82 NOTES ON A SUMMER TOUR IN NORWAY. 
confess I am very sceptical as to the time of ome glacial epoch 
being sufficient for such a work. 
At the northern extremity of one of the ramifications of the 
fjord, the great Jdstedals glacier descends from the snowfield 
above, almost to the water’s edge. 
Between the mouth of the Sognefjord and Molde we pass close 
under the majestic crag of Hornelen, which rises almost perpen- 
dicularly out of the water to a height of 3,000 feet. 
For a considerable distance the usual track of the coasting 
vessels now lies outside the fringe of islands, and anyone who has 
passed round the promontory of the Stadt with a strong northerly 
breeze blowing, is the better able to appreciate the shelter which 
the Skjaergaard affords. 
We are now in the Storfjord, which terminates inland in the 
Geirangerfjord ; perhaps the most wonderful of all these natural 
inlets in Norway. It is a very narrow fjord, bounded by 
precipitous mountains, rising almost perpendicularly from the 
water’s edge to a height of between 4,000 and 5,000 feet. 
On both sides of the fjord are seen numerous waterfalls, some 
of which, descending in the form of spray or mist, betray their 
existence only by the disturbed state of the water below. 
High up, and as much as 1,600 feet above the fjord, there is a 
little gaard or farm-house, which is built upon a small and 
apparently inaccessible ledge on the face of the cliff. The 
children of this farm may be seen disporting themselves on the 
small patch of green, but carefully tethered, like young goats, to 
prevent them making a too rapid excursion to the fjord, nearly 
1,600 feet below them. 
No small ledge of rock where a few square feet of grass can 
grow appears to be wasted in Norway, no matter how inaccessible 
the green patch may appear. It is no uncommon thing to see 
long wires stretched from the height to a farm in the valley. 
These wires, which are often hundreds of yards in length, are 
used for conducting to the farmstead the grass or wood which is 
cut high up on the mountain slopes. 
The town of Molde, the Madeira of the north, as it is 
