that whiteness is snow, and the luminous tinge above it is the
reflection of the glaring sunshine thrown upwards from the dazzle. It
cannot be ice! 'tis too mighty a barrier. Surely no single iceberg ever
reached to the prodigious proportions of that coast. And it cannot be an
assemblage of bergs, for there is no break--it is leagues of solid
conformation. Oh yes, it is land, sure enough! some island whose tops
and seaboard are covered with snow. But what of that? It may be
populated all the same. Are the northern kingdoms of Europe bare of life
because of the winter rigours?' And then thought to myself, if that
island have natives, I would rather encounter them as the savages of an
ice-bound country than as the inhabitants of a land of sunshine and
spices and radiant vegetation; for it is the denizens of the most
gloriously fair ocean seats in the world who are man-eaters; not the
Patagonian, giant though he be, nor the blubber-fed anatomies of the
ice-climes.

Thus I sought to reassure and comfort myself. Meanwhile my boat sailed
quietly along, running up and down the smooth and foamless hills of
water very buoyantly, and the sun slided into the north-west sky and
darted a reddening beam upon the coast towards which I steered.

CHAPTER VI.

AN ISLAND OF ICE.

I had to approach the coast within two miles before I could satisfy my
mind of its nature, and then all doubt left me.

It was _ice!_ a mighty crescent of it--as was now in a measure
gatherable, floating upon the dark blue waters like the new moon upon
the field of the sky.

For a great while I had struggled with my misgivings, so tyrannically
will hope lord it even over conviction itself, until it was impossible
for me to any longer mistake. And then, when I knew it to be ice, I
asked myself what other thing I expected it should prove, seeing that
this ocean had been plentifully navigated since Cook's time and no land
discovered where I was; and I called myself a fool and cursed the hope
that had cheated me, and, in short, gave way to a violent outburst of
passion, and was indeed so wild with grief and rage that, had my ecstasy
been but a very little greater, I must have jumped overboard, so great
was my loathing of life then, and the horror the sight of the ice filled
me with.

Indeed, you cannot conceive how shocking to me was the appearance of
that great gleaming length of white desolation. On the deck of a stout
ship sailing safely past it