noon
Some few black dots here and there disfiguring the snowy slopes and glittering ice-covered rocks was all that remained of them . In the midst of the vivid blue-green of the inlet behind me , a little wedge of black , lay the steamer , the only reminder that I was one also of these miserable black dots and in an hour I should be collected and taken away as one of them . For this hour , however , I was free and at one with the divine glory about me . It was just noon . The sky was of a pale and perfect blue , the air still , of miraculous clearness and radiant with the pure light of the North , unshaded , unsoftened by the smallest mist or cloud . The silence was unbroken except for the regular thunder of the falling bergs , that continued with absolute precision at the five-minute interval , and the accompanying splash of the water . I walked on up the strand , having the great glistening wall of the glacier 's face somewhat on my left .