It was on such a day that we ran some fifty miles through a passage, resembling a river, between islands and the main. The wind blew warm and vigorous from the land,—sometimes, when it came to us without passing over considerable spaces of water, seeming positively hot, as if it came from an oven; yet in such an atmosphere one felt that he could live forever, either in an oven or in the case of an iceberg, and wish only to live there forever! A great fleet of schooners was pushing swiftly along this passage, on its way to fishing-grounds in the North; and as we flew past one and another, while the astonished crews gathered at the side to stare at our speed, our schooner seemed the very genius of Victory, and our wishes to be supreme powers. I have never elsewhere experienced so cool and perfect an exhilaration,—physical exhilaration, that is.
In the early afternoon a dense haze filled the sky. The sun, seen through this, became a globe of glowing ruby, and its glade on the sea looked as if the water had been strown, almost enough to conceal it, with a crystalline ruby dust, or with fine mineral spiculæ of vermilion bordering upon crimson. The peculiarity of this ruddy dust was that it seemed to possess body, and, while it glowed, did not in the smallest degree dazzle,—as if the brilliancy of each ruby particle came from the heart of it rather than from the surface. The effect was in truth indescribable, and I try to suggest it with more sense of helplessness than I have felt hitherto in preparing these papers. It was beautiful beyond expression,—any expression, at least, which is at my command.
Such a spectacle, I suppose, one might chance to see anywhere, though the chance certainly never occurred to me before. It could scarcely have escaped me through want of attention, for I could well believe myself a child of the sun, so deep an appeal to my feeling is made by effects of light and color: light before all.
But the atmosphere of Labrador has its own secret of beauty, and charms the eye with aspects which one may be pardoned for believing incomparable in their way. The blue of distant hills and mountains, when observed in clear sunshine, is subtile and luminous to a degree that surpasses admiration. I have seen the Camden Heights across the waters of Penobscot Bay when their blue was equally profound; for these hills, beheld over twenty miles or more of sea, do a wonderful thing in the way of color, lifting themselves up there through all the long summer days, a very marvel of solemn and glorious beauty. The Ægean Sea has a charm of atmosphere which is wanting to Penobscot Bay, but the hue of its heights cannot compare with that of the Camden Hills. Those of Labrador, however, maintain their supremacy above even these,—above all. They look like frozen sky. Or one might fancy that a vast heart or core of amethyst was deeply overlaid with colorless crystal, and shone through with a softened, lucent ray. Such transparency, such intense delicacy, such refinement of hue! Sometimes, too, there is seen in the deep hollows, between the lofty billows of blue, a purple that were fit to clothe the royalty of immortal kings, while the blue itself is flecked as it were with a spray of white light, which one might guess to be a precipitate of sunshine.
This was wonderful; but more wonderful and most wonderful was to come. It was given me once and once again to look on a vision, an enchantment, a miracle of all but impossible beauty, incredible until seen, and even when seen scarcely to be credited, save by an act of faith. We had sailed up a deep bay, and cast anchor in a fine large harbor of the exactest horseshoe shape. It was bordered immediately by a gentle ridge some three hundred feet high, which was densely wooded with spruce, fir, and larch. Beyond this ridge, to the west, rose mountainous hills, while to the south, where was the head of the harbor, it was overlooked immediately by a broad, noble mountain. It had been one of those white-skied days, when the heavens are covered by a uniform filmy fleece, and the light comes as if it had been filtered through milk. But just before sunset this fleece was rent, and a river of sunshine streamed across the ridge at the head of the harbor, leaving the mountain beyond, and the harbor itself, with its wooded sides, still in shadow. And where that shine fell, the foliage changed from green to a glowing, luminous red-brown, expressed with astonishing force,—not a trace, not a hint of green remaining! Beyond it, the mountain preserved its whited gray; nearer, on either side, the woods stood out in clear green; and separated from these by the sharpest line, rose this ridge of enchanted forest. You will incline to think that one might have seen through this illusion by trying hard enough. But never were the colors in a paint-pot more definite and determined.
This was but the beginning. I had turned away, and was debating with myself whether some such color, seen on the Scotch and English hills, had not given the hint for those uniform browns which Turner in his youth copied from his earlier masters. When I looked back, the sunshine had flooded the mountain, and was bathing it all in the purest rose-red. Bathing it? No, the mountain was solidly converted, transformed to that hue! The power, the simplicity, the translucent, shining depth of the color were all that you can imagine, if you make no abatements, and task your imagination to the utmost. This roseate hue no rose in the garden of Orient or Occident ever surpassed. Small spaces were seen where the color became a pure ruby, which could not have been more lustrous and intense, had it proceeded from a polished ruby gem ten rods in dimension. Color could go no farther. Yet if the eye lost these for a moment, it was compelled somewhat to search for them,—so powerful, so brilliant was the rose setting in which they were embosomed.
One must remember how near at hand all this was,—not more than a mile or two away. Rock, cavern, cliff, all the details of rounded swell, rising peak, and long descending slope, could be seen with entire distinctness. The mountain rose close upon us, broad, massive, real,—but all in this glorious, this truly ineffable transformation. It was not distance that lent enchantment here. It was not lent; it was real as rock, as Nature; it confronted, outfaced, overwhelmed you; for, enchantment so immediate and on such a scale of grandeur and gorgeousness,—who could stand up before it?
In sailing out of the bay, next day, we saw this and the neighbor mountain under noon sunshine. (Lat. 55° 20'.) They were the handsomest we saw, apparently composed in part of some fine mineral, perhaps pure Labradorite. In the full light of day these spaces shone like polished silver. My first impression was that they must be patches of snow, but a glance at real spots of snow corrected me. These last, though more distinctly white, had not the high, soft, silver shine of the mineral. Doubtless it was these mountain-gems which, under the magic touch of sunset light, had the evening before appeared like vast rubies, blazing amidst the rose which surrounded them.
And this evening the spectacle of the preceding one was repeated, though more distantly and on a larger scale. Ph—— thought it the finer of the two. Far away the mountain height towered, a marvel of aërial blue, while broad spurs reaching out on either side were clothed, the one in shiny rose-red, the other in ethereal roseate tints super-imposed upon azure; and farther away, to the southeast, a mountain range lay all in solid carmine along the horizon, as if the earth blushed at the touch of heaven.
"I invite and announce the mountains which possess pure brightness, which have much brightness, created by Mazda, pure, lords of purity." So sang the Zarathustrian priest, chanting the Vispereds of the Avesta,—deep-hearted child of the world, himself now shining on the far-away horizon of human history.