r any ordinary man to
contend--the tariff fixes the price of posting for fast and slow
stations in the country, the only difficulty being to find where the
towns are after you get into them, or to know at what stage of the
journey you leave them. The Amtmand, by letter to all the authorities,
likewise requires the tariff to be hung conspicuously in all the inns;
which tariff, says the law, "is altered according to the rise and fall
of provisions."

When I came to study out all this, and consider the duties and
obligations imposed on me as a traveler going a journey of three or
four hundred miles; that I was to be subject to contingencies and
liabilities depending upon the elements both by land and sea; that
serious responsibilities fell upon me if I held the reins of the
post-horse, and probably heavy risks of life and limb if the post-boy
held them; that the inn-keeper, station-holder, alderman, or two men
chosen miscellaneously from the ranks of society, were to judge of
damages that might be inflicted upon the horse; that I must register
my name in a day-book, and enter formal complaints against the
authorities on the way about every ten miles; that the tariff might
rise and fall five hundred times during the journey, for aught I knew,
according to the rise and fall of provisions or the pleasure of the
Amtmand; that conspiracies might be entered into against me to make me
pay for all the lame, halt, blind, and spavined horses in the country,
and my liberty restrained in some desolate region of the mountains;
that I could not speak a dozen words of the language, and had no other
means of personal defense against imposition than a small pen-knife
and the natural ferocity of my countenance--when all these
considerations occurred to me, I confess they made me hesitate a
little before launching out from Lillehammer.

However, the landlord of the post, a jolly and good-natured old
gentleman, relieved my apprehensions by providing such a breakfast of
coffee, eggs, beefsteak, fish, and bread, that my sunken spirits were
soon thoroughly aroused, and I felt equal to any emergency. When I
looked out on the bright hill-sides, and saw the sun glistening on the
dewy sod, and heard the post-boys in the yard whistling merrily to the
horses, I was prepared to face the great Amtmand itself. In a little
while the horse and cariole designed for my use were brought up before
the door, and the landlord informed me that all was "_fertig_