scenery of the Fiords by comparison with some of the most renowned specimens of inland water scenery in the old established sight-seeing districts. I take, in the first place, the Königsee, in a corner of Bavaria, near the pleasant village of Berchtesgaden. I suppose it is the most "romantic" of all inland lakes in the old world, by reason of the height of its banks. I remember when I spoke of it some years ago in your pages, a valued correspondent of yours charged me with injustice to it in the matter of the perpendicularity of its precipices. I had questioned if they rose five thousand feet right up without break, and your friend said they did. The dispute, at all events, predicated considerable magnitude of scenery. I am not prepared to say that any one scene I have witnessed from the Fiord exceeds the effect from the middle of the Bavarian lake. But then this is to all practical purposes a spectacle only, not a continued enjoyment. You cannot wander about the banks of the lake. It is inaccessible save at the one point where its showmen and showwomen keep their boats. They row you out to the point of view, and they row you back. You have seen the exhibition, and you have paid your money, and it is all over. But once on the Fiord, you may sail hundreds of miles in and out of the long stretching branches, or you may land anywhere and enjoy everything that can be afforded to you by such scenery. If you are tired of the steamer and its company, nothing is easier than to take up your tabernacle at any station and paddle about, running up here and there into the narrow creeks, or climbing up among the cataracts.

The scenery of the Fiords has been compared to that of the Lake of Lucerne. Some parts of the scenery of the Fiords do strikingly

remind one of "the sacred lake far off among the hills," especially in the narrow inlets shaded by the spurs of Pilatus. But altogether the Fiords are on a grander scale; and if they have features in common with those of Lucerne, the parallel comes of the infinite variety of remarkable scenery lining the long stretches of the Fiords. I won't admit to an equality with it the lake scenery of the Salz Rammer Gut, pleasant as its memory is from an association with Longfellow's 'Hyperion.' That broad, flat precipice, whence a jolly Englishman demanded the echoes abusive of St. Wolfgang, is good by itself; but there are many finer on the Fiords. As to lakes Leman and Lausanne, their adornments are of a different character; while Yverdun, Neuchatel, and the other waters lying in the hollows between the Alps and the Jura, belong to scenery of far inferior class and rank. The Fiords have more points in common, indeed, with river scenery met on the notorious Rhine, than with any other lakes: there is somewhat of the same narrowness between the banks; but the banks are several times as high as the spurs of the seven mountains. Then the slopes are fresh and rich and green, instead of presenting us with dust, and gravel, and scrubby vines; and the waters are as pure as water can be, instead of a dilution of light grey mud, like the unwashed Rhine. Lastly, this scenery must not be levelled to the dry sandstone walls of the Saxon Switzerland. It stands alone, indeed, and in nothing is it more admirable than in the continued shifting of its character, utterly defying the visitor to decide which of its many restless moods is the most secure in his esteem and admiration.

And don't, along of these laudations of the rich feast prepared for

the eye, take fright in the suspicion that other and more material food is lacking. Stories there are about well-fed John Bulls rejoicing in the fortune that, after long abstinence, sends them some flad brod and milh. In Norway there is now as much scenery as any heart need desire available, along with all the comforts of the "Saut Market." If any one encounters "spare fast that oft with Gods doth diet," it must be of his own special seeking. Here and there on the Fiords are small hostels where salmon and venison especially abound. Then the steamers are in themselves floating taverns, wherein travellers may fit themselves out for distant enterprises in uninhabited wilds. Starvation, indeed, is not one of the conspicuously visible elements of Norwegian life. The natives one meets on the tourist grounds are what the Irish call "moighty ayters," and they treat strangers on their own scale. I have seen the average capacity of the British appetite create among them much compassionate wonder. My last breakfast in Norway was taken alone at my own special order, and I was tempted to count the number of preparations of fish and flesh placed at my disposal on the occasion. They were in all fourteen.

