s and mountains, when
observed in clear sunshine, is subtile and luminous to a degree that
surpasses admiration. I have seen the Camden Heights across the waters
of Penobscot Bay when their blue was equally profound; for these hills,
beheld over twenty miles or more of sea, do a wonderful thing in the way
of color, lifting themselves up there through all the long summer days,
a very marvel of solemn and glorious beauty. The AEgean Sea has a charm
of atmosphere which is wanting to Penobscot Bay, but the hue of its
heights cannot compare with that of the Camden Hills. Those of Labrador,
however, maintain their supremacy above even these,--above all. They
look like frozen sky. Or one might fancy that a vast heart or core of
amethyst was deeply overlaid with colorless crystal, and shone through
with a softened, lucent ray. Such transparency, such _intense_ delicacy,
such refinement of hue! Sometimes, too, there is seen in the deep
hollows, between the lofty billows of blue, a purple that were fit to
clothe the royalty of immortal kings, while the blue itself is flecked
as it were with a spray of white light, which one might guess to be a
precipitate of sunshine.

This was wonderful; but more wonderful and most wonderful was to come.
It was given me once and once again to look on a vision, an enchantment,
a miracle of all but impossible beauty, incredible until seen, and even
when seen scarcely to be credited, save by an act of faith. We had
sailed up a deep bay, and cast anchor in a fine large harbor of the
exactest horseshoe shape. It was bordered immediately by a gentle ridge
some three hundred feet high, which was densely wooded with spruce, fir,
and larch. Beyond this ridge, to the west, rose mountainous hills, while
to the south, where was the head of the harbor, it was overlooked
immediately by a broad, noble mountain. It had been one of those
white-skied days, when the heavens are covered by a uniform filmy
fleece, and the light comes as if it had been filtered through milk. But
just before sunset this fleece was rent, and a river of sunshine
streamed across the ridge at the head of the harbor, leaving the
mountain beyond, and the harbor itself, with its wooded sides, still in
shadow. And where that shine fell, the foliage changed from green to a
glowing, luminous red-brown, expressed with astonishing force,--not a
trace, not a hint of green remaining! Beyond it, the mountain preserved
its whited gray; nearer, on eit