indifference; but
now we fretted, and expressed our annoyance in clamorous and bitter
terms. Towards evening the cutter drifted among a fleet of
fishing-boats; and it was no little entertainment to see the rapidity
with which the fishermen drew net after net, and the shoals of fish they
caught. Flocks of gulls hovered over the boats, and screamed; and
sometimes darted down, and bore away the fish in their beaks. We
purchased some very large fish, which were not cod, but very like them;
and satisfied with their great likeness to that favourite fish, we ate
them with greediness; but the heads being of an abominable bull-dog
shape, the cook was ordered to decapitate, before committing them to the
pot.

On Wednesday morning we entered the Sogne Fiord. It would be tedious to
dwell on the magnificence, beauty, and silence of this Fiord; because it
would only become a repetition of what I have already attempted to
describe as native to the other Fiords. There can be no softer, and more
soul-stirring scenery in the world than its small, rare, green valleys,
and barren mountains.

This evening, towards sunset, the cutter being becalmed, I went ashore
in one of the boats with two men, in search of milk; and making the boat
fast to a piece of rock, we walked to the top of a neighbouring hill to
look for some signs of a human habitation; but only the waters of the
Fiord could be seen at our feet, and the yacht, with a cloud of white
canvass, floating on its still surface. No sound,--not a bird's note,
nor the cry of animals, fell on the listening ear; save, occasionally,
the loud roar and splash of the rocks as they were loosened from the
mountains' sides, and rolled down into the water. Wandering about for
some time, struck with the sublime, solemn aspect of the mountains and
their level summits of endless snow, we found a goat tied with a string
to a stake; and taking that as a token of the near abode of human
beings, we strove to find some track through the long grass that might
lead us to a cottage. One of the sailors climbed up a tree, and veering
his body about in all quarters, like a bear on the top of a pole, came
down again, and said, that he saw smoke curling upwards from the middle
of a fir forest to the south-east. I had a small pocket-compass, and to
the south-east, therefore, we went; and after stumbling over fallen
rocks, and pulling each other up and down a variety of ravines,
differing in depth and ruggedness, we