slowly for Vik, ten miles distant.

The fjord was shut in by lofty and abrupt mountains, often interrupted
by deep lateral gorges. This is the general character of the Hardanger
Fjord, a broad winding sheet of water, with many arms, but whose extent
is diminished to the eye by the grandeur of its shores. Nothing can be
wilder or more desolate than this scenery, especially at the junction of
the two branches, where all signs of habitation are shut out of sight,
and one is surrounded by mighty precipices of dark-red rock, vanishing
away to the eastward in a gloomy defile. It was three hours and a half
before we reached Vik, at the head of a bay on the southern side. Here,
however, some English fishermen were quartered and we made sure of a
supper. The landlord, of course, received their superfluous salmon, and
they were not the men to spare a potato-field, so both were forthcoming,
and in the satisfaction of appeased hunger, we were willing to indorse
the opinion of a former English traveller in the guest's book: "This
place seems to me a paradise, although very probably it is not one." The
luxury of fishing, which I never could understand, has taught the
Norwegians to regard travellers as their proper prey. Why should a man,
they think, pay 50_l._ for the privilege of catching fish, which he
gives away as soon as caught, unless he don't know how else to get rid
of his money? Were it not that fishing in Norway includes pure air, hard
fare, and healthy exercise, I should agree with somebody's definition of
angling, "a rod with a fly at one end and a fool at the other;" but it
is all that, and besides furnished us with a good meal more than once;
wherefore I respect it.

We were now but eight miles from the Voring-Foss, and set out betimes
the next morning, taking with us a bottle of red wine, some dry bread,
and Peder Halstensen as guide. I mention Peder particularly, because he
is the only jolly, lively, wide-awake, open-hearted Norwegian I have
ever seen. As rollicking as a Neapolitan, as chatty as an Andalusian,
and as frank as a Tyrolese, he formed a remarkable contrast to the men
with whom we had hitherto come in contact. He had long black hair,
wicked black eyes, and a mouth which laughed even when his face was at
rest. Add a capital tenor voice, a lithe, active frame, and something
irresistibly odd and droll in his motions, and you have his principal
points. We walked across the birch-wooded isthmus behind Vik to th