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The Ice Island.
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snow, or glittering here and there with, icy glaciers. The scene reminded me of some parts of the Moon, and of the lofty plateau of the Dofrefeld. But beyond it and below, was neither lunar desolation nor brown plains of moorland, nor green fields and forests as in your European snowy mountain ranges. As the snows were lost in the low country, vast forests appeared—crimson as blood, or orange-coloured—glowing in the sunlight with a rich deep red. They grew on the ledges of the cliffs under the snows, on the mountain terraces, and lastly stretched down in slopes to the green waters of the Delarue Ocean.

We resolved to plunge downwards to these forests. We flew easily to one of the terraces with overhanging cliffs around it. Here we alighted amidst this crimson vegetation. The effect, as the sun shone through the blood-red leaves, was unutterably superb. The very light was tinted to a ruddy glow. All was gorgeous and magnificent. There is a certain majesty and power in the colour of red which, when seen in large fields, impresses the mind. But no one who has not seen vast masses of red all around in every direction above (in leafy foliage), below in the ruddy, as it were, blood-stained turf, around—in vegetation of quaint