The Fjords 15 



something of their history. It is enough to say at 

 present that, in the first place, the earliest Scandi- 

 navian navigators probably learnt their art not on any 

 portion of the coast which faces the north Atlantic, 

 but in the comparatively safe waters of the Baltic, just 

 as the Greeks learnt their art of seafaring in the enclosed 

 waters of the ^gean. This in the first place ; and 

 secondly, that even the navigators of the North Atlantic 

 coasts had for their first essays these protected fjords 

 shut off from the outer ocean by the wall of the 

 slxjcerriaard : and that it was because they had this pro- 

 tected region to experiment in, because they could 

 gradually improve upon the rude boats with which they 

 first began and did not need until they had had time for 

 long practice and long development to venture forth 

 into the open sea, that the forefathers of modern navi- 

 gation became the great sailors which they did become. 

 No doubt the men of Norway did venture out at last 

 and battle with the elements, with the wildest of 

 Atlantic storms, when, through the course of ages, they 

 had learnt to make their ships fit for the contest. 



And now we return to the description of the fjord. 

 The fjord is not like a true firth, because, for one thing, 

 there is no single great river current sweeping down it, 

 fighting against the influx of the tide, as there is in the 

 firth of Forth or Clyde, as there is in all great river 

 mouths. Nor, on the other hand, can the fjord be at all 

 justly compared to an ordinary bay. 



Other bays, surrounded by high cliffs, have almost 

 always a deposit of some kind at the foot of the rock, a 

 beach of some sort between the cliff and the sea. How- 

 soever steep and high may be the surrounding roclcs, the 



