addition. One of them
lay for a long time at the door, with his legs doubled under him as he
fell, the others stepping over his body as they went in and out. These
poor creatures were openly and shamelessly allowed to drug themselves,
as long as their money lasted. No wonder the race is becoming extinct,
when the means of destruction is so freely offered.

Vadso, although only forty miles from Vardo, at the mouth of the fjord,
has a much drier and more agreeable climate, and the inhabitants are
therefore loud in praise of their place. "We have no such fogs as at
Vardo," say they; "our fish dry much better, and some years we can raise
potatoes." For the last four or five years, however, the winters have
been getting more and more severe, and now it is impossible to procure
hay enough to keep their few cattle through the winter. We had on board
a German who had been living there five years, and who appeared well
satisfied with his lot. "I have married here," said he; "I make a good
living with less trouble than in Germany, and have no wish to return."
Singularly enough, there were also two Italian organ grinders on board,
whom I accosted in their native language; but they seemed neither
surprised nor particularly pleased. They dropped hints of having been
engaged in some political conspiracy; and one of them said, with a
curious mixture of Italian and Norsk words "_Jeg voglio ikke
ritornare_." I said the same thing ("I shall not return") as I left
Vadso.

We sailed early the next morning, and in the afternoon reached Vardo,
where we lay three hours. Here we took on board the three officers, who
had in the meantime made their inspection. Vardohuus is a single
star-shaped fort, with six guns and a garrison of twenty-seven men.
During the recent war, the garrison was increased to three hundred--an
unnecessary precaution, if there was really any danger of an attack to
be apprehended, so long as the defences of the place were not
strengthened. One of the officers, who had gone out fishing the night
previous, caught eighty-three splendid cod in the space of two hours. It
was idle sport, however, for no one would take his fish as a gift, and
they were thrown on the shore to rot. The difficulty is not in catching
but in curing them. Owing to the dampness of the climate they cannot be
hung up on poles to dry slowly, like the _stock-fish_ of the Lofodens,
but must be first salted and then laid on the rocks to dry, whence the
term