ORWAY is the northern tourist land ; the Switzer- 

 land of North Europe. 



Norway also has its shining Ice-braes, larger than 

 any other glaciers in the continent of Europe. It 

 has waterfalls of matchless beauty, which precipitate 

 themselves with noise like thunder, a depth of 700 feet, to where 

 no human eye can reach, nor foot tread their margin. It 

 also has its Alps, mighty and snow-clad, as the Swiss Alps them- 

 selves, although of less considerable heights ; but the nature and 

 ordinary character of the Alpine scenery in the two lands, are 

 entirely different. At the foot of the Swiss Alps winds a belt 

 of chestnut and walnut trees, on their slopes flourish even vines, 

 and the inhabitants grow wheat on the shores of charming lakes 

 or in the warm valley bottoms, where the mulberry-tree, the fig- 

 tree, and the maize also flourish. The Norwegian Alps rise as a 

 rule from a lofty mountain plateau ; their summits are sometimes 

 decidedly imposing, and their confused masses of mountain-ridges 

 and deep valleys picturesque ; but no trees wreath the bases 

 of the peaks, except the uppermost stragglers of the stunted pines 

 and birches ; and in the corries on the mountain-sides and upon 

 the plateaux, large tracts are covered with thickets of the silver- 

 gray mountain-willow, which in turn are succeeded higher up by 

 monotonous areas covered by various species of lichen. 



Here, in the belt of gray mountain-willow (Salix lapponum, and 

 5. glauca), is the home of the Willow Grouse, here is the goal of 

 the sportsman's longing ; but the height between three and four 

 thousand feet above the level of the sea, and the more northerly 

 situation, cause these mountain-wastes from which our proudest 

 peaks rise directly, to be only inhabited in the summer-time 

 by scattered "Saeter" folk (or mountain-dairy people), or to be 

 frequented by the numerous summer visitors, Tourists and 

 Sportsmen. 



