Morning journal and courier., 1893-12-16

eVlQences or the Oreator'e power every whsre surrounding them. The churchs yard, which is also the graveyard, usus ally surrounds the entire church, and If often flied or richly bordered with mourn ful frs and evergreens. The numberless high, rounded and prettily sodded mounds can scarcely be seen for the wild mszs of evsrgreens, plants and fowers. Beside nearly all the graves, or family burisl-plot- "A peculiarity have not noticed in any other country-sre benches or rustic wooden settles, to which the mourners come and muse among the memories of the loved ones at rest beneath. There are few hesdstones. Instead there are crosses of blackened wood, intensifying the solemn suggestiveness of the place. The Morse are not given to effusive inscriptions, and the transverse beam of each black cross usually has but two lines. The first be. gins with fod (bolp), and the second with tod (died). There Is only occasionally added verse of scripture, upon the pedi- ment, expressing the universal Christian faith in immortality.
 In leisurely travelling through Norway, where one from various impulse or neces- sity Is likely to often come to house of ponder, cabin of peasant or hut of noun tain saeter, there are certain formalities of etiquette well to be borne In mind. The civil stranger is almost joyously welcomed in any home. After the wonderful hand. housewife immediately prepares refresh ment of coffee and smoerbroed, or but tered bread. You are supposed to wholly ignore these agreeable proceedings. When they are about ready for your entertain ment you must rise and profess to bs In readiness to depart. Then the housewife is voluble In entresties for you to remain. Reluctance and entreaty must now have full play until you are overpowered by hospitable entreaty and consent, after re- newed hand-shskings to remain. At the pessents' cabins and the saeters a similar formality must be observed. The peasant woman or the saeter girl will run forward to meet you, always bearing vessel of fresh milk in her haud. You must st first refuse with some expression or gesture conveying the idea that you are unworthy of the attention. The woman volubly in sists that you must accept her kindly of fering. Then you take the vessel, but only the slightest sip of milk, and return 1t with further manifestations of unworth- iness. This enables her to further urge and insist, whereupon you accept the oivility heartily and take long draught You will be a fortunate traveller, then, if you are not forced, by the woman's fears that you are not quite sure of your well come, to drink not pint but 8 gallopi
 Scenically considerSd Norway presents such limitless varieties aud countless num- bers of tremendous spectacles that 1t ia difficult to select even few which may be regarded as pre- eminent for grandeur and sublimity. Perhaps the great gorge of Romsdal furnishes the most amazing num- Der of waterfalls to be seen from any one rnnfnt in all fha xrnrlI The 0f from 6 score to half hundred, each from five hundred to three thousand feet in height: a mighty torrent. the river Raums, laundering along beside you, itself in places & series of tremendous cascades, solid walls of stone rising precipitously at either side from three to four thousand feet; wherever a break in the gorge occurs, either some weird horn of stone piercing the skyline above, or endless mountain chains showing caps of glittering white; and this not for al title distance, but for nearly fifty miles;-is all so different from any other scene In any other land, go be- wildering In its very superaoundsnce of grandeur, and almost 80 appalling either in sight or memory. that the successive scenes are impossible of fitting descrip- ton by writer or painter, and almost in- comprehsnsible to one who looks in awe upon them.
 Another scene possessing similar fea- lures and yet with some added elements of majestic grandeur Is found in the Nsrodsl where that shorter but still more intensely gloomy gorge opens out, above GudysngeD, upon the sombre, mountain walled Nerof- iord. The NerodsI is but eight miles in length; but it's walls are so close; its two famous waterfalls, the Stalheim fos and the Sivle fos. are such mighty and lofty exhibitions of force and power, ss though the upper ice fields were all pouring over the cliffs their combined pulverizsd masses; the river-a mad river always roars through the wondrous Norwegian dals-is so foam ing and thunderous; while the mighty mountains rise to such awful heights there above your head, the kingly Jordslsnut with it's oval crown towering precipitousiy above all; ths: the whole scene is enc of surpassing solemnity and unparalleled savage grandeur. It is said that there is but one other scene In all the old world equaliDg this Nerodal, and that is the Pass of the Taurus in Asia Minor.
 Norway Is above all else land of mighty waterfalls. None Is so wide or discharges such a vast volume of water as Niagara, but there are perhaps five hundred or one thousand that the most hurried traveller cannot fail of seeing, which are several times higher; scores are ten times ss high; and the waters of several have @ perpen- dicular descent of twenty times the fsli of those of our American thunder of waterli' have no doubt that there are still in un- explored districts of this wondrous North. land far more majestic waterfalls from glacier melting heights than have yet met the tourists wondering or impsssive gaze for the whole face of Norway Ia simply au ice mountain rent and torn into almost measureless Assures and gorges, between which creep arms of the sea, and into which everlastingly descend torrents and waterfalls from the melting ice-plsteaus l and mountains above.
 The Lougen and GIommen rivers, the | largest two in Norway, discharge theil united waters in the Ssrpen-fos, 8 more | noble waterfall than that of Schaffhauser
 on the Rhine. In the upper Telemarksr | district Is the Riukan-fos, literally tht reeking or steaming waterfall, whict | drops straight from it's source over e'gh hundred feet into 6 gulf or wall-surround | ed cauldron, so ciogged with ieece-lik' folds of vspor that Its bottom cannot b.
 seen. In sailing along the fords you car
 count hundreds of falls from fifteen t'
 twenty hundred feet high; so high ths the water is often pounded by the resist | duCc Ol tuc hlE luto spIcyy HUH ePfay AhS' mist, and this into such ghostly wreAthI of vapor that they disappear into noth
 ingness before the ford or valley level i gained. I have my self clsmbsred alonI
 the edges of the Romsdal cliffs with 10.
 post boy guide, Peter Larsen, and discov
 cred scores of falls, entirely unknown t
 the guide books, or travellers of the valle
 road below, which fall into churn-Hks cav
 ities from fifteen to twenty hundred fee
 in depth, reappesring at the Rsuma river
 edge in out. shooting cascades, or perhap pounding through csvernous tunnels 0
 their own making to show to the beholde
 upon the highway like mass of white co
 rsl set hundreds of feet up sgainst th
 tous valley walls.
 The most impressive waterfalls of Nol
 way SO far known are the Voering-fos an
 the Skjegge-dal fos. Both of these are
 the Hsrdanger district, noted also for fl
 sublime ford and mountain scenery, th latter comprising the vast Folge-fond (
 glacier field, and its handsome, hospitsbl
 picturesque and thoroughly characterize peasantry. The Voering- fos Is reached from Vik, on the Eid ford, branch ( the noble Hardanger. The going au
 coming, leisurely done, requires a da, You ride in the saddle to the little OIfiorl are rowed upon this to the Msabo farr : and here other ponies are secured for long and dangerous scramble up and dow wild and broken mountain into the e euisite valley of Mssbo. It is like gisi : bowl carved out of ebony with an emers . bottom. The sides rise thousands of fe to fields never free of snow and ice. IT : Bjoreia river brs1ls and foams throul the valley. At one side is a wild rsvil three thousand feet deep. Into this pou