Adventure and adventurers > Hudson Bay, or, Everyday life in the wilds of North America

SCENES BEAUTIFUL AND ROMANTIC.
torrents. The whole mass was of a delicate greenish-
white colour, and its lofty pinnacles sparkled in the
moonbeams as it floated past, bending majestically in
the swell of the ocean. About this time, too, we met
numerous fields and floes of ice, to get through which
we often experienced considerable difficulty.
My favourite amusement, as we thus threaded our
way through the ice, was to ascend to the royal-yard,
and there to sit and cogitate whilst gazing on the most
beautiful and romantic scenes.
It is impossible to convey a correct idea of the beauty,
the magnificence, of some of the scenes through which
we passed. Sometimes thousands of the most grotesque,
fanciful, and beautiful icebergs and icefields surrounded
us on all sides, intersected by numerous serpentine
canals, which glittered in the sun (for the weather was
fine nearly all the time we were in the straits), like
threads of silver twining round ruined palaces of crystal.
The masses assumed every variety of form and size;
and many of them bore such a striking resemblance to
cathedrals, churches, columns, arches, and spires, that I
could almost fancy we had been transported to one of
the floating cities of Fairyland. The rapid motion, too,
of our ship, in what appeared a dead calm, added much
to the magical effect of the scene. A light but steady
breeze urged her along with considerable velocity
through a maze of ponds and canals, which, from the
immense quantity of ice that surrounded them, were
calm and unruffled as the surface of a mill-pond.
Not a sound disturbed the delightful stillness of
nature, save the gentle rippling of the vessel’s bow as