e softest
of south winds. Land in all its grandeur of mountain and of cloud lay
before me, the towering peaks of the mountains, capped with everlasting
snow, and piercing an atmosphere of the intensest blue.

I sat down on the after-lockers, and looked with swelling heart on the
sublime scene. As far as the eye could reach inland, mountain over
mountain, extending round half the horizon, the land of old Norway, I
had read of in my earliest years, expanded itself. On my left hand the
Naze hung, frowning, over the Northern Ocean. How memory, in a moment,
rushed back to the quaint schoolroom at Ditton, and its still quainter
little bookcases huddled up in one corner, where and whence I first
began to pronounce and find the "Lindsnes!"

Just at this instant, poor old "Sailor," who had been poking his nose
over the vessel's side, and snuffing and whining, rushed up to me, and,
placing his head in my lap, turned his eyes towards my face, and looked
as much as to say, "Are we not near our journey's end; and don't I smell
the land?" Little Jacko, too, came out of his crib, and chirped, and
chattered, and scratched himself, and rolled about on the deck in the
sunniest corners; and then, all of a sudden, up he would jump, and,
seizing hold of "Sailor's" tail, pull it as if he was hauling taut the
weather runner. How everything was replete with life; and how happiness,
without the heart's reservation, was written on every face! I cannot
conceive anything more exhilarating than a beautiful morning at sea, and
land in sight; I could have passed the remaining portion of my life
without a pang of sorrow, or a gush of joy, but with equanimity, on this
dark blue wave, surpassed only in its dark dye and eternity by the dome
on which it looked.

When I returned upon deck after breakfast, the first object that
attracted my attention was the helmsman. He smiled as soon as his eye
met mine, and raised, in recognition, his Spanish-looking hat. He was a
stout, tall, fair-complexioned man, with a mild expression of
countenance, blue eyes, a long, straight-pointed nose, high cheekbones,
and light flaxen hair flowing down almost to his shoulders. He made some
observation to me in a dialect which sounded as being a mixture of
German, Celtic, and English; but the sense of it was incomprehensible.

"Norway?" I said in reply, pointing to the land now not three miles from
us.

"Ja, ja," he answered; and, turning to King, our interpreter, begged,