obliging and good-natured that there is very little difficulty in getting along with them. A few words always sufficed to make my wants understood, and the greatest kindness and alacrity were invariably shown in supplying them. But I anticipate my journey.

After a pleasant night's rest I arose bright and early; and here, being for the first time thrown completely upon my own resources in the way of language, was obliged to have recourse to my vocabulary to get at the means of asking for breakfast and a horse and cariole. Fancy a lean and hungry man standing before a substantial landlord, trying to spell out a breakfast from his book in some such way as this:

"Jeg vil Spise [I will eat]!"

"Ya, min Herr!" the landlord politely answers. "Jeg vil Frokost [I will breakfast]!"

"Ya, min Herr;" and the landlord runs off into a perfect labyrinth of birds, fish, eggs, beefsteak, hot cakes, and other luxuries, which the inexperienced traveler is vainly attempting to follow up in his book. In despair, he at length calls out,

"Ja! Ja!-that's all right! any thing you say, my fine old gentleman!"

At which the landlord scratches his head, for he doesn't understand precisely what you have selected. Now you take your book, and explain slowly and systematically: "Kaffee!"

Here the landlord is staggered, and scratches his head again. Smör he gets a glimmering of, but the bread stuns him. You try it in a dozen different ways-broad, breyd, breed, brode, braid. At length a light flashes upon his mind. You want bread! Simple as the word is, and

though he pronounces it precisely according to one of your own methods, as you suppose, it is difficult to get the peculiar intonation that renders it intelligible.

"Ja!" And thus you lay the foundation of your breakfast; after which, having progressed so far in the language, there is no great difficulty in asking for a "Heste og Cariole" [a horse and cariole].

A little practice in this way soon enables the traveler to acquire a sufficient knowledge of the language for the ordinary purposes of communication along the road. With a smattering of the German it comes very readily to one who speaks English, being something of a mixture between these two languages. I was really astonished to find how well I could understand it, and make myself understood, in the course of a few days, though candor obliges me to say that if there is any one thing in the world for which nature never intended me it is a linguist.

I was in hopes of finding at Lillehammer a party of tourists bound over the Dovre Fjeld to Trondhjem, of whom I had heard in Christiania. In this I was disappointed. They had started a few days previously. An omnibus was advertised to run as far as Elstad, some thirty-five miles up the valley of Gudbransdalen, which would be so much gained on my route. It seemed, however, that it only ran whenever a sufficient number of passengers offered-so I was obliged to give up that prospect.

CHAPTER XXIX.

HOW THEY TRAVEL IN NORWAY.

NOTHING can be more characteristic of Norwegian seclusion from the world than the rude means of inland communication between the principal cities. Here was a public highway between two of the most important sea-ports in the country-Christiania and Trondhjemwithout as much as a stage to carry passengers. Every

traveler has to depend upon his own vehicle, or upon such rude and casual modes of conveyance as he can find at the stations by the wayside. I asked the reason of this backward state of things, and was informed that the amount of travel is insufficient to support any regular stage line. The season for tourists lasts only about three months, and during the remainder of the year very few strangers have occasion to pass over the roads. In winter-which, of course, lasts very long in this latitudethe whole country is covered with snow, and sledges are altogether used, both for purposes of traveling and the transportation of merchandise from the sea-board. The products of the country-such as logs, spars, and boards -are prepared during these months for rafting down the rivers during the spring floods. Once, as I was told, an enterprising Englishman had started a regular stageline from Christiania to Trondhjem, in consequence of the repeated complaints of the traveling public, who objected to the delays to which they were subject; but he was soon obliged to discontinue it for want of patronage. When travelers had a convenient way of getting over, they grumbled at being hurried through, and preferred taking the usual conveyances of the country, which afforded them an opportunity of enjoying the scenery and stopping wherever they pleased. People did not come all the way to Norway, they said, to fly through it without seeing any of its wonders and beauties. There was some philosophy in this, as well as a touch of human nature. It reminded me of the Frenchman in Paris who lived to be eighty years of age without ever leaving the city; when the king, for the sake of experiment, positively forbid him from doing so during the remainder of his life. The poor fellow was immediately seized with an inordinate desire to see something of the outside world, and petitioned so hard for the privilege of leaving the city that the king, unable to resist his importunities, granted him the privilege, after which the man was perfectly satisfied, and remained in Paris to the day of his death.

By reference to a copy of the laws on the subject of post-travel, which I had procured in Christiania from a Mr. Bennett, I discovered that the system is singularly complicated and hazardous, as well as a little curious in some of its details. The stations are situated along the road about every eight or ten miles (counted in Norwegian by so many hours). Nothing that we could call a village is to be seen in any part of the interior, unless the few straggling farm-houses occasionally huddled together, with a church in the centre, may be considered in that light. The stations usually stand alone, in some isolated spot on the wayside, and consist of a little log or frame tavern, a long shambling stable, innumerable odds and ends of cribs, store-houses, and outbuildings, forming a kind of court or stable-yard; a rickety medley of old carts and carioles lying about basking in the sun; a number of old white-headed men smoking their pipes, and leathery-faced women on household duties intent, with a score or so of little cotton-headed children running about over the manure pile in the neighborhood of the barn, to keep the pigs company; here and there a strapping lout of a boy swinging on a gate and whistling for his own amusement; while cows, sheep, goats, chickens, and other domestic animals and birds browse, nibble, and peck all over the yard in such a lazy and rural manner as would delight an artist. This is the ordinary Norwegian station.

There is always a good room for the traveler, and plenty of excellent homely fare to eat. At some few places along the route the station-houses aspire to the style and dignity of hotels, but they are not always the best or most comfortable. Then there are "fast" and "slow" stations-so called in the book of laws. At the fast stations the traveler can procure a horse and cariole without delay-fifteen minutes being the legal limit. At the slow stations he must wait till the neighborhood, for a distance of three or four miles perhaps, is searched for a horse-sometimes for both horse and cariole. If