the farmers' houses have evolved 

 but little. 



Stern as their hotfjeldene, sturdy 

 as the little horses they rear, are 

 the people, fearless as t* e wolver- 

 ine, and inheriting the silent depths 

 of their gloomy beautiful fiords. 

 They laugh, it is the sunlight on the 

 mountains, yet one does not forget 

 the half-year winter night. They 

 save, niggard Nature makes provi- 

 dent man. Every wisp of hay is 

 garnered and cured as one would 

 herbs, on a frame. The crop from 

 a grass patch no bigger than a city 

 back yard, tucked among the cliffs 

 high in the air, is sent down by 

 means of a hay-wire to the little 

 farm-house, itself clinging to the 

 mountain side with an air that some- 

 day it may forget and topple into 

 the deep waiting fiord beneath. 



Those quiet fiords! the little cough- 

 ing steamer that daily bustles 

 through, bearing its human freight 

 from the outside world, like a bum- 

 ble bee before a brooding storm, 

 only enhances their silence. Be- 

 tween the fiords and stringing them 

 together, gem after gem, run kilos 



