242 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XIII. 



possible inconvenient place, with his head on the binnacle 

 (especially when careful steering was a matter of moment), 

 or across the companion entrance, or the cabin skylight, or 

 on the shaggy back of "Sailor," the Newfoundland, who 

 positively abhorred him. But how touching it was to see 

 him waddle up and down the deck after Mr. Wy'se, whom 

 he evidently regarded in a maternal point of view — begging 

 for milk with the most expressive snorts and grunts, and 

 embarrassing my good-natured master by demonstrative 

 appeals to his fostering offices ! 



I shall never forget Mr. Wyse's countenance that day in 

 Ullapool Bay, when he tried to command his feelings suffi-^ 

 ciently to acquaint me with the creature's death, which he 

 announced in this graphic sentence, " Ah, my Lord ! — the 

 poor thing ! — toes ttp at last ! " 



Bergen is not as neat and orderly in its architectural 

 arrangements as Drontheim ; a great part of the city is a 

 confused network of narrow streets and alleys, much resem- 

 bling, I should think, its early inconveniences, in the days 

 of Olaf Kyrre. This close and stifling system of street 

 building must have ensured fatal odds against the chances 

 of life in some of those world-devastating plagues that 

 characterised past ages. Bergen was, in fact, nearly depopu- 

 lated by that terrible pestilence which, in 1349, ravaged 

 the North of Europe, and whose memory is still preserved 

 under the name of " The Black Death. ;; 



I have been tempted to enclose you a sort of ballad, 

 which was composed while looking on the very scene of 

 this disastrous event ; its only merit consists in its local 

 inspiration, and in its conveying a true relation of the 

 manner in which the plague entered the doomed city. 



THE BLACK DEATH OF BERGEN. 



1. 

 What can ail the Bergen Burghers 



That they leave their stoups of wine ? 

 Flinging up the hill like jagers, 



At the hour they're wont to dine ! 



