ut its inhabitants do not quite reach an aggregate of ten thousand.
Iceland is about the size of our New England States, and has a
population of seventy-five thousand. The Faroes contain ten thousand
inhabitants, and the three West Indian islands united have a
population of a little over forty thousand.

A slight sense of disappointment was realized at not finding more
visible evidences of antiquity while visiting the several sections of
the capital, particularly as it was remembered that a short time
since, in 1880, the Danish monarchy reached the thousandth
anniversary of its foundation under Gorm the Old, whose reign bridges
over the interval between mere legend and the dawn of recorded
history. Gorm is supposed to have been a direct descendant of the
famous Viking, Regnar Lodbrog, who was a daring and imperious ruler
of the early Northmen. The common origin of the three Baltic
nationalities which constitute Scandinavia is clearly apparent to the
traveller who has visited Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, or to any one
who has even an ordinary knowledge of their history. The race has
been steadily modified, generation after generation, in its more
vivid characteristics, by the progressive force of civilization.
These Northmen are no longer the haughty and reckless warriors who
revelled in wine drunk from the skulls of their enemies, and who
deemed death only respectable when encountered upon the battle-field.
Clearer intelligence and culture have substituted the duties of
peaceful citizens for those of marauders, and the enterprises of
civilized life for the exaggerated romance of chivalry. Reading and
writing, which were looked upon among them as allied to the black art
a few centuries ago, are now the universal accomplishment of all
classes, and nowhere on the globe will the traveller find a people
more cheerful, intelligent, frank, and hospitable than in the three
kingdoms of the far North.

Though the Danes are physically rather small, resembling in this
respect the Japanese, still they spring, as we have seen, from a
brave and warlike race, and have never been subjugated by any other
people. On the contrary, in the olden time they conquered England,
dismembered France, and subjugated Norway and Sweden. The time has
been when the Danes boasted the largest and most efficient navy in
the world, and their realm still justly bears the title of "Queen of
the Baltic." As to seamanship, they are universally acknowledged to