Into this disembodied world would come anon
waftures of that peachy scent which I knew: and their frequency rapidly
grew. But still the _Boreal_ moved, traversing, as it were, bottomless
Eternity: and I reached latitude 72 deg., not far now from Northern Europe.
And now, as to that blossomy peach-scent--even while some floes were yet
around me--I was just like some fantastic mariner, who, having set out
to search for Eden and the Blessed Islands, finds them, and balmy gales
from their gardens come out, while he is yet afar, to meet him with
their perfumes of almond and champac, cornel and jasmin and lotus. For I
had now reached a zone where the peach-aroma was constant; all the world
seemed embalmed in its spicy fragrance; and I could easily imagine
myself voyaging beyond the world toward some clime of perpetual and
enchanting Spring.
* * * * *
Well, I saw at last what whalers used to call 'the blink of the ice';
that is to say, its bright apparition or reflection in the sky when it
is left behind, or not yet come-to.
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