Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/440

 *

the bay, the icebergs were driven out of sight, and the open water was not more than a quarter of a mile distant from us.

The sun reaching its greatest northern declination on the 21st, we were now in the full blaze of summer. Six eventful months had passed over since the Arctic midnight shrouded us in gloom, and now we had reached the Arctic mid-day. And this mid-day was a day of wonderful brightness. The temperature had gone up higher than at any previous time, marking, at meridian, 49°, while in the sun the thermometer showed 57°. The barometer was away up to 30.076, and a more calm and lovely air never softened an Arctic landscape.

Tempted by the day, I strolled down into the valley south of the harbor. The recent snow had mostly disappeared, and valley and hill-side were speckled with a rich carpet of green, with only here and there a patch of the winter snow yet undissolved,—an emerald carpet, fringed and inlaid with silver and sprinkled over with fragments of a bouquet,—for many flowers were now in full bloom, and their tiny faces peeped above the sod. A herd of reindeer were browsing on the plain beneath me, and some white rabbits had come from their hiding-places to feed upon the bursting willow-buds. New objects of interest led me on from spot to spot—babbling brooks, and rocky hill-sides, and little glaciers, and softening snow-banks, alternating with patches of tender green—until, at length, I came to the base of a lofty hill, whose summit was surmounted with an imposing wall which overlooked the sea, seemingly a vast turreted castle, guarding the entrance to the valley. I thought of my late comrade, and named it Sonntag's