picture of Joshua's
miracle, - Sigurdr, in an evil hour, proposed that we
should take a row in the dingy, until the midnight breeze
should spring up, and bring the schooner along with it.
Away we went, and so occupied did we become with admiring
the rocky precipices beneath which we were gliding, that
it was not until the white sails of the motionless schooner
had dwindled to a speck, that we became aware of the
distance we had come.
Our attention had been further diverted by the spectacle
of a tribe of fishes, whose habit it appeared to be - instead
of swimming like Christian fishes in a horizontal position
beneath the water - to walk upon their hind-legs along
its surface. Perceiving a little boat floating on the
loch not far from the spot where we had observed this
phenomenon, we pulled towards it, and ascertained that
the Lapp officer in charge was actually intent on stalking
the peripatetic school - to use a technical expression - whose
evolutions had so much astonished us. The great object
of the sportsman is to judge by their last appearance
what part of the water the fish are likely to select for
the scene of their next promenade.
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