II. 



HE steamer has passed the point of North Cape, 

 and anchored in Hornvigen, a little bight on the 

 Eastern side of the mountain, to allow the tourists 

 the opportunity of ascending the northernmost 

 outpost of Europe against the Arctic Ocean. We 

 go ashore, wade through plants, as high as a man, of the 

 vigorous Mulgedium alpinum, Archangelica officinalis (" Kvanne "-- 

 Angelica), and an extremely luxuriant form of Scurvy-Grass 

 (Cochharia officinalis), which reaches above our knees ; we clamber 

 up along the narrow cleft of the mountain in order to reach 

 the plateau proper, which forms the termination of the Cape, 

 before it topples over sheer down into the Arctic Ocean. We 

 post ourselves on the slope facing the Arctic Ocean ; the time is 

 between one and two at night ; the sun's red disk stands high 

 above the horizon ; the sea lies burnished like a looking-glass, 

 and one seems to be able to see right up to the North Pole ; but 

 we cannot linger long the ship is waiting for us down below. 



Still, we get just enough time to observe that even this 

 desolate plateau has bird inhabitants. Besides the ubiquitous 

 Wheatear which is not wanting anywhere in our country, from 

 the naked rocks of the coast and up on the mountains to the 

 snow-line we here come across a pair of Ringed Plovers 

 (JEgialitis hiaticula), which run away, crying anxiously, among 

 the small stones which cover the plateau like a floor ; and, if 

 we are lucky, we may discover the four down-covered young, 

 which, like tiny grayish-brown lumps of down, lie flat among 

 the gravel, where they remain motionless so long as the danger 

 lasts. 



Should we have time for a longer excursion, we may, in the 



