At One In The Morning, Our Danseuse Retiring To Rest,
The Ball Necessarily Terminated; But The Governor's Dinner
Still Forbidding
Bed, we determined on a sail in the
cutter to some islands about three-quarters of a mile
out to
Sea; and I do not think I shall ever forget the
delicious sensation of lying down lazily in the
stern-sheets, and listening to the rippling of the water
against the bows of the boat, as she glided away towards
them. The dreamy, misty landscape, - each headland silently
sleeping in the unearthly light, - Snoefell, from whose
far-off peaks the midnight sun, though lost to us, had
never faded, - the Plutonic crags that stood around, so
gaunt and weird, - the quaint fresh life I had been lately
leading, - all combined to promise such an existence of
novelty and excitement in that strange Arctic region on
the threshold of which we were now pausing, that I could
not sufficiently congratulate myself on our good fortune.
Soon, however, the grating of our keel upon the strand
disturbed my reflections, and by the time I had
unaccountably stepped up to my knees in the water, I was
thoroughly awake, and in a condition to explore the
island. It seemed to be about three-quarters of a mile
long, not very broad, and a complete rabbit-warren; in
fact, I could not walk a dozen yards without tripping up
in the numerous burrows by which the ground was honeycombed:
at last, on turning a corner, we suddenly came on a dozen
rabbits, gravely sitting at the mouths of their holes.
They were quite white, without ears, and with scarlet
noses.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 49 of 286
Words from 13690 to 13965
of 79667
