in
the Norwegian language, that some of the sails might be trimmed.

I need not say he was the pilot who had come on board to take us up to
Christiansand. His dress differed not from the ordinary costume of our
own pilots; but I could not help gazing on him with a feeling of mystery
and interest which cannot easily be described. His whole appearance bore
a close resemblance to all I had read and seen in pictures of the
Esquimaux; and now I have formed their acquaintance personally, I feel
assured that the Norwegians are a branch of that family.

The scenery, the nearer we approached the shore, heightened in grandeur.
Though we were now not a mile from the most bold and formidable rocks,
no harbour or creek of any kind could be seen where we might find
shelter; yet our northern guide continued to point out with his finger
and explain as well as he could in his strange but harmonious idiom, the
mouth of the Fiord, up which we were to proceed to Christiansand.

The rocks along this coast of Norway are terrific, the sea breaking and
rushing upon them with tremendous noise and fury. Nor do the waves ever
rest peaceably here: for the tides of the North Sea and of the Cattegat
both meet together at this point of the "Sleeve," and cause a fearful
swell, which, when aided at times by the wind, rises to such a great
height that vessels are obliged to run for protection into some of the
smaller fiords abounding in this quarter.

It was now mid-day, and the sun shone with more heat than I had felt in
the tropics. Indeed, everything around us reminded one so vividly of a
tropical climate, that it required some resolution to keep imagination
in subserviency. The thermometer was at 80 on deck; and our
good-tempered pilot told us it was "manga varm" in August.

At one o'clock, the gallant Iris might be seen gliding along, with her
accustomed speed and elegance, in smooth water, up the Christiansand
Fiord. As we sailed along we would now and then catch a glimpse of large
and small vessels in all directions, in full sail, wending their way
through the tributary fiords to some town in the interior. On each side
of us rose from the surface of the water, perpendicularly into the clear
sky, mountains of solid stone, covered to their very summits with no
other vegetation than the fir, which springs out of the crevices of the
rocks. We pursued our course for many miles amidst the grandest scenery,
changing like a panorama, at every point o