Nearer at home, all appeared unusually
plain for a region in which fogs were so apt to prevail. The cove lay
almost beneath them, and the schooner, just then, struck the imagination
of her commander as a fearfully small craft to come so far from home and
to penetrate so deep among the mazes of the ice. It was that ice, itself,
however, that attracted most of Roswell's attention. Far as the eye could
reach, north, south, east and west, the ocean was brilliant and chill with
the vast floating masses. The effect on the air was always perceptible in
that region, 'killing the summer,' as the sealers expressed it; but it
seemed to be doubly so at the elevation to which the two adventurers had
attained. Still, the panorama was magnificent. The only part of the ocean
that did not seem to be alive with ice-bergs, if one may use such an
expression, was the space within the group, and that was as clear as an
estuary in a mild climate. It really appeared as if nature had tabooed
that privileged spot, in order that the communication between the
different islands should remain open. Of course, the presence of so many
obstacles to the billows without, and indeed even to the rake of the
winds, produced smooth water within, the slow, breath-like heaving and
setting of the ceaseless ground-swell, being the only perceptible motion
to the water in side.
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