erhousenboggen."
"Where did you learn to pronounce Norwegian so well, Scott?"
"O, I learned Norwegian when I was an infant. I could speak it first
rate before I learned to utter my mother tongue."
"Go 'way!" protested Laybold. "Do you know what island that is on the
starboard hand."
"To be sure I do. Do you think my education has been neglected to that
extent? That's Steppenfetchenboggen. A very fine island it is, too,"
continued Scott, rattling off the long names so that they had a
decidedly foreign ring.
"I don't see how you can pronounce those words," added Laybold. "They
would choke me to death."
"I don't believe they would," laughed Scott.
The squadron passed through several narrow passages, and then came to
a broad expanse of water at the mouth of the Drammen River. The
students were perched on the rail and in the rigging of the various
vessels, observing with great interest the development of the
panorama, which seemed to be unrolled before them.
"It is rather fine scenery," said Lincoln, who still carried the book
in his hand, and occasionally glanced at the pictures; "but I think
the artist here must have multiplied the height of the cliffs by two,
and divided the height of houses, men, and masts by the same number."
"It certainly looks like an exaggeration," replied Ryder.
"Look at this," added Lincoln, pointing to a scene on the coast of
Norway. "There's a large steamer carrying a top-gallant yard on the
foremast. That mast is probably a hundred and fifty feet high, and
there are hills and bluffs beyond it--which would lose by the
perspective--five times as high."
"Still it is very fine scenery."
"So it is; but no finer than we have on the coast of Maine. You
remember last summer we went through the Reach, down by Machias? That
was something like this, and quite as pleasant."
"We mustn't be too critical, Lincoln," laughed Ryder.
"I don't intend to be critical; but I had an idea, from the pictures
I have seen, that Christiania Fjord was something like the Saguenay
River, where the cliffs rise perpendicularly four or five hundred feet
high. These pictures would certainly lead one to expect such sights."
"Horton," said the pilot, pointing to a town which now came into view,
as the vessel passed beyond a point of land.
It was a small place, in appearance not unlike a New England village.
At the wharf were a couple of small steamers, one of which had come
down the Drammen, and t
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