e not the attempt; but during the
hour we wandered about the sleeping village in search of some boatmen to
row us back to Auron, we could hear her lowing piteously. We had
descended the eastern side of the mountain, and arrived on a southern
branch of the Sogne Fiord.

Day now began to dawn; and though we had hardly eaten or drank since our
departure the previous morning from Auron, the freshness of the early
air, the balm of mountain flowers, and the beautiful face of nature,
afforded new vigour to our frames, and in feasting the mind we nourished
the body. Wandering from cottage to cottage we knocked at the doors and
windows, hoping to rouse the slumbering people; but sleep sits more
willingly on the peasant's hard pillow than it will pace, without
fretting, the softly-garnished chamber of indolent wealth, and not long
for morning to fly away. At last we succeeded completely by not only
awakening the family of one cottage, but our vociferations alarmed
nearly half the village population. I do not recollect the name of the
village, but the inhabitants bore the disturbance with great good
nature; and thrusting their heads out of their bed-room windows, that
looked no bigger than port-holes, two or three men directed us to the
abode of a fisherman who would soon put us in the way of hiring a pram.
Finding the fisherman's hut, we soon thumped him out of his dreams, and,
shouting uproariously from within, he desired to know who we were, and
what we desired. The Norwegian, our guide, entered into a lengthened
dialogue through the door, and assured the fisherman of our good faith
and bad plight, begging that he would rise, and help us with the means
of returning to Auron.

Half an hour afterwards we were reclining on some branches of the fir
with which the four boatmen, whose services the fisherman had secured,
covered the seats and bottom of the pram, having learned from our guide
the distance we had travelled; and, spreading their coats over us, bade
us rest. To soothe us to slumber, they sang, in union with the motion of
their oars, a native boat-song, and its sweet and plaintive air, though
it could not entice us to sleep soundly, pacified the wearied nerves,
and we lay in a Paradise of dreaming sensibility. These four men were
each six feet in stature, and their philanthropy and good nature were as
broad as their frames. They ceased not rowing for one moment, throughout
the entire distance, to rest on their oars; and t