After passing this grand specimen of the architecture of the sea,
there appeared long rocky reaches like Egyptian temples,--old, dead
cliffs of yellowish gray, checked off by lines and seams into squares,
and having the resemblance, where they have fallen out into the ocean,
of doors and windows opening in upon the fresher stone. Presently we
came to a break, where there were grassy slopes and crags
intermingled, and a flock of goats skipping about, or ruminating in
the warm sunshine. A knot of kids--the reckless little creatures--were
sporting along the edge of a precipice in a manner almost painful to
witness. The pleasure of leaping from point to point, where a single
misstep would have dropped them hundreds of feet, seemed to be in
proportion to the danger. The sight of some women, who were after the
goats, reminded the boatmen of an accident which occurred here only a
few days before: a lad playing about the steep fell into the sea, and
was drowned.
We were now close upon the point just behind which we expected to
behold the iceberg. The surf was sweeping the black reef that flanked
the small cape, in the finest style,--a beautiful dance of breakers of
dazzling white and green. As every stroke of the oars shot us forward,
and enlarged our view of the field in which the ice was reposing, our
hearts fairly throbbed with an excitement of expectation. "There it
is!" one exclaimed. An instant revealed the mistake. It was only the
next headland in a fog, which unwelcome mist was now coming down upon
us from the broad waters, and covering the very tract where the berg
was expected to be seen.
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