a purely
republican stamp have been introduced.

Our road still proceeded up the bottom of a rough barren valley,
crossing stony headlands on either side. At the station of Haug our
course turned to the south-east, climbing a slope leading to the plateau
of the Fille Fjeld--a severe pull for our horses in the intense heat.
The birch woods gradually diminished in size until they ceased
altogether, and the naked plain stretched before us. In this upper land
the air was delicious and inspiring. We were more than 3000 feet above
the sea, but the summits to the right and left, with their soft gleams
of pale gray, lilac and purple hues in the sunshine, and pure blue in
shadow, rose to the height of 6000. The heat of the previous ten days
had stripped them bare of snow, and the landscape was drear and
monotonous. The summits of the Norwegian Fjelds have only the charm of
wildness and bleakness. I doubt whether any mountains of equal height
exhibit less grandeur in their upper regions. The most imposing features
of Norwegian scenery are its deep valleys, its tremendous gorges with
their cataracts, flung like banners from steeps which seem to lean
against the very sky, and, most of all, its winding, labyrinthine
fjords--valleys of the sea, in which the phenomena of the valleys of the
land are repeated. I found no scenery in the Bergenstift of so original
and impressive a character as that of the Lofoden Isles.

The day was Sunday, and we, of course, expect to see some evidence of it
in the appearance of the people. Yet, during the whole day, we found but
one clean person--the hostess of an inn on the summit of Fille Fjeld,
where we stopped to bait our horses. She was a young fresh-faced woman,
in the first year of her wifehood, and her snowy chemise and tidy
petticoat made her shine like a star among the dirty and frowzy
creatures in the kitchen. I should not forget a boy, who was washing his
face in a brook as we passed; but he was young, and didn't know any
better. Otherwise the people lounged about the houses, or sat on the
rocks in the sun, filthy, and something else, to judge from certain
signs. At Haug, forgetting that it was a fast station, where there is no
_tilsigelse_ (money for ordering horses) to be paid, I handed the usual
sum to the landlady, saying: "This is for _tilsigelse_." "It is quite
right," said she, pocketing the coin.

Skirting an azure lake, we crossed the highest part of the pass, nearly
four thousa