tinople to wash
his face, and comb his beautiful hair, but I doubt if many of his
followers imitated him. Let us hope that Ingeborg changed her dress
occasionally, and that Balder's temple was not full of fleas; that
Thorsten Vikingsson placed before his guests something better than
_fladbrod_ and rancid butter; and that Bjorn and Frithiof acted as
honestly towards strangers as towards each other. The Viking chiefs,
undoubtedly, must have learned the comfort of cleanliness and the
delights of good living, but if such habits were general, the nation has
greatly degenerated since their time.

We stayed on deck until midnight, notwithstanding the rain, to see the
grand rock of Hornelen, a precipice 1200 feet high. The clouds lifted a
little, and there was a dim, lurid light in the sky as our steamer swept
under the awful cliff. A vast, indistinct mass, reaching apparently to
the zenith, the summit crowned with a pointed tour, resembling the
Cathedral of Drontheim, and the sides scarred with deep fissures, loomed
over us. Now a splintered spire disengaged itself from the gloom, and
stood defined against the sky; lighter streaks marked the spots where
portions had slid away; but all else was dark, uncertain, and sublime.
Our friendly captain had the steamer's guns discharged as we were
abreast of the highest part. There were no separate echoes, but one
tremendous peal of sound, prolonged like the note of an organ-pipe, and
gradually dying away at the summit in humming vibrations.

Next morning, we were sailing in a narrow strait, between perpendicular
cliffs, fluted like basaltic pillars. It was raining dismally, but we
expected nothing else in the neighbourhood of Bergen. In this city the
average number of rainy days in a year is _two hundred_. Bergen weather
has become a by-word throughout the north, and no traveller ventures to
hope for sunshine when he turns his face thither. "Is it still raining
at Bergen?" ask the Dutch skippers when they meet a Norwegian captain.
"Yes, blast you; is it still blowing at the Texel?" is generally the
response.

We took on board four or five lepers, on their way to the hospital at
Bergen. A piece of oil-cloth had been thrown over some spars to shield
them from the rain, and they sat on deck, avoided by the other
passengers, a melancholy picture of disease and shame. One was a boy of
fourteen, upon whose face wart-like excrescences were beginning to
appear; while a woman, who seemed to