e
Eyfjordsvand, a lake about three miles long, which completely cuts off
the further valley, the mountains on either side falling to it in sheer
precipices 1000 feet high.

We embarked in a crazy, leaky boat, Peder pulling vigorously and
singing. "_Frie dig ved lifvet_" ("Life let us cherish"), with all the
contentment on his face which is expressed in Mozart's immortal melody.
"Peder," said I, "do you know the national song of Norway?" "I should
think so," was his answer, stopping short in the midst of a wild
fjeld-song, clearing his throat, and singing with a fervour and
enthusiasm which rang wide over the lonely lake:--

"Minstrel, awaken the harp from its slumbers,
Strike for old Norway, the land of the free!
High and heroic, in soul-stirring numbers,
Clime of our fathers, we strike it for thee!
Old recollections awake our affections--
Hallow the name of the land of our birth;
Each heart beats its loudest, each cheek glows its proudest,
For Norway the ancient, the throne of the earth!"[D]

"Dost thou know," said he, becoming more familiar in his address, "that
a lawyer (by the name of Bjerregaard) wrote this song, and the Storthing
at Christiania gave him a hundred specie dollars for it. That was not
too much, was it?" "No," said I, "five hundred dollars would have been
little enough for such a song." "Yes, yes, that it would," was his
earnest assent; and as I happened at that moment to ask whether we could
see the peaks of the Halling Jokeln, he commenced a soeter-song of life
on the lofty fjeld--a song of snow, and free winds, and blue sky. By
this time we had reached the other end of the lake, where, in the midst
of a little valley of rich alluvial soil, covered with patches of barley
and potatoes, stood the hamlet of Saebo. Here Peder procured a horse for
my friend, and we entered the mouth of a sublime gorge which opened to
the eastward--a mere split in the mighty ramparts of the
Hardanger-Fjeld. Peder was continually shouting to the people in the
fields: "Look here! These are Americans, these two, and the other one is
a German! This one talks Norsk, and the others don't."

We ascended the defile by a rough footpath, at first through alder
thickets, but afterwards over immense masses of rocky ruin, which had
tumbled from the crags far above, and almost blocked up the valley. For
silence, desolation, and awful grandeur, this defile equals any of the
Alpine pa