with here and there a saeter-dwelling, and this is the end
of the first stage of your journey, for you probably will have climbed
some 2,000 feet and walked a dozen miles or more. Thus you will be glad
enough to accept the hospitality offered to you by the simple peasants.

All these saeter-huts are much alike, though, of course, they vary
in size and in the way in which they are fitted up; but as they are
only occupied during the summer months, luxurious fittings are not
considered a necessity. The outer walls are constructed of fir-trunks,
let into one another at the corners on the log-hut principle, and
the interior is lined with boarding. In some parts, however, where
timber is scarce the buildings are of stone.

The roof consists of rough planks, on which is placed a layer of
birch-bark to fill in the cracks; and on the top, again, are laid
sods of earth to a thickness of about a foot. Grass and weeds soon
cover the roof, binding it together and keeping the rain out.

The door opens into a dark hall or chamber, which serves as a
receptacle for rubbish of all kinds--fishing-nets, tools, skins,
empty milk-pans, and the like; and in the corner is a roughly-built
fireplace for boiling the milk and for cooking. On one side of this
hall is the door into the sole living apartment, which possesses
a window at one end, and against one of the side walls a couple of
bunks, wherein three or four dairymaids sleep.

Sometimes there is a separate room, or even a detached hut,
for the dairy work; but there is generally only the one room,
the milk being set in large, shallow wooden vessels on a number of
shelves fixed against one of the walls. Everything is scrupulously
clean, and the cattle women are working hard all the long daylight
hours. Periodically a man from the farm in the lowlands comes up to
the saeter with a couple of ponies and takes down butter and cheese,
and such visits are the only excitement in saeter-life.

If you have time to linger here for a day or two you will be made
welcome, and you will find plenty to interest you. The views down into
the deep valleys and away to the fjords in the distance are always
delightful, and there may be a stream with pools holding trout worth
trying for. The tiny rivulets which trickle down from the hills are
lined with ferns and forget-me nots, and elsewhere may be seen flowers
of every hue--red Alpine catchfly, blue meadow cranesbill, hawksweed,
wild radis, and a score of o