through it?" was the question; but while we
were discussing the chances, a faint star sparkled in the midst of the
cavernous gloom. "You see it because you imagine it," cried some; yet,
no, it was steadfast, and grew broad and bright, until even the most
sceptical recognised the pale midnight sky at the bottom of the gigantic
arch.

My friend aroused me at five in the morning to see the Seven
Sisters--seven majestic peaks, 4000 feet high, and seated closely side
by side, with their feet in the sea. They all wore nightcaps of gray
fog, and had a sullen and sleepy air. I imagined they snored, but it
was a damp wind driving over the rocks. They were northern beauties,
hard-featured and large-boned, and I would not give a graceful southern
hill, like Monte Albano or the Paphian Olympus, for the whole of them.
So I turned in again, and did not awake until the sun had dried the
decks, and the split, twisted and contorted forms of the islands gave
promise of those remarkable figures which mark the position of the
Arctic Circle. There was already a wonderful change in the scenery. The
islands were high and broken, rising like towers and pyramids from the
water, and grouped together in the most fantastic confusion. Between
their jagged pinnacles, and through their sheer walls of naked rock, we
could trace the same formation among the hills of the mainland, while in
the rear, white against the sky, stretched the snowy table-land which
forms a common summit for all. One is bewildered in the attempt to
describe such scenery. There is no central figure, no prevailing
character, no sharp contrasts, which may serve as a guide whereby to
reach the imagination of the reader. All is confused, disordered,
chaotic. One begins to understand the old Norse myth of these stones
being thrown by the devil in a vain attempt to prevent the Lord from
finishing the world. Grand as they are, singly, you are so puzzled by
their numbers and by the fantastic manner in which they seem to dance
around you, as the steamer threads the watery labyrinth, that you
scarcely appreciate them as they deserve. Take almost any one of these
hundreds, and place it inland, anywhere in Europe or America, and it
will be visited, sketched and sung to distraction.

At last we saw in the west, far out at sea, the four towers of Threnen,
rising perpendicularly many hundred feet from the water. Before us was
the _Hestmand_, or Horseman, who bridles his rocky steed with the