nia. Our Norwegian travel was now at an end; and,
as a snobby Englishman once said to me of the Nile, "it is a good thing
to have gotten over."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

NORWAY AND SWEDEN.

We spent four days in Christiania, after completing our Norwegian
travels. The sky was still perfectly clear, and up to the day of our
departure no rain fell. Out of sixty days which we had devoted to
Norway, only four were rainy--a degree of good fortune which rarely
falls to the lot of travellers in the North.

Christiania, from its proximity to the continent, and its character as
capital of the country, is sufficiently advanced in the arts of living,
to be a pleasant resting-place after the _desagremens_ and privations of
travel in the interior. It has two or three tolerably good and very
exorbitant hotels, and some bankers with less than the usual amount of
conscience. One of them offered to change some Prussian thalers for my
friend, at only ten per cent. less than their current value. The
_vognmand_ from whom we purchased our carrioles, endeavoured to evade
his bargain, and protested that he had not money enough to repurchase
them. I insisted, however, and with such good effect that he finally
pulled a roll of notes, amounting to several hundred dollars out of his
pocket, and paid me the amount in full. The English travellers whom I
met had not fared any better; and one and all of us were obliged to
recede from our preconceived ideas of Norwegian character. But enough of
an unpleasant theme; I would rather praise than blame, any day, but I
can neither praise nor be silent when censure is a part of the truth.

I had a long conversation with a distinguished Norwegian, on the
condition of the country people. He differed with me in the opinion that
the clergy were to some extent responsible for their filthy and
licentious habits, asserting that, though the latter were _petits
seigneurs_, with considerable privileges and powers, the people were
jealously suspicious of any attempt to exert an influence upon their
lives. But is not this a natural result of the preaching of doctrinal
religion, of giving an undue value to external forms and ceremonies? "We
have a stubborn people," said my informant; "their excessive self-esteem
makes them difficult to manage. Besides, their morals are perhaps better
than would be inferred from the statistics. Old habits have been
retained, in many districts, which are certainly reprehensible, but
w