e, perhaps, some one is adventurous enough
to strike across Lapland to Tornea. The steamers, nevertheless, pass the
North Cape, and during the summer make weekly trips to the Varanger
Fjord, the extreme eastern limit of the Norwegian territory. We were
divided in opinion whether to devote our week of sunshine to the North
Cape, or to make the entire trip and see something of the northern coast
of Europe, but finally decided that the latter, on the whole, as being
unfamiliar ground, would be most interesting. The screw-steamer Gyller
(one of Odin's horses) was lying in the harbour when we arrived, and was
to leave in the course of the next night; so we lost no time in securing
places, as she had but a small cabin and no state-rooms. Nevertheless,
we found her very comfortable, and in every respect far superior to the
English vessels which ply between Hull and Christiania. Our fellow
travellers were all returning to Drontheim--except three Norwegian
officers on their way to make an official inspection of the fortress of
Wardohuus--and the last we saw of them was their return, an hour past
midnight, from making a second attempt to see the sun from the hills.
The night was somewhat obscured, and I doubt if they were successful.

When I went on deck on the morning after our departure, we were in the
narrow strait between the island of Mageroe, the northern extremity of
which forms the North Cape, and the mainland. On either side, the shores
of bare bleak rock, spotted with patches of moss and stunted grass, rose
precipitously from the water, the snow filling up their ravines from the
summit to the sea. Not a tree nor a shrub, nor a sign of human
habitation was visible; there was no fisher's sail on the lonely waters,
and only the cries of some sea-gulls, wheeling about the cliffs, broke
the silence. As the strait opened to the eastward, a boat appeared,
beating into Kjelvik, on the south-eastern corner of the island; but the
place itself was concealed from us by an intervening cape. This is the
spot which Von Buch visited in the summer of 1807, just fifty years ago,
and his description would be equally correct at the present day. Here,
where the scurvy carries off half the inhabitants,--where pastors coming
from Southern Norway die within a year,--where no trees grow, no
vegetables come to maturity, and gales from every quarter of the Icy Sea
beat the last faint life out of nature, men will still persist in
living, in apparen