Letters from high latitudes : being some account of a voyage, in 1856, in the schooner yacht "Foam" to Iceland, Jan Mayen, and Spitzbergen . epretty ladies of this country as waltzes were to our grand-mothers. Nay, there was not even to be found a nativemilliner equal to the task of marking out that mysteriousline which divides the prudish from the improper; so thatthe Collet-monte faction have been in despair. As it turnedout, their anxiety on this head was unnecessary; for wefound, on entering the ball-room, that, with the natural re-finement which characterises this noble people, our bright
Letters from high latitudes : being some account of a voyage, in 1856, in the schooner yacht "Foam" to Iceland, Jan Mayen, and Spitzbergen . epretty ladies of this country as waltzes were to our grand-mothers. Nay, there was not even to be found a nativemilliner equal to the task of marking out that mysteriousline which divides the prudish from the improper; so thatthe Collet-monte faction have been in despair. As it turnedout, their anxiety on this head was unnecessary; for wefound, on entering the ball-room, that, with the natural re-finement which characterises this noble people, our bright-eyed partners, as if by inspiration, had hit off the exact 1 I regret to be obliged to subjoin that Dr. Scoresby has died sincethe above was written. VII.] ICELANDIC LADIES, 97 sweep from shoulder to shoulder, at which—after thosemany oscillations, up and down, which the female corsagehas undergone since the time of the first Director—goodtaste has finally arrested it. I happened to be particularly interested in the aboveimportant question ; for up to that moment I had alwaysbeen haunted by a horrid paragraph I had met with some-. AN ICELANDIC LADY. where in an Icelandic book of travels, to the effect that itwas the practice of Icelandic women, from early childhood,to flatten down their bosoms as much as possible. Thisfact, for the honour of the island, I am now in a position todeny ; and I here declare that, as far as I had the indis-cretion to observe, those maligned ladies appeared to me asbuxom in form as any rosy English girl I have ever seen. 98 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. It was nearly nine oclock before we adjourned fromthe Reine Hortense to the ball. Already, for some timepast, boats full of gay dresses had been passing under thecorvettes stern on their way to the Artemise looking likeflower-beds that had put to sea,—though they certainly couldno longer be called a parterre; —and by the time we our-selves mounted her lofty sides, a mingled stream of mus
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