As I have already noted, one special beatitude of this class of scenery is the freedom of motion within and around its centre. This has been much increased by the recent progress of steam. No doubt the Norwegian boats are more picturesque than those puffing, blustering monsters; but, at the same time, there is more freedom on the steamer's deck than in custody of a couple of rowers, and there is the abundant facility for leaving it and seeking solitude whether on the hills or on the waters. Passing between the head-waters of the

Fiords affords profuse opportunities for enjoying the scenery purely inland. Land, for instance, at Eide, on the Hardanger, and get on, on foot or otherwise, to Vossevangen, with its deep solemn glen, and its inland lake and river. When you are tired of what you find there, start for Indevangen, on the Sogne Fiord, with its mighty cataract, the Keel Fos. There again the friendly steamers are at your service, and you can spend your days on board or on shore as may suit your humour or your disposable time.

The amount of this kind of life at one's disposal shifts from time to time, but seems ever on the increase. Murray's guide-book published in 1870, treats the Hardanger and the Sogne Fiords as places to be seen only by hiring boats. They are now regularly frequented by steamers starting from Bergen. The headwaters can be reached by the highroad from Christiania; but in the present condition it is far more convenient to adjust your motions to those of the steamers. Perhaps next touring season may see the more northern Fiords open to steam, and then the wanderer can have his headquarters at Trondheim or Malmo. Meanwhile, there is the less distant Bergen at his disposal, and it is as well, perhaps, not to be too ambitious. One feature ever at hand and conspicuous in Norway is the British Tourist, weeping, and wailing, and gnashing his teeth, because he is due at home and cannot get thither at once. has let himself step by degrees so far off, that a thousand miles lie between him and home; and to get through this distance, he is at the mercy of delays of steamers, calcu lated so as not to suit each other. Even in Bergen, if he write to his family, he will be fortunate if he get an answer to his letter in a couple of weeks. This is essentially

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a country where the Persian proverb should guide you, and teach you to "fold the arms of resignation on the bosom of patience." One great boon is at your hand in Bergen and several other places-the electric telegraph. Its ample employment by the inhabitants themselves in their business transactions, is a testimony to their activity and enterprise.

Bergen itself is not exactly a garden of delight to the pleasureseekers-in fact, it is unpopular among them. It is said to rain there about 360 days in the year, "more or less." The damp reception thus offered to the stranger is discouraging, and does not lead him to expect the divine sunshine that prevails a hundred miles inland. It is said that here the clouds crossing the Atlantic encounter the first high ground. They are consequently tapped, and pour out their contents in order that fine weather may be available for the scenery. Several local peculiarities attest the abundance of wet. You seem to have got into a community of black cowled friars; but you find that it is the custom-house officers, and others whose occupation is in the open air, protected from the wet by a Macintosh clothing, which covers the head with a great hood, and descends to the feet. Garden gates and timber railings have roofs over them to keep them from being rotted by the ceaseless souse.

But for all this, there is some interest in Bergen. Remote as it is from the centre of European life, it has established, and long maintained, a separate vitality of its own. Its houses are all of timber, and the characteristic point of such building material is shown by the ominous inscription, in large letters, of "Brand Telegram," intimating that there will be found telegraphic communication with the fire establishments. I have before me an engraving of

Bergen, in a book by Jonston of Amsterdam, called, "Illustrium principumque septentrionalium Europa Tabulæ." These Tabulæ represent the towns as they were in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, or the first of the seventeenth. The Bergen there represented is unchanged, save that now there are villas round it, and of old there was a wall made of great beams of wood set upright. The Slot or castle, with its fine Roman tower, is naturally unchanged, and so are the churches. The harbour and the quays lie as they did. The wooden beams have left descendants exactly like themselves. Facing the water is a row of highgabled warehouses, penetrated by deep, dark passages, endowed with a

most ancient and fish-like smell, as if their contents had remained in them since the days of the Dutch engraver. Their wooden sides have been rebuilt many times, perhaps not even without change of form, the timbers, as they decayed, being replaced by fresh wood. There is not much to attract in Bergen, except for those to whom the observation of a new and peculiar people, and their various ways, is itself a matter of interest. There is a museum more curious than we would expect, especially in objects peculiar to the district. Among these there are preserved many specimens of the peculiar carved woodwork of the Scandinavian races. They are the relics of an art endowed with a strange wild restlessness figured in dragons, serpents, and monstrous animals intertwined in contest and struggle-a sort of nightmare school of art that yet has a strange fascination in it.

