The Hills g 



laud from the sea. In the ISrordfjord, for example, a 

 number of jagged peaks cut the sky-line almost as im- 

 pressively as the peaks in Switzerland stand out 

 against the horizon. But even this effect, produced by 

 gazing straight up from below, in a way you seldom 

 can do in Switzerland, would be lost if you could get 

 a wider perspective. Taking the country as a whole, 

 and anticipating for once the later experience of the 

 traveller, we are bound to confess that the contour of 

 the hills in Norway is far less grand than in Switzer- 

 land, or in the Apennines or Pyrenees. We miss that 

 long succession of rugged peaks which are so impres- 

 sive in mountain chains, such as that of jMont Blanc, of 

 the Bernese Oberland, or any of the other well-known 

 chains in Switzerland. Nay, it is often worse than 

 this. The general rugged effect of a mountain country 

 against the sky-line is often lost altogether. The hills 

 of Norway seen in this way look puddingy. If we are 

 close beneath the cliffs they look stupendous; but 

 when we are far enough off to take in the effect of a 

 whole range of hills, that effect is, it must be confessed, 

 much inferior to what we receive in the other highland 

 regions I have spoken of. This is the one disappoint- 

 ment which the tourist must expect in Norway, and it 

 is pleasant to get rid of this as soon as possible. Very 

 likely the reader has experienced something of the same 

 disappointment when first travelling in the Scottish 

 Highlands. He expected mountains, but from a little 

 distance off, at anyrate, the mountains look mere hills 

 or hillocks. 



This effect is due to precisely the same causes in 

 Scandinavia and in Scotland, namely, to that very 



