Page:Furcountryorseve00vernrich.djvu/67

 FROM FORT RELIANCE TO FORT ENTERPRISE. 2g intrepid women, in their otter-skin caps and white bear-skin mantles, gazed in astonishment upon the rugged scenery around them, and at the white outlines of the huge glaciers standing out against the hori- zon. They had already left behind them the hills of the northern banks of the Slave Lake, with their summits crowned with the gaunt skeletons of trees. The vast plains stretched before them in ap- parently endless succession. The rapid flight and cries of a few birds of passage aloi'e broke the monotony of the scene. Now and then a troop of swans, with plumage so white that the keenest sight could not distinguish them from the snow when they settled on the ground, rose into view in the clear blue atmosphere and pur- sued their journey to the north. " What an extraordinary country ! " exclaimed Mrs Paulina Bar- nett. " What a diflerence between these Polar regions and the green prairies of Australia ! You remember, Madge, how we suffered from the heat on the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria — you remember the cloudless sky and the parching sunbeams 1 " " My dear," replied Madge, " I have not the gift of remembering like you. You retain your impressions, I forget mine." " What, Madge ! " cried Mrs Barnett, " you have forgotten the tropical heat of India and Australia ? You have no recollection of our agonies when water failed us in the desert, when the pitiless sun scorched us to the bone, when even the night brought us no relief from our sufferings ! " " No, Paulina," replied Madge, wrapping her furs more closely round her, " no, I remember nothing. How could I now recollect the sufferings to which you allude — the heat, the agonies of thirst — when we are surrounded on every side by ice, and I have but to stretch my arm out of this sledge to pick up a handful of snow ] You talk to me of heat when we are freezing beneath our bear- skins ; you recall the broiling rays of the sun when its April beams cannot melt the icicles on our lips ! No, child, no, don't try to per- suade me it 's hot anywhere else ; don't tell me I ever complained of being too warm, for I sha'n't believe you ! " Mrs Paulina Barnett could not help smiling. " So, poor Madge," she said, " you are very cold 1 *' doubt it 's very healthy, and I think North America will agree with me. It 's really a very fine country ! " " Yes, Madge, it u a fine country, and we have as yet seen none
 * ' Yes, child, I am cold ; but I rather like this climate. I Ve no