Through Scandinavia to Moscow

Elv-the Aurdals Vand an

rway, Septem

mes a mere gallery cut into the solid rock, and we are now wondering how we were ever such simple things as to waste our time in tame England, or even linger among what now seem so commonplace, Scottish lochs and tarns. We have traversed the shores of the Aurdal, the Stranda, the Granheim, the Slidre and the Vangsmjoesen Fjords, each and all pools of the foaming river Baegna; and have looked across the

STANT

where the thrifty Norse farmer dwells upon his own land, independent, self-respecting, recognizing no lord but God-for the title of the "Swedish King" weighs but little here. Everywhere have I remarked a trim neatness, exceeding, if it were possible, even that of Holland. Upon the meadows were cattle, mo

stern and austere mountains, lifting themselves into the very zenith, their slopes gleaming with white bands of snow, their topmost clefts nursing glittering icepacks and glaciers. Ole Mon has co

e could eat of them, delicious milk like that from our blue grass counties of Greenbrier a

aps, and the little girls drop down in a courtesy. The little caps always come off the yellow heads with sweeping bow, and the duck of the little girls is a

and Ole Mon tells us that it is quite empty and has had no tenant for some two

It is calculated that in eight or ten years more every Norwegian of voting age will have had the necessary military training and will have become a part of the effective national defense. "We will never have trouble with Sweden," they say, "the Swedes and ourselves only show our teeth." "It is Russia, hungry Russia, that we fear. We will learn to m

AEGNA

F COWS,

ANHEIM

s all of these places are. The neatly dressed young woman who waited on us had lived two years in Dakota, and in Spokane, and spoke perfect United States. She had an uncle and a brother still there, and hoped to go back herself when the old folks had passed away. At Oeilo, fifteen kilometers further on, we also drew rein-each time we stop the ponies have the nosebags of oat meal-and then we paused again at Grindaheim

ds of the surrounding countryside. There were several ptarmigan and one fine capercailzie, the c

en the air is still and there are no storms about, the clangs and clashes of their battle conflicts resound with thunder roars, waking the echoes in all the valleys round. Then the black mountain sides breathe forth gigantic jets of steamlike cloud, while it is at such times also that the Trolls and Gnomes creep forth from the shadows of the rocks to do honor to the warring giants. When questioned closely, he admitted he had never witnessed one of these combats, but declared that when a boy he had heard the roar on the summit of the mountain and had seen the white clouds shoo

BENEATH T

grain are carefully spread out, hung on a handful at a time, so that each blade and straw may catch the sun, and dry out, a tedious, laborious work on which the women were more generally employed. The men bring up back-loads newly cut by scythe and sickle, and throw them down before the women, who then carefully hang each handful on the ricks. What must a Norwegian feel, trained to such painstaking toil as this, when he at first sets foot upon the boundless wheat lands of Minnesota and the prairie West. No wonder he returns to his native homestead only to

e hard put to it for fencing material. I noticed that they generally depend upon slim poles and sma

NG TH

BY THE SL

nd and come down to Laerdalsoeren, on the Sogne Fjord which holds the waters of the sea, sixty-five miles further on. The vands to-day have been like gia

n a narrow bed, and I am about to get into another on the other side of the room, on which I now sit wr