enomenally bad even for the time of year, and all this day,
and all the next alas! the voyage, in and out of the fiords, with
sundry stoppages in bays where the patient farmer makes patches of
green on a stubborn soil, and the hardy, sober-sided fishermen toil for
scant living, is done at disadvantage for those who would fain have the
masses of rocky borderings clear against the sky. The mountains are
shrouded in mist and capped with clouds, and during Tuesday night the
gale howls, and the storms of rain volley against the windows of the
cosy little smoke house on deck. Wednesday is an improvement in that
the gale has blown itself out. But the rain it rains on, though now in
a soft drizzle instead of driving sheets. The sides of precipitous
mountain crags are silvered with cascades, and as we penetrate further
into the fiord the scenery develops grandly, and the old snow patches
on the dark and lofty summits and picturesque saddles look startlingly
white.

Voyaging up the coast and on the Norwegian fiords is delightful indeed
in fair weather. As a rule there is neither pitching nor rolling, but
it would be rash, nevertheless, to suppose that it is always like
boating on a river. Our little steamer for the best part of one day
and night, as a matter of fact, pitches and rolls enough to save some
of the passengers the expenses of the table. As the ticket only means
passage money, and the traveller is charged, as in an hotel, for what
he eats and drinks, he, at any rate, is not tormented by the thought
that he has paid for that which he has not received. Still, it is not
often that the fiords are in a ferment of waves under a heavy gale, and
the worst that happens is a temporary deviation from the general
smoothness when the course lies where there is open sea on one side.
The voyage northwards from Stavanger, where the Hull boats first touch,
is mostly between islands, and in continuous shelter. Sometimes the
narrows are not wider than the Thames at Oxford; then you steam out
into what seems to be a land-locked expanse of water, with precipitous
mountain rocks ahead. By and by you swerve to right or left, and a
totally different picture is presented. And so it is, hour after hour,
and day after day. For many a league north of Bergen the mountains and
island rocks are bare of vegetation--gloomy masses of grey and brown
that frown upon the waters in cloud, and cannot be glad even in
sunshine. Some of them are l