Identifier: yachtvoyagelette02duff (find matches)
Title: A yacht voyage. Letters from high latitudes; being some account of a voyage, in 1856, in the schooner yacht "Foam," to Iceland, Jan Mayen, and Spitzbergen
Year: 1883 (1880s)
Authors: Dufferin and Ava, Frederick Temple Blackwood, Marquis of, 1826-1902
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, J. W. Lovell co
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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d on the starboard side ;but we dont care for it now—the schooners head is point-ing E. and by S. At one oclock we sight AmsterdamIsland, about thirty miles on the port bow; then came the seven ice hills —as seven enormous glaciers are called—that roll into the sea between lofty ridges of gneiss andmica slate, a little to the northward of Prince CharlessForeland. Clearer and more defined grows the outline ofthe mountains, some coming forward while others recede ;their rosy tints appear less even, fading here and there intopale yellows and greys ; veins of shadow score the steepsides of the hills; the articulations of the rocks becomevisible \ and now, at last, we glide under the limestonepeaks of Mitre Cape, past the marble arches of Kings Bayon the one side, and the pinnacle of the Vogel Hook onthe other, into the quiet channel that separates the Forelandfrom the main. It was at one oclock in the morning of the 6th ofAugust, 1856, that after having been eleven days at sea, we I
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XL) THE JAN MAYEN ICE RIVERS. 201 came to an anchor in the silent haven of English Bay,Spitzbergen. And now, how shall I give you an idea of the wonder-ful panorama in the midst of which we found ourselves ? Ithinli, perhaps, its most striking feature was the stillness,and deadness, and impassibility of this new world : ice, androck, and water surrounded us; not a sound of any kindinterrupted the silence ; the sea did not break upon theshore j no bird or any living thing was visible ; the mid-night sun, by this time muffled in a transparent mist, shedan awful, mysterious lustre on glacier and mountain ; noatom~ of vegetation gave token of the earths vitality : anuniversal numbness and dumbness seemed to pervade thesolitude. I suppose in scarcely any other part of the worldis this appearance of deadness so strikingly exhibited. Onthe stillest summer day in England, there is always percep-tible an under-tone of life thrilling through the atmosphere ;and though no breeze should stir a si

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