SPOUT IN NORWAY. 



between their children, but between their farms ; in- 

 deed, it prevails to a great extent amongst all the 

 peasantry of Norway. In some of the valleys, the in- 

 habitants would on no account marry out of their dis- 

 trict. Hence, as may be supposed, in a thinly-inhabited 

 neighbourhood, where the choice is not great, frequent 

 intermarriages occur; and the effects resulting there- 

 from are extremely injurious. This, combined with 

 other causes, such as the solitary and sedentary life 

 they lead, the poor and insufficient food they have to 

 put up with, is in all probability the reason why there 

 are, in proportion to its population, more lunatics, 

 idiots, deaf and dumb, &c., to be found in Norway 

 than in any other European country, Switzerland, I 

 believe, alone excepted. It is a constant occurrence 

 for uncles to marry their nieces a practice not con- 

 fined to the uneducated and " quasi-barbarous " peasant, 

 but adopted also by the higher and educated classes 

 of towns, the metropolis not excepted. 



As regards family connections, a stiff-necked, aristo- 

 cratic tendency prevails among them, not surpassed by 

 any nobility; and the peasant in Sastersdal, as else- 

 where, is in this point decidedly an aristocrat ; and one 

 often, therefore, hears speak of unhappy alliances, but 

 still oftener that the will of the parents has been set at 

 nought, and that the affair has been decided by the 

 heart, and not by the understanding. There is fre- 



