At twelve o’clock we went below, and had just got through dinner when the cook put his head down the scuttle and told us to come on deck and see the finest sight that we had ever seen. “Where away, doctor?” asked the first man who was up. “On the larboard bow.” And there lay, floating in the ocean, several miles off, an immense, irregular mass, its top and points covered with snow, and its center of a deep indigo color. This was an iceberg, and of the largest size, as one of our men said who had been in the Northern Ocean. As far as the eye could reach, the sea in every direction was of a deep blue color, the waves running high and fresh, and sparkling in the light; and in the midst lay this immense mountain-island, its cavities and valleys thrown into deep shade, and its points and pinnacles glittering in the sun. All hands were soon on deck looking at it, and admiring, in various ways, its beauty and grandeur. But no description can give any idea of the strangeness, splendor, and really the sublimity of the sight. Its great size,--for it must have been from two to three miles in circumference, and several hundred feet in height,--its slow motion, as its base rose and sank in the water and its high points nodded against the clouds; the dashing of the waves upon it, which, breaking high with foam, lined its base with a white crust; and the thundering sound of the cracking of the mass, and the breaking and tumbling down of huge pieces, together with its nearness and approach, which added to a slight element of fear, all combined to give to it the character of true sublimity. The main body of the mass was, as I have said, of an indigo color, its base crusted with foam, and, as it grew thin and transparent towards the edges and top, its color shaded off from a deep blue to the whiteness of snow. It seemed to be drifting slowly towards the north, so that we kept away and avoided it. It was in sight all the afternoon, and when we got to leeward of it the wind died away, so that we lay to quite near it for a greater part of the night. Unfortunately there was no moon; but it was a clear night, and we could plainly mark the long, regular heaving of the stupendous mass, as its edges moved slowly against the stars, now revealing them and now shutting them in. Several times in our watch loud cracks were heard, which sounded as though they must have run through the whole length of the iceberg, and several pieces fell down with a thundering crash, plunging heavily into the sea. Towards morning a strong breeze sprang up, and we filled away, and left it astern, and at daylight it was out of sight. _From “Two Years before the Mast.”_ JOHN MILTON. JOHN MILTON was born in 1608, in a house called “The Spread Eagle,” in the very heart of old London. [Illustration]