280 NORWAY. 



looking stoves in every room, suggestive of a genial 

 temperature ; and there were scattered about numbers of 

 immense meerschaum pipes and tobacco pouches, sugges- 

 tive of fireside gossip perchance legends and tales of the 

 old sea-kings in the long dark nights of winter. 



I was strengthened here in my belief in the indis- 

 soluble connection between fat and good-humour ; for all 

 the people of this fiord seemed to me to be both good- 

 humoured and fat. It was here, too, that I was for the 

 first time strongly impressed with my own lamentable 

 ignorance of the Norse language. Nevertheless, the old 

 proverb "Where there's a will there's a way" held 

 good, for the way in which I managed to hold converse 

 with the natives of that region was astounding even to 

 myself ! 



One bluff, hearty fellow of about fifty, with fair hair, a 

 round, oily countenance, and bright blue eyes, took me 

 off to see his wife and family. Up to this time our party 

 had always kept together, and, being a lazy student, I 

 had been wont to maintain a modest silence while some 

 of my companions, more versed in the language, did all 

 the talking. But now I found myself, for the first time, 

 alone with a Norwegian ! fairly left to my own re- 

 sources. Well, I began by stringing together all the 

 Norse I knew (it was not much), and endeavouring to 

 look as if I knew a great deal more. But I soon found 

 that Murray's list of sentences did not avail me in e 

 lengthened and desultory conversation. 



My fat friend and I soon became very amicable and 



