56 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



was not quite dark, but only gloomy enough to make 

 us feel more intensely the solemnity of the place and 

 hour. At the base of the great rock, which from the 

 steamer seemed to erect itself perpendicularly from 

 the waves, twinkled a few lights. Even to this barren 

 and dreary place, where not a leaflet, not a blade of 

 grass, ever shows itself human beings find it worth 

 their while to come, to wrest, with great danger and 

 many privations, a miserable livelihood from the 

 ocean. 



On the rocks which form the cape, a colony of sea- 

 birds have taken up their abode ; but even these, 

 usually so shrill and discordant, seemed to have sunk 

 into sleep, and did not break the stillness which pre- 

 vailed. 



I was sorry not to obtain a view of the North Cape, 

 though on arriving at Gjsesva3r, a fishing-station about 

 half an hour's sail from it, a hill-top was pointed out 

 to me as the summit of the land-side of the cape, and 

 with this I was forced to be satisfied. 



From Gjsesvser we steered through innumerable 

 straits and passed countless islands, all more or less 

 wild and rugged, and arrived in the evening at Ham- 

 merfest, pretty well pleased to be so near home. 



And here my narrative ends. A few hours from 

 Hammerfest will bring me to Tromsoe my temporary 

 home. We steam out into the open sea, and then, 

 past Loppen, that wave-beat isle ; past Fugled (Bird 

 Island), on whose lofty snow-capped summit the rude 



