sting
crafts lying at anchor.

We had a beautiful afternoon voyage out another arm of the fjord, and
again entered the labyrinth of islands fringing the coast. Already, the
days had perceptibly lengthened, and the increased coldness of the air
at night indicated our approach to the Arctic Circle. I was surprised at
the amount of business done at the little stations where we touched. Few
of these contained a dozen houses, yet the quantity of passengers and
freight which we discharged and took on board, at each, could only be
explained by the fact that these stations are generally outlets for a
tolerably large population, hidden in the valleys and fjords behind,
which the steamer does not visit. Bleak and desolate as the coast
appears, the back country has its fertile districts--its pasture-ground,
its corn-land and forests, of which the voyager sees nothing, and thus
might be led to form very erroneous conclusions. Before we had been
twenty-four hours out from Drontheim, there was a marked change in the
appearance of the people we took on board. Not even in the neighborhood
of Christiania or in the rich Guldbrandsdal were the inhabitants so
well-dressed, so prosperous (judging from outward signs, merely), or so
intelligent. They are in every respect more agreeable and promising
specimens of humanity than their brothers of Southern Norway,
notwithstanding the dark and savage scenery amidst which their lot is
cast.

Toward midnight, we approached the rock of Torghatten, rising 1200 feet
high, in the shape of a tall-crowned, battered "wide-awake," above the
low, rocky isles and reefs which surround it. This rock is famous for a
natural tunnel, passing directly through its heart--the path of an arrow
which the Giant Horseman (of whom I shall speak presently) shot at a
disdainful maiden, equally colossal, in the old mythological times, when
Odin got drunk nightly in Walhalla. We were all on the look-out for this
tunnel, which, according to Murray, is large enough for a ship to go
through--if it were not some six hundred feet above the sea-level. We
had almost passed the rock and nothing of the kind could be seen; but
Capt. Riis, who was on deck, encouraged us to have a little patience,
changed the steamer's course, and presently we saw a dark cavern yawning
in the face of a precipice on the northern side. It was now midnight,
but a sunset light tinged the northern sky, and the Torghatten yet stood
in twilight. "Shall we see