g one of the most picturesque
scenes it has ever been my fortune to witness in the arctic regions.
The water was of glassy smoothness, the sky of brightest blue, and the
atmosphere of perfect transparency; while around floated numberless
icebergs of the most beautiful forms, and of dazzling hues, while all
around was glancing and glittering beneath a bright and glowing sun.

One berg, I remember, was of enormous size. On the north side it was
perpendicular, as if just severed from another; but, as we rounded it on
the west, ledge above ledge appeared, each fringed with icicles reaching
to the one below, thus forming lines of graceful columns, with a gallery
within, appearing as if tinged with emerald-green. The summit was
peaked and turreted, and broken into many fantastic forms. On the
eastern side a clear arch was seen; and several small cascades fell from
ledge to ledge with a trickling sound, and into the water with a gentle
splash, which could distinctly be heard as we passed.

It must be remembered that in every direction arose bergs of equal
beauty; while in the background were lofty hills covered with snow,
tinted of a pinkish hue, and above them, of dazzling whiteness, ranges
of eternal glaciers, towering to the sky. I could scarcely have
believed that a scene of such enchanting beauty could have existed in
the arctic regions, and was inclined to fancy, as I pulled at the oar,
that they were rocks of Parian marble and alabaster, and that the
galleries and caverns they contained were the abodes of fairies and the
guardian spirits of those realms. But avast! what has Peter the Whaler
to do with such poetical ideas?

On we worked our way northward. In clear weather, when a good look-out
was to be had from the crow's-nest, we were able to make our way among
the streams of ice; but in thick weather, when our course could not be
marked out, we were sadly delayed.

At last, after keeping a westerly course for a few hours, we broke
through all intervening barriers, and once more felt our gallant ship
lifting to the buoyant wave of the open sea, or rather what is called
the "north water."

The ice, by the warm weather, the currents, and the northerly winds,
being driven out of Lancaster Sound and the head of Baffin's Bay to the
southward, leaves this part, for most of the summer, free from
impediments. In five days after leaving the eastern land, having passed
the north of Lancaster Sound, we came off the fa