ere as desirous of letting his carriole, as I
was of hiring it; and he again said,

"Ja!"

I tendered several small silver coins, amounting to an ort, a piece of
Norwegian money equivalent in value to eight-pence sterling, and begged
the peasant to tell me if the offer were sufficiently generous. He
counted the coins in the palm of my hand. When he had done so, he
smiled, and said,

"Ja, tak;" and shaking hands with me, he gave me the rope reins.

The carriole is an elegant, comfortable, but most unsociable vehicle;
for it is as unfit to hold two persons, as an ordinary arm-chair. To sit
properly in a carriole, you should be rather round-shouldered, as its
shape is not unlike half a walnut, scooped out. The post-boy sits
behind, or stands up, as a groom does in England; but his position must
be uncomfortable in the extreme, as the carriole has no springs, and
bounds and jumps heavily over ruts and pebbles, causing him to fidget at
intervals, and make an exclamation of discomfort most irregularly. The
shafts and wheels are slight, and the body painted uniformly of a
chocolate colour. The foot-board is not larger than a tea-tray, about
six inches square, and in order to reach it, the legs are so extended as
to bring the tip of the toes and the apex of the knees on the same
plane. Nor does the driver look down on his horse, as he would in
England; but the eye has a level view along the back of the animal, and
his neck, or wooden collar obstructs any further perspective.

I could not make the man, or skydsgut, as he is called, who accompanied
me, understand ten consecutive words I spoke; but asking a multitude of
questions, I thought I must have collected a multitude of information.
Disliking the dulness of my companion, I drove at a swift pace, but the
skydsgut did not seem to like it, and several times I could guess from
his manner, that he was expostulating with me. The Norwegians love their
horses with the strong, feminine devotion of Arabs, and it is not an
uncommon sight to see the skydsgut, if he be a boy, burst into a
passionate fit of tears should you lash his horse twice in a mile. He
will strive to tell his grief, but if the language of his sorrow be not
understood, he will cover his face with his hands, and weep aloud by the
road side. The Norwegians have given Englishmen the credit of being
impatient travellers, and from their desire to pass over the greatest
quantity of ground in the smallest quantity of