, scattering as
they fall, with fragments of rainbows dancing over them. In this scene I
at once recognised the wild landscape by the pencil of Dahl, the
Norwegian painter, which had made such an impression upon me in
Copenhagen. In Guldbrandsdal, we found at once what we had missed in the
scenery of Ringerike--swift, foaming streams. Here they leapt from every
rift of the upper crags, brightening the gloom of the fir-woods which
clothed the mountain-sides, like silver braiding upon a funeral garment.
This valley is the pride of Norway, nearly as much for its richness as
for its beauty and grandeur. The houses were larger and more
substantial, the fields blooming, with frequent orchards of fruit-trees,
and the farmers, in their Sunday attire showed in their faces a little
more intelligence than the people we had seen on our way thither. Their
countenances had a plain, homely stamp; and of all the large-limbed,
strong-backed forms I saw, not one could be called graceful, or even
symmetrical. Something awkward and uncouth stamps the country people of
Norway. Honest and simple-minded they are said to be, and probably are;
but of native refinement of feeling they can have little, unless all
outward signs of character are false.

We changed horses at Moshuus, and drove up a level splendid road to
Holmen, along the river-bank. The highway, thus far, is entirely new,
and does great credit to Norwegian enterprise. There is not a better
road in all Europe; and when it shall be carried through to Drontheim,
the terrors which this trip has for timid travellers will entirely
disappear. It is a pity that the _skyds_ system should not be improved
in equal ratio, instead of becoming even more inconvenient than at
present. Holmen, hitherto a fast station, is now no longer so; and the
same retrograde change is going on at other places along the road. The
waiting at the _tilsigelse_ stations is the great drawback to travelling
by _skyds_ in Norway. You must either wait two hours or pay fast prices,
which the people are not legally entitled to ask. Travellers may write
complaints in the space allotted in the post-books for such things, but
with very little result, if one may judge from the perfect indifference
which the station-masters exhibit when you threaten to do so. I was more
than once tauntingly asked whether I would not write a complaint. In
Sweden, I found but one instance of inattention at the stations, during
two months' travel