140 StJtfDAL 



' deal ' in the sense of a plank of fir that is, a tree sawn 

 and separated into 'deals.' It occurs in Scottish place- 

 names, such as Dalnaspidal, Dalhousie, Dalmeny, etc.; 

 but here, though the idea of separation is maintained, 

 the Gaelic dal has no relation to rivers: it signifies a 

 division of land, a farm. In those parts of the Highlands 

 which were longest under Norwegian rule, the Norse dal 

 recurs in its original sense, as in Helmsdale, the Gaelic 

 name whereof is Strath- Ullie. 



In Norse dais the separation is more than merely 

 physical. It is marked in the manners of the people, 

 and in many of the manufactured objects of daily use ; 

 seldom, alas ! nowadays, by picturesque variety of costume, 

 for the ancient national dress has mostly given place in 

 the men to garments suggestive of the slop-shop, and 

 in the women (on Sundays and feast-days, at least) to 

 distressing echoes of the Parisian modiste. Take a trip 

 by any fjord steamer on a Sunday, and you will see 

 peasant-girls enduring incalculable affliction in holding 

 on fly-away hats of the most desperate design. But in 

 the matter of boats (and every Norwegian is a skilled 

 boatman) the people of the dais are exceedingly con- 

 servative, maintaining on each river a special type and 

 build, handed down from a remote antiquity. Thus, in 

 Romsdal, which I have just left, the boats are long and 

 broad, with graceful lines, ending in a square, blunt prow, 

 for better use among rocks, and provided with good, 

 shapely oars or sculls. Cross the Dovrefjeld, and descend 

 the Sundal river (the most rapid salmon-stream I have 

 ever fished), and you find a boat in universal use for all the 

 world like a crazy packing-case short and square, with 

 rectangular, sloping bows, like a Thames punt, propelled 



