In these regions fine days are very rare, though it is clear all night; but for a long time past the sun has scarcely been seen. The thermometer remains near freezing-point.
But the midnight sun! What a never-to-be-forgotten spectacle is presented by this polar sea in these radiant nights!
As soon as the fog lifts its veil, leaving the eye at full liberty to roam over the horizon, one sees an endless succession of palaces of ice, strong castles, cathedrals, and fantastical structures, some majestically indifferent to the waves which caress their mighty bases, the others slowly rocking to and fro, notwithstanding their ponderous masses, and at each oscillation of their sparkling faces emitting from their alabaster sides rocket-like flashes of emeralds, rubies, and sapphires.
THE VIRGO, AMSTERDAM ISLAND.
Numerous cascades pour down from the vast sides of these icebergs into basins formed in the very bases of these enormous ice-mountains, subsequently losing themselves in the waters of the sea; and all these waterfalls, large and small, are lit up by the hot, red rays of a brilliant sun.
This polar nature, which one imagines to be so poor, so icy, so inert, in regions which we only know from dull and cold narratives of voyages,—this wonderful nature lavishly spreads out before my eyes the sight of an endless mass of sparkling and flashing diamonds, a veritable pyrotechnic display of another world, which the rays of the sun cause to burst forth, and change twenty times in a minute.
And all this, like a sublime jewel casket, rests on velvet of an unheard-of variety, delicate green, pale pink, orange red, crimson, bright red, purple, golden yellow, violet, sky-blue, a marvellous velvet of deep soft and delicately shaded tints, which the calm and irradiated water seems to spread out for the greater delight of the eye and the soul.