ch forms the usual holiday touring ground of
British and other people--_i.e._, from Trondhjem to the south--is no
larger than England. The remainder of the country consists of a long,
narrow strip running up into the Arctic Circle, and ending in Lapland
in the Far North.

On three sides Norway is washed by the sea; on the other side she
has two neighbours--Sweden from the south right away up to Lapland,
and then Russia.

Now let us see what sort of a land it is. First, there are the fjords,
stretching often a hundred miles or more inland from the sea-coast,
sometimes with delightful fertile shores, at other times hemmed in on
either hand by rocky cliffs rising two or three thousand feet sheer
from the water. Then there are the mountains, which are everywhere;
for, with the exception of Spain, Norway is the most mountainous
country in Europe. And on their summits lie vast fields of eternal
snow, with glaciers pushing down into the green valleys, or even into
the ocean itself. Again, from these mountains flow down rivers and
streams, now forming magnificent waterfalls as they leap over the
edge of the lofty plateau, now rushing wildly over their rock-strewn
torrent beds, until they reach the lake, which, thus gathering the
waters, send them on again in one wide river to the fjord.

Such things lend themselves to create scenery which cannot fail
to charm, and in one day in Norway you may see them all. Take,
for instance, the famous view of the Naerodal from Stalheim, a place
which every visitor to Western Norway knows well. Probably nowhere
in the world is there anything to approach it in grandeur, for not
only are there the great mountains forming the sides of the actual
valley in the foreground, but away beyond appears a succession of
other mountains, stretching far across the Sogne Fjord, even to the
snowy peaks of Jotunheim.

People who live in such a land must needs be proud of it, and the
descendants of the Vikings believe that there exists in the world no
fairer country than their beloved Norge. [1] Maybe they are not far
wrong. But these Northern people are not numerous, and they are not
forced, for want of space, to spoil their landscapes by studding the
country-side with little red-brick cottages, for all Norway contains
not one-half the number of inhabitants found in London. Under such
circumstances the feeling of freedom is great, and the Norwegians
claim that, as a nation, they are the freest of the free.