were well read
in the history of Polar Seas and Regions; they were well acquainted, by
name at least, with floes, and bergs, and hummocks of ice, but neither
of them had seen such in reality. These objects were associated in their
young minds with all that was romantic and wild, hyperborean and polar,
brilliant and sparkling, and light and white--emphatically _white_. To
behold ice actually floating on the salt sea was an incident of note in
their existence; and certainly the impressions of their first day in the
ice remained sharp, vivid, and prominent, long after scenes of a much
more striking nature had faded from the tablets of their memories.

At first the prospect that met their ardent gaze was not calculated to
excite excessive admiration. There were only a few masses of low ice
floating about in various directions. The wind was steady, but light,
and seemed as if it would speedily fall altogether. Gradually the
_blink_ on the horizon (as the light haze always distinguishable above
ice, or snow-covered land, is called) resolved itself into a long white
line of ice, which seemed to grow larger as the ship neared it, and in
about two hours more they were fairly in the midst of the pack, which
was fortunately loose enough to admit of the vessel being navigated
through the channels of open water. Soon after, the sun broke out in
cloudless splendour, and the wind fell entirely, leaving the ocean in a
dead calm.

"Let's go to the fore-top, Tom," said Fred, seizing his friend by the
arm and hastening to the shrouds.

In a few seconds they were seated alone on the little platform at the
top of the fore-mast, just where it is connected with the fore-top-mast,
and from this elevated position they gazed in silent delight upon the
fairy-like scene.

Those who have never stood at the mast-head of a ship at sea in a dead
calm cannot comprehend the feeling of intense solitude that fills the
mind in such a position. There is nothing analogous to it on land. To
stand on the summit of a tower and look down on the busy multitude below
is not the same, for there the sounds are quite different in _tone_, and
signs of life are visible all over the distant country, while cries from
afar reach the ear, as well as those from below. But from the mast-head
you hear only the few subdued sounds under your feet--all beyond is
silence; you behold only the small, oval-shaped platform that is your
_world_--beyond lies the calm desolate ocea