1 2 Norivay and the Norwegians 



would take the Hardanger Fjord as a good instance in 

 point. During all his first day's sail from Bergen 

 to Eide (say) the traveller will notice these smoothed 

 yet rocky hill-sides stretching down to the fjord on 

 either hand ; and recalling to mind the appearance of 

 the hills of Norway as he first saw them at Stavanger, 

 he will see how these things, too, are the outcome of the 

 glacial age. 



If, so far, these effects of the glacial era have been 

 rather injurious to the beauty of Norwegian scenery, 

 amends have surely been made in the burrowing out of 

 the fjords. For that, too, is the work of glaciers. 

 I have already, by anticipation, carried the reader into 

 some of the fjords ; but we have now to speak more 

 particularly of this feature of the country. I take the 

 things in order of our experience of them; first the 

 Skjccrgaard, or island belt, next the hills, and now, more 

 decidedly unique than either of the preceding, the 

 fjords. I say advisedly the most distinctly unique of 

 the three. The reader who has never been to Norway, 

 and has formed his judgment chiefly from maps, will 

 perhaps hardly understand the statement. Fjord, so far 

 as its etymology goes, is simply firth ; and firth is the 

 Scottish term generally used for the estuary of a river. 

 Any one who had never been to Norway might be 

 expected to interpret the word simply in this sense, and 

 to look for river-mouths or estuaries of essentially the 

 same kind that he would find in England or Scotland. 

 In reality, however, the fjord is a natural feature pecu- 

 liar to Scandinavia, as the tourist will soon begin to 

 discover. 



The two fjords which the traveller is likely first 



