easant women.

On the morning of the fifth day since we had left the Gron Fiord,
driving up a steep and winding road we reached the top of a magnificent
range of mountains, and glancing over an intervening forest covered with
every variety of shade, that fir, pine, birch, and grassy glades could
afford, the eye rested on the village of Faedde, with its forty houses
and single wooden church, bosomed in a luxuriant, green valley, on the
opposite shore of the Fiord. A thousand feet beneath, on the blue water,
floated the yacht with flapping canvass, and bearing all the appearance
of having outstripped us in the journey only by a very few minutes. The
picturesque beauty of the Fiord was increased by being distinctly seen
from a commanding site, and the bold outlines of its frowning headlands
jutted one beyond the other nearly into the centre of the Fiord, till
they were mingled in colour with the distant ocean, of which a glimpse
could just be caught. The sea gulls frequenting this Fiord, flew around
us and screeched amid the universal silence which was broken by the roar
of waterfalls, concealed from sight by the dark forest, but the
sparkling stream, bursting at times upon the view, would flow a little
way in the broad daylight, then steal as suddenly again from observation
in its circuitous course.

An immense pram, larger than the launch of a frigate, and rowed by two
natives, bore us sluggishly to the cutter.

CHAPTER XVI.

RETURN TO THE YACHT--POOR JACKO--ASCENDING THE
STREAM--DESCRIPTION OF THE FAEDDE FIORD--ADVENTURES
OF AN ANGLER--SAIL TO THE BUKKE FIORD--THE
FATHOMLESS LAKE--THE MANIAC, AND HER HISTORY--THE
VILLAGE OF SAND--EXTRAORDINARY PECULIARITIES OF
THE SAND SALMON--SEAL-HUNTING--SHOOTING GULLS--THE
SEAL CAUGHT--NIGHT IN THE NORTH.

"I hope, my Lord," observed D----, as he stood at the gangway of the
yacht, and handed the man-ropes to R----, "you have had a pleasanter
voyage than we."

"Why? Has any accident occurred?" asked R----, anxiously.

"No, my Lord, no accident," continued D----; "but since your Lordship
left us, a gale of wind has been blowing from the south-west; and
knowing your Lordship would have no home until the cutter came round to
this place, I thought it best to thrash our way to Faedde in the best
manner we could."

"Oh! yes; you did right," replied R----; "but, I hope, you did not
strain the craft."

"No, my Lord, no," answered D----.

"How did she behave?" in