sk Gulf. It was a land of desolation. A great level steppe,
as boundless to the weary eye as the ocean itself, stretched away in
every direction to the far horizon, without a single tree or bush
to relieve its white, snowy surface. Nowhere did we see any sign of
animal or vegetable life, any suggestion of summer or flowers or warm
sunshine, to brighten the dreary waste of storm-drifted snow.

White, cold, and silent, it lay before us like a vast frozen ocean,
lighted up faintly by the slender crescent of the waning moon in the
east, and the weird blue streamers of the aurora, which went racing
swiftly back and forth along the northern horizon. Even when the sun
rose, huge and fiery, in a haze of frozen moisture at the south,
it did not seem to infuse any warmth or life into the bleak wintry
landscape. It only drowned, in a dull red glare, the blue, tremulous
streamers of the aurora and the white radiance of the moon and stars,
tinged the snow with a faint colour like a stormy sunset, and lighted
up a splendid mirage in the north-west which startled us with its
solemn mockery of familiar scenes. The wand of the Northern Enchanter
touched the barren snowy steppe, and it suddenly became a blue
tropical lake, upon whose distant shore rose the walls, domes, and
slender minarets of a vast oriental city. Masses of luxuriant foliage
seemed to overhang the clear blue water, and to be reflected in its
depths, while the white walls above just caught the first flush of the
rising sun. Never was the illusion of summer in winter, of life in
death, more palpable or more perfect. One almost instinctively glanced
around to assure himself, by the sight of familiar objects, that it
was not a dream; but as his eyes turned again to the north-west across
the dim blue lake, the vast tremulous outlines of the mirage still
confronted him in their unearthly beauty, and the "cloud-capped towers
and gorgeous palaces" seemed, by their mysterious solemnity, to rebuke
the doubt which would ascribe them to a dream. The bright apparition
faded, glowed, and faded again into indistinctness, and from its ruins
rose two colossal pillars sculptured from rose quartz, which gradually
united their capitals and formed a titanic arch like the grand portal
of heaven. This, in turn, melted into an extensive fortress, with,
massive bastions and buttresses, flanking towers and deep embrasures,
and salient and re-entering angles whose shadows and perspective were
as