Sudden silence fell. The engines had stopped. The boat was still moving forward under its own momentum. I heard a faint swish of water against the sides, the plangent cry-ing of sea birds, that sad northern sound. Otherwise all was silent. No sounds of traffic, of bells or voices, came from the land. The town of ruins waited in utter silence under the brooding mountains. I thought of long narrow ancient ships, vast collections of loot preserved in barrows, winged helmets, drinking horns, great heavy ornaments of gold and silver, piles of fossilized bones. It looked a place of the past, of the dead.

Ice, Anna Kavan 1967.