Through Scandinavia to Moscow

Waterfall of Skjerve Fos-T

ay, Septem

gh a scattering woodland of small firs and birches, close by the side of a foaming creek, the N

passed a scattered farmstead-gaard-for every bit of land yielding any grass is here in the possession of an immemorial owner. The vand is a famed trout pool, and as we wound al

orse style with carved and ornamented gables and painted

NAER

ent, a furious river, the Tvinde Elv. In the fourteen miles we had descended-coasted-two thousand five hundred (2,500) feet, and now were come to the little town of Voss or Vossvange

ational railway, those between Bergen and Vossvangen, and between Kristiania and Roikenvik-over which we came-are already constructed and running trains, but it is estimat

s surreptitiously pulled many a fine trout and salmon out of the lovely lake. The people of Vossvangen accept his honors as partly their own, and my Norwegian host gazed at me most complacently when I told him that American Senator

es, big and mealy, which we ate with a little salt and abundance of delicious cream. Our hearts were here stirred with sympathy for a most unhappy-looking American girl who had evidently married a foreign husband. He was a surly, ugly-mann

Hardanger Fjord. After passing the divide and coming down a few miles, we suddenly found ourselves on the rim of a vast amphitheatre into the center of which plunged a mighty waterfall, the Skjervefos, much resembling that of the Kaaterskill Falls, in the Catskill mountains of New York, only ten times as big.

OUR BOAT,

to get hold of an English-worded guide book. We are trusting to our driver's knowledge, and to our own eyes and wits. And so it is, that we came right upon one of the most splendid waterfalls in all Norway, and never knew aught of it until chasm

w quiet or how low the waters might appear, there were yet dangers which men could not see, for water-demons hid in the black eddies and skulked in the foam. They lurked in silence until the traveler was midway the stream when they would boldly seize him by the feet, and draw him down, and ride his body exultingly through the plunging cataract be

cliffs. Nor is there room for carriages to pass. There are turnouts, here and there, and you pull a rope and ring a bell which warns ahead that you are coming. In some places the roadway was shored up with timbers above the profound black waters. We passe

RDANGE

isty headlands loomed against the dusk. The black waters were foam capped. There was a dull moan to the wind in the offing; it was a night for a storm at sea. It now grew dark. A few fitful stars shone here and there. The wind was rising. A bright light suddenly appeared toward the west. Our boat had come round the headland, and was soon at the pier. It was much like the little ship in which we sailed u

hose fleets of war-boats, the like of which we saw the other day in Kristiania, and which went out to plunder and ravage hamlet and town and city along all the ocean coasts, even passing through the Gates of Hercules, and visiting Latin and Greek and African province with devastation and death. "Sea-wolves," Tacitus called them, and such they were. Here gathered the hardy war-men who went out and conquered Gaul, and founded Norse rule in Normanwise where now is Normandy. Hence sailed forth the warships which harried the British Isles, and left Norse speech strong to this day on Scottish tongue and in Northumbrian mouth. Here, also, fitted out the ships, some of

FJORD,

ceased. I felt a jarring of the boat. W

und waters respond with sullen restlessness to the stress of outer tempest. Only a Norseman born and bred to these tortuous channel

gh telephone by our Tourists' Agency (the Bennetts) in Kristiania. And so have we found it everywhere along our route. All Norway, every post office and nearly every farm, and especially all hot

s meal, ordered from Kristiania, is always ready for us, and every landlord knows to the minute ju

lps to Dalen, and thence by the Telemarken lakes and locks to Skien, and by rail to Kristiania; the other diverging at Horre, passing down the valley of the Roldals Vand to Sand and thence