time, they are said to
use the whip more frequently than is necessary. I do not know that this
is an incorrect opinion. As one man has peculiarities that another man
has not, so one nation may be noted for eccentricities, of which another
nation is devoid; and, for my own part, I am inclined to think, that,
however superciliously Englishmen may regard the usages and habits of
foreigners, there are no people who give strangers a truer idea of
maniacs than Englishmen themselves.

R---- and P----, returned in the evening with a boat full of salmon, and
one fine fish, weighing nearly thirty-two pounds, was smoked and
prepared to be sent as a present to England. I passed the whole of the
subsequent day at Larvig, and the Consul begged, that as I was alone, I
would dine with him. I accepted his invitation. After dinner, in the
cool of the afternoon, his daughters, two very lady-like and pretty
girls, requested me to join an excursion they were about to make across
the fiord, to the opposite shore. These ladies would insist upon rowing
the boat the whole distance, upwards of two miles, themselves. I
objected for a time; but when they told me it was the custom of the
country, and, that the art of sculling was as much an accomplishment as
the softer allurements of the harp, or guitar, I felt more reconciled,
and fully appreciated an honour that could never be offered to me again.

At half-past ten o'clock, shortly after we had returned from our trip,
and while I was standing on a high rock, from which an extensive view of
the fiord could be seen, and talking to the Consul and several ladies, a
gun was fired from the yacht.

"His Lordship is returned," said the Consul to me, "and I think that is
for you."

"If it be so, they will fire again," I replied. The echo of the cable,
as the men began to heave it, left the Consul's conjecture no longer
chimerical; and after a little while, the flash and report of another
gun leaped one after the other, from crag to crag, through the dusk of
evening, and whirling above our heads, bounded over the summit of the
mountain.

"Come, there's no doubt now," observed the Consul, turning round towards
me.

"No," I answered; "but they don't suppose I can get on board without a
boat."

"You can have mine, with pleasure;" and the Consul, addressing his
little son, desired that a boat should be kept in readiness.

"Oh! there! look there," exclaimed two, or three ladies, pointing
towards the