Nor did the land offer much greater variety, being
almost entirely covered with snow, except here and there a brown
patch of bare ground in some exposed situations, where the wind
had not allowed the snow to remain. When viewed from the summit of
the neighbouring hills, on one of those calm and clear days which
not unfrequently occurred during the winter, the scene was such as
to induce contemplations which had, perhaps, more of melancholy
than of any other feeling. Not an object was to be seen on which
the eye could long rest with pleasure, unless when directed to the
spot where our ships lay and where our little colony was planted.
The smoke which there issued from the several fires, affording a
certain indication of the presence of man, gave a partial
cheerfulness to this part of the prospect; and the sound of
voices, which, during the cold weather, could be heard at a much
greater distance than usual, served now and then to break the
silence which reigned around us; a silence far different from that
peaceable composure which characterizes the landscape of a
cultivated country; it was the deathlike stillness of the most
dreary desolation, and the total absence of animated existence.
Such, indeed, was the want of objects to afford relief to the eye
or amusement to the mind, that a stone of more than usual size
appearing above the snow in the direction in which we were going,
immediately became a mark on which our eyes were unconsciously
fixed, and towards which we mechanically advanced.
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