The record-union., 1893-12-16
upon the pediment, expressing the unt

upon the pediment, expressing the uni
versai Christian faith in Immortality.
In leisurely travelling through Norway,
where one from vagarOus impulse or ne
cessity is likely to often come to house of
bonder, cabin of peasant or hut of mount
ain saeter, there are certain formalities of
etiquette well to be borne in mind. The
civil stranger is almost joyously well
coined in any home. After the wonderful
handshaking of the first greeting is over,
the housewife Immediately prepares re-
freshment of coffee and smoerbroed, or
buttered bread. You are supposed to
wholly ignore these agreeable proceed
lngs. Wnen they are about ready for
your entertainment you must rise and
profess to be in readiness to depart. Then
the housewife is Yoluble in entreaties for
you to remain. Reluctance and entreaty
must now have full play until you are
overpowered by hospitable entreaty and
consent, after renewed handshakings to
remain. AT the peasants cabins and the
saeters a similar formality must be OBJ
served. The peasant woman or the saeter
girl Will run forward to meet you, always
bearing vessel of fresh milk in her
hand. y on must at first refuse with some
expression or gesture conveying the idea
that you are unworthy of the attention.
The woman vOlubly insists that you must
accept her kindly Offering. Then you
take the vessel, but ouly the slightest sip
OF milk, and return it with further mani
festatiOns of funWOrthiness. This enables
her to further urge and insist, whereupon
you accept the civility heartily and take a
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 welcome, 10 drink not a pint
but a gallon!
Scenically considered Norway presents
such HmitleSS varieties and countless
numbers of tremendous spectacles that it
is difficult to select even few which may
| be regarded as pre-eminent tor grandeur
and sublimity. Perhaps the great gorge
OF Romsdal furnishes the most amazing
number of waterfalls to be seen from any
one point in all the world. The spectacle
of from a score to half hundred, each
from 500 to 5000 feet in hight; mighty
torrent, the river Rauma, laundering
along beside you, itself in places series
of tremendous cascades, solid walls of
stone rising precipitously at either side
from 5000 to 1000 feet: wherever break
III 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 lit
tie distance, but for nearly fifty miles-is
all SO different from any other scene in
any other land, so beWildering III its very
superabundance of grandeur, and almost
so appalling either in sight or memory,
that the successive scenes are impossible
of fitting description by writer. or painter
and almost omprehensible to one who
looks in awe upon them.
Another scene possessing similar feat
uies ana yet with some added elements Of
majectic grandeur is found in the N4ro-
dial, where that shorter but still more in
tensely gloomy gorge opens out, above
Gudvangen, upon the somber, mountain
walled N9rofjOrd. The N3rodal is but
eight miles in length; but its walls are
so close; its two famous waterfalls, the
Stalheim-fos and the Sivle-tos, are such
mighty and lofty exhibitions of force and
power, as though the upper ice fields
were all pouring over the cliffs their COM
bined, pulveriZed masses; the rivera
mad river always roars through the
won6rOus Norwegian dals-is so fOaming
and thunderous; while the mighty
mountains rise to such awful nights there
above your head, the kingly JOrdalsnut
with its oval crown towering precipitOus-
ly above all; that the whole scene is one
of SURPRISING solemnlty and unparalleled
savage grandeur. 1t is said that there is
but one other scene in all the Old World
equaling this N8rodal, and that is the
Pass of the Taurus in Asia Minor.
~
mighty waterfalls. None is so wide or
discharges such a vast volume of water as
Niagara, but there are perhaps five hun
dred or one thousand that the most hur-
ried traveller cannot tail of seeing, which
are several times higher; scores are ten
times as high; and the waters of several
have perpendicular descent of twenty
times the fail of those OF our American
thunder OF water - | have no doubt
- 4 Jizt
of this wondrouS Northland far more ma
jestic waterfalls from glacier-melting
nights than have yet met The tourist $
wondering or impassive gaze; for the
whole face OF Norway is simply an ice-
mountain rent and torn into almost
measureless assures and gorges between
which creep arms OF the sea, and into
which everlasting descend torrents, and
waterfalls from the melting ice plateauS
and mountains above.
The Lougen and Glommen Rivers, the
largest two in Norway, discharge their
united waters in the Sarpen-fOs, a more
noble waterfall than that OF Schatfhausen
on the Rhine. In the upper Telemarken
district is the Riukan-tos, literally the
reeking or steaming waterfall, which
drops straight from its source over 800
feet into gulf Of wall-surrOunded caul-
dron, so clogged with fieece-like folds of
sailing along the tiords you can count
hundreds OF falls of from l,500 to 1000
feet high; so high that the water is often
pounded by the resistance Of the air into
spray, from spray into mist, and this into
such ghostly wreaths OF vapor that they
disappear into nothingness before the
ford or valley level is gained. L have
myself clam bered along the edges of the
Romsdai cliffs with my post boy guide,
Peter Larsen, and discovered scores of
falls, entirety unknown to the guide
books, or travellers of the valley road be-
low, which fall into churn-like cavities
from l 900 TO 1000 leet IN depth, reappear-
ing at the kauma eredge in outshoot-
ing cascades, or perhaps pounding
through cavernouS tunnels of their own
making to show to the beholder upon the
highway like mass of white coral set
hundreds of feet up against the side OF
the black ana onyX-like precipitous val
ley walls.
The most expressive waterfalls of Nor
way so far known are the Noering-f -fos
and the Skjeggedal-fos. Both of these
are in the Hardanger district, noted also
| for It's sublime ford and mountain
scenery, the latter comprising the vast
! Folgeiond or giacler-tield and its hand