alone across the sands of Africa, the bird is neither seen nor heard;
the torpid atmosphere, deprived of its electrical conditions, echoes
neither the whirr of its wings nor its joyous notes. Besides, what
human eye was strong enough to bear the glitter of those pinnacles
adorned with sparkling crystals, or the sharp reflections of the snow,
iridescent on the summits in the rays of a pallid sun which
infrequently appeared, like a dying man seeking to make known that he
still lives. Often, when the flocks of gray clouds, driven in
squadrons athwart the mountains and among the tree-tops, hid the sky
with their triple veils Earth, lacking the celestial lights, lit
herself by herself.

Here, then, we meet the majesty of Cold, seated eternally at the pole
in that regal silence which is the attribute of all absolute monarchy.
Every extreme principle carries with it an appearance of negation and
the symptoms of death; for is not life the struggle of two forces?
Here in this Northern nature nothing lived. One sole power--the
unproductive power of ice--reigned unchallenged. The roar of the open
sea no longer reached the deaf, dumb inlet, where during one short
season of the year Nature made haste to produce the slender harvests
necessary for the food of the patient people. A few tall pine-trees
lifted their black pyramids garlanded with snow, and the form of their
long branches and depending shoots completed the mourning garments of
those solemn heights.

Each household gathered in its chimney-corner, in houses carefully
closed from the outer air, and well supplied with biscuit, melted
butter, dried fish, and other provisions laid in for the seven-months
winter. The very smoke of these dwellings was hardly seen, half-hidden
as they were beneath the snow, against the weight of which they were