mmerce, it is only surpassed by
Stockholm in size. The old log houses of which it once was built have
almost entirely disappeared; the streets are broad, tolerably paved, and
have--what Stockholm cannot yet boast of--decent side-walks. From the
little nucleus of the old town, near the water, branch off handsome new
streets, where you often come suddenly from stately three-story blocks
upon the rough rock and meadow land. The broad _Carl-Johansgade_,
leading directly to the imposing white front of the Royal Palace, upon
an eminence in the rear of the city, is worthy of any European capital.
On the old market square a very handsome market hall of brick, in
semi-Byzantine style, has recently been erected, and the only apparent
point in which Christiania has not kept up with the times, is the want
of piers for her shipping. A railroad, about forty miles in length, is
already in operation as far as Eidsvold, at the foot of the long Miosen
Lake, on which steamers ply to Lillehammer, at its head, affording an
outlet for the produce of the fertile Guldbrandsdal and the adjacent
country. The Norwegian Constitution is in almost all respects as free as
that of any American state, and it is cheering to see what material
well-being and solid progress have followed its adoption.

The environs of Christiania are remarkably beautiful. From the quiet
basin of the fjord, which vanishes between blue, interlocking islands to
the southward, the land rises gradually on all sides, speckled with
smiling country-seats and farm-houses, which trench less and less on the
dark evergreen forests as they recede, until the latter keep their old
dominion and sweep in unbroken lines to the summits of the mountains on
either hand. The ancient citadel of Aggershus, perched upon a rock,
commands the approach to the city, fine old linden trees rising above
its white walls and tiled roofs; beyond, over the trees of the palace
park, in which stand the new Museum and University, towers the long
palace-front, behind which commences a range of villas and gardens,
stretching westward around a deep bight of the fjord, until they reach
the new palace of Oscar-hall, on a peninsula facing the city. As we
floated over the glassy water, in a skiff, on the afternoon following
our arrival, watching the scattered sun-gleams move across the lovely
panorama, we found it difficult to believe that we were in the latitude
of Greenland. The dark, rich green of the foliage, the b