An interesting object in Hammerfest is the meridian shaft, which marks the number of degrees between this town and the mouth of the Danube, on the Black Sea. The mention made upon this column of that other terminus of measurement, so far distant in the South of Europe, reminded us by contrast of one more advantage which this high latitude possesses—the greater rapidity of its vegetation. When the sun once appears within this polar region, it comes to stay. Nature immediately makes amends for her long seclusion. For three months the sunshine is well-nigh incessant. There is no loss of time at night. The flowers do not close in sleep. All vegetation rushes to maturity. Thus vegetables in the Arctic circle will sometimes grow three inches in a single day, and although planted six weeks later than those in Christiania, they are ready for the table at the same time.
NORWEGIAN FLORA.
Sailing finally from Hammerfest, a voyage of seven hours brought us to our destination—the North Cape. I looked upon it with that passionate eagerness born of long years of anticipation, and felt at once a thrill of satisfaction, in the absence of all disappointment. For my ideal of that famous promontory could not be more perfectly realized than in this dark-browed, majestic headland, rising with perpendicular cliffs, one thousand feet in height, from the still darker ocean at its base. It is, in reality, an island, divided from the mainland by a narrow strait, like a gigantic sentinel stationed in advance to guard the coast of Europe from the Arctic storms.
HARBOR OF HAMMERFEST.
Embarking here in boats, we drew still nearer to this monstrous cliff. From this point it resembles a stupendous fortress surmounted by an esplanade. For in that prehistoric age, when northern Europe was enveloped in an icy mantle, huge glaciers in their southward march planed down its summit to a level surface. The climbing of the cliff, though safe, is quite exhausting. Ropes are, however, hung at different points, and, holding on to these, we slowly crept up to its southern parapet. Thence a laborious walk of fifteen minutes brought us at last to the highest elevation, marked by a granite monument erected to commemorate King Oscar's visit to the place in 1873.
It is a wonderfully impressive moment when one stands thus on the northern boundary of Europe, so near and yet so far from the North Pole. It seemed to me as if the outermost limit of our planet had been reached. Nowhere, not even in the desert, have I felt so utterly remote from civilization, or so near to the infinitude of space.