It was the noon of a frosty day: the sun which, as we have observed, shone brightly, gave to the face of the waters the appearance of a sheet of light. The heights around, and all other distant objects, were covered with the smoky veil of white fog, already noticed, which reduced them to shades of the neutral tint; while, on the side of the nearest hill, the clumps of wood and undulations of ground were plainly visible, and along its topmost line some scattered trees stood curiously and beautifully traced against the pale, even mistiness of all behind. In the bay, too, the nearest range of ships, with all the varied and still varying forms of their floating canvass, (for almost all the fleet at this time were employed in furling their sails,) every mast, every cord, each figure standing beneath the picturesque canopy of a sail-boat, or stretching to the oars of a row-boat, were all strongly defined, and appeared, from contrast with the snowy whiteness of the fog behind them, black as ebony; while the more distant vessels, being deeper and deeper sunk in the shrouding atmosphere, were more and more faintly shown, till the farthest seemed but one degree more palpable than the mist itself. The wind, soon after the fleet anchored, died away entirely, and all that had been activity and bustle, changed to the most peculiar repose; as though the beautiful picture, once completed, was left to delight posterity; for nothing now moved as far as the eye could reach, except that, from time to time, a gleam reflected from the flat, wet oar of some row-boat, plying between ship and ship, shot, like a flash of summer lightning, across the still and shadowy scene.