Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/397

 372 FIRST APPEARANCE OF ICEBERGS.

lights, which had been in for nearly a week, were re moved. The service was read by Captain Hoskins, and the Rev. President Wayland gave an impressive dis course on the right education for eternity, from the passage, &quot;Now see we through a glass darkly, but then face to face.&quot;

At seven we went on deck to see a most glorious sunset. The king of day, robed in surpassing splendor, took his farewell of the last Sabbath that we were to spend at sea. While we were gazing with delight, a huge dark mass arose exactly in the brilliant track of the departed orb. It was pronounced by the captain to be an iceberg, three quarters of a mile in length, and its most prominent points one hundred feet high. Of course its entire altitude was four hundred feet, as only one third of the ice mountains appear above the sur face. It presented an irregular outline, towering up into sharp and broken crags, and at a distance resembled the black hulks of several enormous men-of-war, lashed together. Three others of smaller dimensions soon came on in its train, like a fleet following the admiral. We were then in north latitude 43, and in longitude 48 40&quot;. We literally shivered with cold ; for on the ap proach of these ambassadors from the frigid zone, the thermometer suddenly sank below the freezing point, leaving the temperature of the water 25, and of the atmosphere 28.

On this strange and appalling scene the stars looked out, one after another, with their calm, pure eyes. All at once a glare of splendor burst forth, and a magnificent

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