nothing against
them, and they commence the next life with blank books."

"But what a life!" I exclaimed. "Men may be happy in poverty, in
misfortune, under persecution, in life-long disease even, so that they
are not wholly deprived of the genial influences of society and
Nature--but what is there here?" "They know no other world," said he,
"and this ignorance keeps them from being miserable. They do no more
thinking than is necessary to make nets and boats, catch fish and cook
them, and build their log-houses. Nature provides for their marrying and
bringing up their children, and the pastor, whom they see once in a long
time, gives them their religion ready made." God keep them ignorant,
then! was my involuntary prayer. May they never lose their blessed
stupidity, while they are chained to these rocks and icy seas! May no
dreams of summer and verdure, no vision of happier social conditions, or
of any higher sphere of thought and action, flash a painful light on the
dumb-darkness of their lives!

The next day, we were in the Varanger Fjord, having passed the fortress
of Vardohuus and landed our military committee. The Norwegian shore was
now low and tame, but no vegetation, except a little brown grass, was to
be seen. The Russian shore, opposite, and some twenty-five or thirty
miles distant, consisted of high, bold hills, which, through a glass,
appeared to be partially wooded. The Varanger Fjord, to which so
important a political interest has attached within the last few years,
is about seventy miles in depth, with a general direction towards the
south-west. The boundary-line between Norwegian and Russian Finmark
strikes it upon the southern side, about half-way from the mouth, so
that three-fourths, or more, of the waters of the fjord belong to
Norway. There is, however, a wonderful boundary-line, in addition, drawn
by Nature between the alien waters. That last wave of the Gulf Stream
which washes the North Cape and keeps the fjords of Finmark open and
unfrozen the whole year through, sweeps eastward along the coast, until
it reaches the head of Varanger Fjord. Here its power is at last spent,
and from this point commences that belt of solid ice which locks up the
harbours of the northern coast of Russia for six months in the year. The
change from open water to ice is no less abrupt than permanent. Pastor
Hvoslef informed me that in crossing from Vadso, on the northern coast,
to Pasvik, the last Norwegian settlemen