If there be not much danger of starvation on the Fiord, still less is there here. To give credit to his treatment by the mercenary dispenser of the comforts of an inn

where such credit is due, is a duty too often neglected by the traveller. He rails sufficiently when the hospitality he considers his right is not afforded, but neglects to record meritorious services. Thou shockheaded waiter at the Scandinavie, so pleasantly perched on the top of the hill, I have somewhat of a debt to discharge towards thee. Thy aspect and ways would hardly befit Lang's or the Tavistock. We, the group of British tourists assembled under the roof of the Scandinavie, did not always approve thy hilarious, careless manner, nor thy way of doing half-a-dozen things at once, and leaving more of them half done. Punctuality and tidiness were not among thy virtues. We liked not the cleaning of the drinking-glasses, nor the one plate and knife that was to serve all purposes. Yet was it my lot to find in thy nature the sterling gold, to which all such matters are but tinsel. It happened in this wise:-Having sailed in the Olaf Kyre from Bergen to Christiansand, I was prepared to land, with my luggage all collected and packed,

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when the steward brought me a good suit of broadcloth, imputing the ownership thereof to me. first I repudiated it, but recollection gradually dawned on the affair. They were clothing I had brought to be worn in the towered cities of other lands, and when I reached Norway they were laid aside and forgotten. The Olaf Kyre sailing at early dawn, I had got on board at night, and our shockheaded friend, finding my clothing, had brought it to the vessel, and left it there without troubling me. Thus came it to pass, from this instance of honesty and attention, that my sojourn in Scandinavia cost a few pounds less than it might have cost.

Good-bye, reader, for the present. Ere we meet again, your fate for the days of rejoicing will have been fixed. But if its destiny is to Scandinavia, and you have not yet stepped on board, perhaps you can endure a little more chat, which will be rather about the place itself and its people, than the ways of getting there.

IN all the great competitions for fame there is much that reminds the reader of quaint John Bunyan's parable, which his hero sees set before him in visible symbol in the Interpreter's house, and which is meant to refer to something much more important than the reputation even of great poets. Passion and Patience are the names of the two children, one of whom has his fine things all at once, while the other consents to wait for them, and is seen serene and cheerful, in all the confidence of hope, while the poor little passionate soul has had and worn and spoiled his finery, and gnashes his teeth over the too rapid fulfilment of his rash wishes. Without any deliberate choice in the matter, which is a thing seldom awarded to mankind, this contrast is continually presented to us in the world. Seldom, perhaps, we may allow, is real excellence kept permanently in the background; its day comes sooner or later; the blessing pronounced upon those who endure to the end is as true in temporal matters as in spiritual; and he who can wait is sure one time or other of his meed, according, or at least in some sort of proportion, to his worth. while this is the case, it is equally certain that to some no waiting, no suspense, is necessary. Of two men, between whom it would be impossible to discriminate which is the greatest, one will leap into sudden fame in the very morning of his career, while another toils on patiently to the lingering eve which finally rewards him, but only after long-drawn agonies of suspense, and weariness, and sickness of de

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ferred hope. Nor is there even such a superiority in the slow recompense over the swift one as to compensate the second of these two for his weary waiting. The sudden reward may be as lofty, as lasting, as great as the slow. Unto this last" the penny is given, the very same penny which rewards the weary toil of him who has borne the heat and burden of the day. These are discrepancies of nature which the wisest can neither account for nor explain. It is so; and if few of us can say that we have less than our deserts, it is certain that many not more deserving get more than we do get it sooner, easier, and with gaieté de cœur-while we rise up early and lie down late, and eat the bread of sorrow. Neither nature nor religion affords any explanation of this. We know that the fact is so-and that is all we know.

There is no better example of this than that afforded by the career of Byron. Of all the poets of his time, it was he who commanded the most instant popularity, who had the greatest immediate effect upon his age, and whose position as a power among men was most remarkable. Scott was the only man of his time who equalled his wonderful success; but even Scott's influence, though broader and deeper, was not so intense and individual. He was like a broad, and full, and quiet stream, enriching and ennobling without agitating the wide country through which it flowed; but Byron was like a torrent, sweeping everything before him, waking and rousing all the echoes, so that nobody could ignore him, and even

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