210 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XL 



behind a cloud, hardened into a sharp edge. Up went the 

 sextant. " 52.43 !" (or whatever it was) I shouted to Mr. 

 Wyse. "52.41, my Lord!" cried he, in return; there was 

 only the discrepancy of a mile between us. We had got 

 the altitude ; the sun might go to bed for good and all now, 

 we did not care, — we knew our position to an inch. There 

 had been an error of something like forty miles in our dead 

 reckoning, in consequence — as I afterwards found — of a 

 current that sets to the northward, along the west coast of 

 Norway, with a velocity varying from one to three miles an 

 hour. The island upon which we had so nearly run 7c>as 

 Roost. We were still nearly 200 miles from our port. 

 " Turn the hands up ! Make sail ! " and away we went 

 again in the same course as before, at the rate of ten knots 

 an hour. 



" The girls at home have got hold of the tow-rope, I think, 

 my Lord," said Mr. Wyse, as we bounded along over the 

 thundering seas. 



By three o'clock next day we were up with Vigten ; and 



now a very nasty piece of navigation began. In order to 



make the northern entrance of the Throndhjem Fiord, you 



have first to find your way into what is called the Froh 



Havet, — a kind of oblong basin about sixteen miles long, 



formed by a ledge of low rocks running parallel with the 



mainland, at a distance of ten miles to seaward. Though 



the space between this outer boundary and the coast is so 



wide, in consequence of the network of sunken rocks which 



stuffs it up, the passage by which a vessel can enter is very 



narrow, and the only landmark to enable you to find the 



channel is the head one of the string of outer islets. As 



this rock is about the size of a dining-table, perfectly flat, 



and rising only a few feet above the level of the sea, to 



attempt to make it is like looking for a needle in a bottle of 



hay. It was already beginning to grow very late and dark 



by the time we had come up with the spot where it ought to 



have been, but not a vestige of such a thing had turned up. 



Should we not sight it in a quarter of an hour, we must go 



