IT T was now eleven o'clock, and Svaerholt glowed in fiery bronze luster as we rounded it, the eddies of returning birds gleaming golden in the nocturnal sun, like drifts of beech leaves in the October air. Far to the north, the sun lay in a bed of saffron light over the clear horizon of the Arctic Ocean. A few bars of dazzling orange cloud floated above him, and still higher in the sky, where the saffron melted through delicate rose-color into blue, hung light wreaths of vapor, touched with pearly, opaline flushes of pink and golden gray. The sea was a web of pale slate-color, shot through and through with threads of orange and saffron, from the dance of a myriad shifting and twinkling ripples. The air was filled and permeated with the soft, mysterious glow, and even the very azure of the southern sky seemed to shine through a net of golden gauze. The headlands of this deeply indented coastthe capes of the Laxe and Porsanger Fjords, and of Mageroe―lay around us, in different degrees of distance, but all with foreheads touched with supernatural glory. Far to the northeast was Nordkyn, the most northern point of the mainland of Europe, gleaming rosily and faint in the full beams of the sun, and just as our watches denoted midnight the North Cape appeared to the westward a long line of purple bluff, presenting a vertical front of nine hundred feet in height to the Polar Sea. Midway between those two magnificent headlands stood the Midnight Sun, shining on us with subdued fires, and with the gorgeous coloring of an hour for which we have no name, since it is neither sunset nor sunrise, but with the blended loveliness of both, but shining at the same moment in the heat and splendor of noonday, on the Pacific Isles. This was the midnight sun as I had dreamed it as I had hoped to see it. Within fifteen minutes after midnight, there was a perceptible increase of altitude, and in less than half an hour the whole tone of the sky had changed, the yellow brightening into orange, and the saffron melting into the pale vermilion of dawn. The difference was so slight as scarcely to be described; but it was the difference between evening and morning. The faintest transfusion of one prevailing tint into another had changed the whole expression of heaven and earth, and so imperceptibly and miraculously that a new day was already present to our consciousness. Our view of the wild cliffs of Svaerholt, less than two hours before, belonged to yesterday, though we had stood on deck, in full sunshine, during all the intervening time. Before one o'clock we reached the entrance of the Kiollefjord, which in pre-diluvial times must have been a tremendous mountain gorge, like that of Gondo, on the Italian side of the Simplon. Its mouth is about half a mile in breadth, and its depth is not more than a mile and a half. It is completely walled in with sheer precipices of bare rock, from three to five hundred feet in height, except at the very head, where they subside into a stony heap, upon which some infatuated mortals. have built two or three cabins. As we neared the southern headland, the face of which was touched with the purest orange light, while its yawning fissures lay in deep-blue gloom, a tall ruin, with shattered turrets and crumbling spires, detached itself from the mass, and stood alone at the foot of the precipice. This is the "Finnkirka" or "Church of the Lapps," well known to all the northern coasters. At first it resembles a tall church with a massive square spire; but the two parts separate again, and you have a crag-perched castle of the Middle Ages, with its watch-tower, the very counterpart of scores in Germany, -and a quaint Gothic chapel on the point beyond. The vertical strata of the rock, worn into sharp points at the top and gradually broadening to the base, with numberless notched ornaments, make the resemblance marvelous, when seen under the proper effect of light and shade. The luster in which we saw it had the effect of enchantment. There was a play of colors upon it, such as one sees in illuminated Moorish halls, and I am almost afraid to say how much I was enraptured by a scene which has not its equal on the whole Norwegian coast. Svaerholt: a promontory on the extreme northern part of Norway, lying between the Porsanger and Laxe Fjords, or bays. Mageroe and Kiollefjord are also bays in the northern part of Norway. Nordkyn and North Cape: headlands of Norway; the former is the most northern part of Europe. pre-diluvial: before the Flood. Gondo: a wild gorge of the Alps in the Simplon Pass. Simplon one of the chief passes over the Alps, famous for its road built by Napoleon I. ILENCE as of death, for midnight, even in the SILE Arctic latitudes, has its character; nothing but the granite cliffs ruddy-tinged, the peaceable gurgle of the slow-heaving Polar Ocean, over which in the utmost north the great sun hangs low and lazy, as if he too were slumbering in such moments, solitude also is invaluable; for who would speak, or be looked on, when behind him lies Europe and Africa, fast asleep, except the watchmen; and before him the silent immensity, and Palace of the Eternal, whereof our sun is but a porch lamp. THOMAS CARLYLE: Sartor Resartus. 64. THE NECKAN By Matthew Arnold MATTHEW ARNOLD (Dec. 24, 1822-April 15, 1888) was the son of Dr. Thomas Arnold, the famous head master of Rugby School, and had, therefore, unusual opportunities for education. He made the most of these advantages and won honors at Balliol College, Oxford. Besides his literary work, he did good service as Inspector of Schools, and did much to assist education in its highest sense. He strove in his books and essays to arouse a better kind of intellectual feeling in England. His first works were in poetry, but before he was widely known as a poet, he had made his reputation as a prose writer. His style is clear, and he is a perfect master of English. "The Neckan" is one of his early poems, and tells again the legend of the being, half-human and half merman or mermaid, who is striving to attain a complete soul and salvation. Usually the poor creature is half-woman, as Melusina and the Loreley, but the unfortunate Neckan is a man sprite who weeps and tells his sad tale. N summer, on the headlands, IN The Baltic Sea along, Sits Neckan with his harp of gold, |