6 Norivay and the N orivegians 



more worth remembering, because it accounts for some 

 of the phenomena of the country which are most 

 striking, even at the present day, some which would 

 attract the attention of even the most casual tourist, 

 and for others again which, though they are no longer 

 so obvious, are always present and show themselves by 

 their effects. It might be some time before the traveller 

 quite realised the meaning, even of those characteristics 

 which he saw, and it would be longer still, probably, 

 before he divined their true cause, unless he happened 

 to have already studied the subject. Let us try and 

 describe some of these legacies from the Ice Age which 

 I^orway still keeps and shows to the traveller. I will 

 suppose this traveller to come to Norway — as nine out 

 of ten do — across the North Sea, from Hull, or New- 

 castle, or Leith, or it may be even from the Shetlands, 

 arriving first, as in some of these cases he will do, 

 possibly at Stavanger, but in any case passing im- 

 mediately to Bergen. At this last place he is close to 

 some of the grandest scenery which Norway produces. 

 The two most celebrated fjords of Norway — the Hard- 

 anger and the So"ne — lie on either side of him. Twelve 

 or fourteen hours' steam, in the one case to the north, 

 in the other case to the south, will take him well into 

 the inner parts of one of those fjords, where he will see 

 hills towering skywards, and immense cliffs descending 

 sheer down into the sea. In rainy weather, of which, 

 unluckily, he must expect a fair amount, he will see 

 the mountains quite losing themselves in the clouds, 

 glaciers constantly gleaming among them. The streams 

 have that opaque colour — almost the colour of opal — 

 wdiich we are familiar v/ith in glacier water. These 



