uman abode.

On Friday morning, at twelve, we arrived at Leerdal; and considered
ourselves most fortunate in taking only four days to drift from Bergen;
for beyond the eddying air that breathed down the valleys, no other
agency had propelled the vessel nearly one hundred miles.

Here we met a young Englishman who had travelled, for pleasure, over
land from Christiania; and although he could not speak two Norwegian
words, had contrived, by some unaccountable method, to supply all his
wants without difficulty. He was on his way to Bergen; and giving him
all the information he begged of us, we parted company, exchanging
mutual desires to meet again. Finding this place most desolate, we left
it, and the cutter was got under weigh the next morning, Saturday, for
Auron, a small town not many leagues farther up the Sogne Fiord, and
receiving from both our pilots the reputation of greater liveliness and
importance. Early the following morning we came within sight of Auron,
and went ashore before the anchor was dropped.

Auron, like all the Norwegian villages that are found, at rare
intervals, among the Fiords, is situated in a valley that rises gently
from the shore of the Fiord, and hastens in a steep ascent till it
aspires, south, east, and west, into high mountains, and inaccessible
cliffs. This hamlet of Auron was the most pleasantly situated of any
that we had seen; and the romantic beauty of the scenery was not more
perfect than the unanimity that seemed to animate the whole village. The
yellow ears of corn had invited men, women, children, and dogs to gather
them for winter store; and dispersed over a large field that sloped
along the valley to a considerable height up the mountains, this
universal family, inclusive of the dogs, was at its work. The arrival,
however, of three Englishmen with a retinue of some fifteen English
tars, strange-looking fellows! at their backs, was a circumstance not
likely to pass off in silence, or without due attention; and the
intelligence sounded by the tongues of several ragged urchins,
frolicking on the beach of the Fiord, was communicated to a lazy cur
that set up a continuous howl, and his noisy throat spread the news to
the diligent folk among the corn. In a short time we were naturally
hemmed about by a throng of both sexes, human and canine, curious to
learn the reason of our coming to Auron. The gestures of these people
were so energetic, and their voices so low, that, had I not