ead come back in the trumpet of the
wild-goose, the whistling wing of the duck, the plaintive cry of the
plover. Your nose--ah! your nose cocks up and snuffs a smell--pardon!--
a scent. It is the scent of the great orb on which you stand, saturated
_at last_ with life-giving water, and beginning to vivify all the green
things that have so long been hidden in her capacious bosom.

But it is to your eye, perhaps, that the strongest appeal is made, for
while you throw off one by one the garments which have protected you for
so many months, and open up body and soul to the loved, long-absent,
influences of warmth, and sound, and odour, your eye drinks up the
mighty draughts of light--light not only blazing in the blue above, but
reflected from the blue below--for the solid ice-fields are now split
into fragments; the swell of old Ocean sends a musical ripple to the
shore; great icebergs are being shed from their parent glaciers, and are
seen floating away in solemn procession to the south, lifting their
pinnacles towards their grandparent clouds, until finally reduced to the
melting mood, and merged in their great-grandparent the sea. Imagine
such visions and sensations coming suddenly, almost as a surprise, at
the end of the stern Arctic winter, and then, perchance, you will have
some idea of the bounding joy that fills the soul on the advent of
Spring, inducing it to feel, if not to say, "Let every thing that hath
breath praise the Lord."

_This_ is Spring! The Eskimos understand it, and so do the dwellers in
Rupert's Land; perchance, also, the poor exiles of Siberia--but the
poets--pooh!

Far down below the perch occupied by Ippegoo lay a little sandy bay,
around which were scattered a number of Eskimo huts--rude and temporary
buildings, meant to afford shelter for a time and then be forsaken.
This was the bay which Angut, Okiok, Simek, Red Rooney, and the others
had reached in their pursuit of the wizard when the ice broke up and
effectually stopped them.

As it was utterly impossible to advance farther with dog and sledge,
they were compelled to restrain their impatience as best they could, and
await open water, when they might resume their journey in kayaks.
Meanwhile, as there was a lead of open water to the northward as far as
they could see, the youth Arbalik had been despatched with a small
sledge and four of the strongest dogs along the strip of land-ice, or
"ice-foot," which clung to the shore. His miss