“Give us a bass, Ray, old boy!” cried Rory; “and you, doctor, a tenor.”
And he started,—
“Shades of evening, close not o’er us,
Leave our lonely bark awhile,
Morn, alas! will not restore us
Yonder dim and distant isle.”
Ah, reader! what a glorious thing music is; I tell you, honestly and truthfully, that I do not believe I could have come through half the trials and troubles and griefs and worries I have had in life, if I had not at times been able to seek solace and comfort from my old cremona.
Our heroes thought at first they would greatly miss the light of the sun, but they soon got quite used to the strange electric light emitted by the splendid Aurora, combined with that which gleamed more steadily downwards from the brilliant stars. These stars were seen to best advantage in the south; they seemed very large and very near, and whether it was the reflection of the Aurora, or whether it was real, I never could tell, but they seemed to shine with differently coloured lights. There were pure white stars, mostly low on the horizon; there were crimson and green changing stars, and yellow and rose-coloured changing stars, and some of a pale-golden hue, the soft light of which was inexpressibly lovely. But any effort of mine to paint in words the extreme beauty of the heavens on clear nights would prove but a painful failure, so I leave it alone. The chief bow of the Aurora is, I may just mention, composed apparently of spears of ever-changing rainbow-coloured light continually falling back into masses and phalanxes, and anon advancing and clashing, as it were. While walking on the ice-fields, if you listen, you can hear a strange whispering, hissing sound emitted from these clashing, mixing spears. The following letters, whispered rapidly, give some faint idea of this mysterious sound,—
“Ush-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh.”
You can also produce a somewhat similar noise by rubbing your fingers swiftly backwards and forwards on a sheet of paper.
But indeed the whole firmament, when the sky was clear, was precisely as Rory described it—“one beautiful poem.”
Many bears were now seen, and nearly all that were seen were killed. They were enormously large and fierce, foolishly fierce indeed, for they seldom thought of taking to flight.
There were unicorns (narwhals) in the sea in scores, and walruses on the flat ice by the dozen. It was after these latter that Master Bruin came prowling.