82 



SCANDINAVIA. 



other equally dangerous whirlpools in these waters, and in several places the tides 

 advance with terrific speed through the narrow straits. 



South of the Lofotens there are no islands comparable in size with the larger 

 members of that group ; but there are hundreds still large enough to shelter the 



families of fishers and even la- 

 Fig. 39.-ÔLAND AND Kalmar Sound. bourcrs, aud afford pasture for 



Scale 1 : 1,110,000. . '■ 



their cattle. Amongst them 

 are several of extremely eccen- 

 tric forms, resembling towers, 

 castles, and such-like. Here is 

 the Staven, or " Giant's Staff," 

 a tall, slender rock wrapped in 

 a cloud of snowy water-fowl ; 

 yonder the Hestmand, a cavalier 

 shrouded in a mantle, eternally 

 riding through mist and storm ; 

 elsewhere the better-known 

 Torghatt, a gigantic rocky mass 

 800 feet high, pierced about 

 half-way up by a grotto 900 

 feet long, of extremely regular 

 formation, and with two portals 

 230 and 120 feet high. Accord- 

 ing to the legend this vast open- 

 ing was made by the arrow of 

 a giant, whose petrified bust is 

 still to be seen a few miles off. 



The Norwegian islands, in- 

 cluding those of the Skagcr 

 Rak, but exclusive of reefs flush 

 with the surface, have a total 

 area of 8,500 square miles, or 

 about the fourteenth part of the 

 mainland ; but, thanks to their 

 convenient harbours, relatively 

 mild climate, and fisheries, they 

 are much more densely peopled, 

 containing about one-eighth of 

 the whole population of Nor- 



11 to 22 

 Fathoms. 

 lOMilps 



way."* 



The Swedish islands are far 

 less numerous, and long tracts, esjjecially of the Scanian seaboai'd, are entirely 

 free of islets or reefs. Eut on the Kattegat coast, north of Goteborg, there is 

 * According to Broch the 1,1G0 inhabited islands of Norway had a population, in 1875, of 238,000 souls. 



