ance heightened the agreeable impression
which the scene made upon our minds. Below us, at the bottom of a
crescent-shaped bay, lay Drontheim--a mass of dark red, yellow, and
brown buildings, with the grey cathedral in the rear. The rich, well
cultivated valley of the Nid stretched behind it, on our right, past the
Lierfoss, whose column of foam was visible three miles away, until the
hills, rising more high and bleak behind each other, completely enclosed
it. The rock-fortress of Munkholm, in front of the city, broke the
smooth surface of the fjord, whose further shores, dim with passing
showers, swept away to the north-east, hiding the termination of this
great sea-arm, which is some fifty miles distant. The panorama was
certainly on a grand scale, and presented very diversified and
picturesque features; but I can by no means agree with Dr. Clarke, who
compares it to the Bay of Naples. Not only the rich colours of the
Mediterranean are wanting, but those harmonic sweeps and curves of the
Italian shores and hills have nothing in common with these rude, ragged,
weather beaten, defiant forms.

Descending the hill between rows of neat country-houses, we passed a
diminutive fortification, and entered the city. The streets are
remarkably wide and roughly paved, crossing each other at right angles,
with a Philadelphian regularity. The houses are all two stories high,
and raised upon ample foundations, so that the doors are approached by
flights of steps--probably on account of the deep snows during the
winter. They are almost exclusively of wood, solid logs covered with
neat clap-boards, but a recent law forbids the erection of any more
wooden houses, and in the course of time, the town, like Christiania,
will lose all that is peculiar and characteristic in its architecture. A
cleaner place can scarcely be found, and I also noticed, what is quite
rare in the North, large square fountains or wells, at the intersection
of all the principal streets. The impression which Drontheim makes upon
the stranger is therefore a cheerful and genial one. Small and
unpretending though it be, it is full of pictures; the dark blue fjord
closes the vista of half its streets; hills of grey rock, draped with
the greenest turf, overlook it on either side, and the beautiful valley
of the Nid, one of the loveliest nooks of Norway, lies in its rear.

We drove to the Hotel de Belle-Vue, one of the two little caravanserais
of which the town boasts, a