caps, and long ragged locks of yellow hair fluttering in the wind,
brought off the only passenger and the mails, and we put about for the
mouth of the fjord.

Running along under the eastern shore, we exchanged the dreadful
monotony through which we had been sailing for more rugged and
picturesque scenery. Before us rose a wall of dark cliff, from five to
six hundred feet in height, gaping here and there with sharp clefts or
gashes, as if it had cracked in cooling, after the primeval fires. The
summit of these cliffs was the average level of the country; and this
peculiarity, I found, applies to all the northern shore of Finmark,
distinguishing the forms of the capes and islands from those about Alten
and Hammerfest, which, again, are quite different from those of the
Lofodens. "On returning from Spitzbergen," said a Hammerfest merchant to
me, "I do not need to look at chart or compass, when I get sight of the
coast; I know, from the formation of the cliffs, exactly where I am."
There is some general resemblance to the chalk bluffs of England,
especially about Beachy Head, but the rock here appears to be
mica-slate, disposed in thin, vertical strata, with many violent
transverse breaks.

As we approached the end of the promontory which divides the Porsanger
from the Laxe Fjord, the rocks became more abrupt and violently
shattered. Huge masses, fallen from the summit, lined the base of the
precipice, which was hollowed into cavernous arches, the home of myriads
of sea-gulls. The rock of Svaerholtklub, off the point, resembled a
massive fortress in ruins. Its walls of smooth masonry rested on three
enormous vaults, the piers of which were buttressed with slanting piles
of rocky fragments. The ramparts, crenelated in some places, had
mouldered away in others, and one fancied he saw in the rents and scars
of the giant pile the marks of the shot and shell which had wrought its
ruin. Thousands of white gulls, gone to their nightly roost, rested on
every ledge and cornice of the rock; but preparations were already made
to disturb their slumbers. The steamer's cannon was directed towards the
largest vault, and discharged. The fortress shook with the crashing
reverberation; "then rose a shriek, as of a city sacked"--a wild,
piercing, maddening, myriad-tongued cry, which still rings in my ears.
With the cry, came a rushing sound, as of a tempest among the woods; a
white cloud burst out of the hollow arch-way, like the smoke of