north-west is steep and abrupt. After eight hours' hard marching, we descended into the Shjækker valley, turned our horses loose, kindled a blazing fire, and bivouacked till daybreak. Notwithstanding all the smoke we could make, the mosquitoes almost devoured us. As soon as there was light enough to pick our way through the morasses, we travelled down the valley. There is but one permanent inhabitant in the Shjækker valley, which is at least twenty-five miles in extent; but at the lower end there are many seaters inhabited during the summer. We passed the night near the hut of this person, who reckons himself not more than four Norwegian miles from Snaasen Vand, and goes to Snaasen church as the nearest. I have seen this tract of the Fjelde therefore in various points. Its value, as considered with regard to the food and employment it affords to man, is certainly very small in proportion to the extent; yet it is not wholly useless. A large proportion of the live stock of the lower country is kept by the pasturage in its dales for four months of the year; and almost all that the live stock of the country produces of dairy articles, meat, and tallow, is drawn from the pasturage of this track. This is no inconsiderable amount. The products of the dairy, cheese, butter, and milk, in every variety of preparation,-enter largely into the daily food of the people. The poorest have this diet; and from the immense space of the Fjelde, a supply of cheese and butter is within reach of all who have the means to purchase a cow.

as a seater.

This uninhabited valley is very beautiful. It is watered by a fine stream, and clothed with woods of pine and birch and aspen of unusual size; and every break or open space between the woods shows a lively green meadow, frequently occupied I measured pine-trees which at four feet from the ground were twenty-six and thirty inches in diameter; and these noble trees had been felled for the side-walls of a cattle-shed or byre on a seater. The Norwegian sets no value on a tree which a Scotchman, not accustomed to such superfluity of timber on his naked hills, regards with much respect. Trees which with us would be worth a good deal of money are cut down for firewood, or to lay across a pool, or are often peeled all round a few feet above the ground, that they may perish standing, and leave a clear space for grass. The finest birches are stripped of the bark and left to rot. The bark is called naver (it is possible the name of Strathnaver in Scotland may be connected with this word), and is used all over Norway beneath slates, tiles, earth, or whatever may be the exterior covering of a roof, to prevent the wood beneath from rotting. All posts which are in contact with the earth, whether farming fences, bridge rails, or gates, are always carefully wrapped round with flakes of birch bark, for a few inches above and below the ground.

After eight hours' walking down the valley, in the lower part of which there are beautiful tracts of grass, occupied at this season by the cattle, sheep, and horses of the farms in Værdal, we came to its

We had to take our

junction with Helgodal. horses round so many bogs, rocks, and quagmires, some not quite a safe support for a man's weight, that I do not reckon our real advance at more than five or six and twenty miles, which I consider the extent of this Fjelde valley.

In Norway the trees of the pine tribe are called furu and gran. Furu is our pine (Pinus silvestris), and gran is our fir (Pinus abies); the one is the red wood and the other the white wood of our carpenters. There are whole districts which produce only furu, others only gran; and this seems not exactly regulated by latitude or elevation. The zones at which different trees cease to grow appear to be a theory to which the exceptions are as numerous as the examples. In Romsdal Amt, at Fanne Fiord, near Molde, in latitude 69° 47' north, and with a medium temperature of only 4° of Reaumur, pears, the bergamot, gravenstein, and imperial, and also plums, come to perfection, and the walnut tree often bears ripe fruit. Hazel and elm in the same amt form continuous woods, as at Egerdal. Yet the gran disappears altogether; although in the same degree of latitude it grows at an elevation of 1000 feet above the sea in the interior of Norway, and even in latitude 69° in Lapmark. It has been found a vain attempt to raise it in Romsdal Amt, a locality in which the following trees and bushes grow readily: Canadian poplar, balsam poplar, horse-chestnut, larch, elder, yew, roses of various sorts, lavender, box, laburnum, white thorn, ivy. Larch brought from Scotland

appears to thrive. There must be something in the nature of the plants not connected with elevation or latitude, that determines the growth of the gran and furu. In the best established of these vegetation zones in this country, that of the birch, which undoubtedly grows higher up the mountain side than other trees, there are generally two or three sturdy pines, braving alike the storm and the theory. On the Dovre Fjelde, for instance, between Jerkin, which is 3085 feet above the sea level, and Fogstuen, which is 3187 feet, in latitude about 62° 25' north, the birch is growing up the sides of the hills in abundance sufficient to afford firewood to those two farms. It is not, indeed, the luxuriant birch with the pendent branches which adorns Guldebrandsdal. It forms probably a distinct variety, with thicker and shorter leaves than the common one. But although stunted and crooked, they are more luxuriant than those growing in the most sheltered spots in the county of Caithness, in latitude 58° north, and only a few feet above the level of the sea; and outside of the birch wood near Jerkin, on its north side, grow single pine trees, and in one place a complete row of them. They are but short stunted trees, but the birches are but short stunted trees also. They are big enough to prove that the theory of the zones of elevation at which different species of trees will or will not grow must be taken with caution, as it does not satisfactorily cover all the facts observable in this country.

CHAPTER IX.

BOTHNIAN Gulf.

ORKNEY AND ZETLAND BELONGED TO NORWAY-PLEDGED FOR FIFTY THOUSAND FLORINS.-TRADITION.-CLAIM TO REDEEM THESE PROVINCES.TORFÆUS.-CHRISTIAN V.-BUONAPARTEDR. CLARKE.-SAGA.-SEA-KING SWEIN. HIS ADVENTURES.JARL ROGNVALD.-CATHEDRAL.-CHURCHES IN ROMNEY MARSH. -FREE INSTITUTIONS.-KINGS HARALD HAARFAGRE-HAKONFORMER CLASSES OF SOCIETY. SIGURD SIR.-MANNERS DESCRIBED IN THE SAGA.- DRESS OF SIGURD SIR. ARE THE PRIEST.-SCALDS.-ALLITERATION.-AUTHORITIES OF SAGA.KUADS.-NORWEGIAN LITERATURE.-ROAD FROM THE DRONTHIEM FIORD TO THE IMPORTANT BASIS FOR THE MILITARY DEFENCE OF NORWAY AND SWEDEN.KING'S VISIT BY THIS ROAD TO NORWAY COMPARED WITH THAT OF GEORGE IV. TO SCOTLAND.-HIS VISIT TO THE FIELD OF STIKKLESLAD.-HIS RECEPTION BY THE NORWEGIANS.-TRIUMPH OF CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES. THE ELECTION IN OUR DISTRICT FOR THE STORTHING.-DISTILLATION OF SPIRITS FROM POTATOES.-EFFECT OF THE FREE DISTILLATION ON POPULATION AND PROPERTY.-STATE OF SEA-SIDE POPULATION.-THE WINTER FISHING AT LAFODEN.-USE OF NETS IN THE COD FISHERY. — REGULATIONS. HERRING FISHERY.-BONDER or AGRICULTURAL POPULATION.-FJELDE BONDER.-THEIR CON

DITION. ANCIENT FAMILIES.

NORWAY is a country peculiarly interesting to the inhabitants of Orkney and Zetland. These islands were only disjoined from the crown of Norway and annexed to Scotland in the year 1468. They were pledged by Christian I. King of Norway and Denmark for the sum of 50,000 Rhenish florins, being part of the dower of 60,000 given with his