blue eye spoke of
gentleness and good-nature, and with fair hair completed the evidences
of Scandinavian birth.

My curiosity became much excited. "How," thought I, "in the name of
everything mysterious, has it happened that such a man should have
turned up in such a place?" From curiosity I passed to amazement, as his
mind unfolded itself, and his tastes were manifested. I was prepared to
be received by a fur-clad hunter, a coppery-faced Esquimau, or a meek
and pious missionary, upon whose face privation and penance had set
their seal; but for this high-spirited, high-bred, graceful, and
evidently accomplished gentleman, I was not prepared.

I could not refrain from one leading observation. "I suppose, Doctor
Molke," said I, "that you have not been here long enough to have yet
wholly exhausted the novelty of these noble hills!"

"Eleven years, one would think," replied he, "ought to pretty well
exhaust anything; and yet I cannot say that these hills, upon which my
eyes rest continually, have grown to be wearisome companions, even if
they may appear something forbidding."

Eleven years among these barren hills! Eleven years in Greenland!!
Surely, thought I, this is something "passing strange."

The scene around us as we crossed the bay was indeed imposing, and,
though desolate enough, was certainly not without its bright and
cheerful side. Behind us rose a majestic line of cliffs, climbing up
into the clouds in giant steps, picturesque yet solid,--a great massive
pedestal, as it were, supporting mountain piled on mountain, with caps
of snow whitening their summits, and great glaciers hanging on their
sides. Before us lay the town,--built upon a gnarled spur of primitive
rock, which seemed to have crept from underneath the lofty cliffs, as a
serpent from its hiding-place, and, after wriggling through the sea, to
have stopped at length, when it had almost completely enclosed a
beautiful sheet of water about a mile long by half a mile broad, leaving
but one narrow, winding entrance to it. Through this entrance the swell
of the sea could never come to disturb the silent bay, which lay there,
nestling among the dark rocks beneath the mountain shadows, as calmly as
a Swiss lake in an Alpine valley.

But the rocky spur which supported on its rough back what there was of
the town wore a most woe-begone and distressed aspect. A few little
patches of grass and moss were visible, but generally there was nothing
to be seen b