Those who have never stood at the mast-head of a ship at sea in a dead calm cannot comprehend the feeling of intense solitude that fills the mind in such a position. There is nothing analogous to it on land. To stand on the summit of a tower and look down on the busy multitude below is not the same, for there the sounds are quite different in _tone_, and signs of life are visible all over the distant country, while cries from afar reach the ear, as well as those from below. But from the mast-head you hear only the few subdued sounds under your feet--all beyond is silence; you behold only the small, oval-shaped platform that is your _world_--beyond lies the calm desolate ocean. On deck you cannot realize this feeling, for there sails and yards tower above you, and masts, and boats, and cordage intercept your view; but from above you _take in_ the intense minuteness of your home at a single glance--you stand aside, as it were, and in some measure comprehend the insignificance of the _thing_ to which you have committed your life. The scene witnessed by our friends at the masthead of the _Dolphin_ on this occasion was surpassingly beautiful. Far as the eye could stretch the sea was covered with islands and fields of ice of every conceivable shape. Some rose in little peaks and pinnacles, some floated in the form of arches and domes, some were broken and rugged like the ruins of old border strongholds, while others were flat and level like fields of white marble; and so calm was it, that the ocean in which they floated seemed like a groundwork of polished steel, in which the sun shone with dazzling brilliancy. The tops of the icy islets were pure white, and the sides of the higher ones of a delicate blue colour, which gave to the scene a transparent lightness that rendered it pre-eminently fairy-like. "It far surpasses anything I ever conceived," ejaculated Singleton after a long silence. "No wonder that authors speak of scenes being indescribable. Does it not seem like a dream, Fred?" "Tom," replied Fred earnestly, "I've been trying to fancy myself in another world, and I have almost succeeded. When I look long and intently at the ice, I get almost to believe that these are streets, and palaces, and cathedrals. I never felt so strong a desire to have wings that I might fly from one island to another, and go floating in and out and round about those blue caves and sparkling pinnacles." "It's a curious fancy, Fred, but not unnatural." "Tom," said Fred after another long silence, "has not the thought occurred to you that God made it all?" "Some such thought did cross my mind, Fred, for a moment, but it soon passed away. Is it not _very_ strange that the idea of the Creator is so seldom and so slightly connected with his works in our minds?"