ruddy hue.     

       Darkness thickens in every other direction; the white wilds of the desert are now scarcely visible under the black vault of the firmament.     

       Strange and confused noises are heard amidst this obscurity.     

       They sound like the flight of large night—birds—now flapping now-heavily skimming over the steppes-now descending.     

       But no cry is heard.     

       This silent terror heralds the approach of one of those imposing phenomena that awe alike the most ferocious and the most harmless, of animated beings. An Aurora Borealis (magnificent sight!) common in the polar regions, suddenly beams forth.     

       A half circle of dazzling whiteness becomes visible in the horizon. Immense columns of light stream forth from this dazzling centre, rising to a great height, illuminating earth, sea, and sky. Then a brilliant reflection, like the blaze of a conflagration, steals over the snow of the desert, purples the summits of the mountains of ice, and imparts a dark red hue to the black rocks of both continents.     

       After attaining this magnificent brilliancy, the Northern Lights fade away gradually, and their vivid glow is lost in a luminous fog.     

       Just then, by a wondrous mirage an effect very common in high latitudes, the American Coast, though separated from Siberia by a broad arm of the sea, loomed so close that a bridge might seemingly be thrown from one world to other.     

       Then human forms appeared in the transparent azure haze overspreading both forelands.     

       On the Siberian Cape, a man on his knees, stretched his arms towards America, with an expression of inconceivable despair.     

       On the American promontory, a young and handsome woman replied to the man’s despairing gesture by pointing to heaven.     

       For some seconds, these two tall figures stood out, pale and shadowy, in the farewell gleams of the Aurora.     

       But the fog thickens, and all is lost in the darkness.     

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