The midnight sun
At length he sailed from Drontheim with perhaps the strongest armament that had ever swept over the northern sea . The scene is changed . It is night ; yet how different from night in most other inhabited parts of the earth ! The midnight sun is just sinking beneath the horizon , close to the spot whence , in about twenty minutes , he will rise , to repeat his prolonged course of nearly four-and-twenty hours through the northern sky . But if the darkness of night is absent , its deep quietude is there . The mighty cliffs that rise like giant walls to heaven , casting broad , heavy shadows over the sea , send forth no echoes , for the innumerable birds that dwell among them are silently perched like snowflakes on every crag , or nestled in every crevice , buried in repose . The sea resembles glass , and glides with but a faint sigh upon the shore .