NOEWEGIAN TOWNS. 121 



their culture from the Scandinavians, who have taught them the art of domesti- 

 cating animals. In Lappish the dog alone has an original name, the horse, ox, 

 sheep, goat, cat, pig, being known only by their Norse names. Even the reindeer 

 was known only as game ; but they have now learnt to train him, and have also 

 acquired a knowledge of fishing and of the various industrial pursuits of a settled 

 life from their neighbours. On the other hand, the Quan, and even the Norse 

 immigrants, have been largely "Laponised," diminishing in stature, and showing 

 evident signs of racial mixture. They have taken to the " blood soup ; " their 

 dress differs little from that of the aborigines ; and they speak Lappish not only 

 with the natives, but often even in their own homes. About one-fifth of the 

 Finmark Ugrians may now be regarded as of mixed race, and in Sweden also 

 there are a few hundred half-castes, chiefly of Lapp fathers and Swedish mothers. 

 Here the schools may be said to be the great levellers. Children, obliged to attend 

 instruction mostly far from the paternal tents, contract habits they find it difficult 

 afterwards to lay aside. They never resume the nomad life absolutely, and those 

 who remain in the Swedish villages end by believing themselves Swedes, their 

 offspring naturally blending with the dominant race. 



Topography : Norwegian Towns. 



The site of the Norwegian towns has been determined by the climate and 

 orographic conditions of the land. Except those of the mining districts of the 

 interior, all were necessarily founded on the sea-coast, or on the banks of creeks 

 sheltered from the north wind, and easily accessible to shipping. Even villages 

 are seldom found at any distance from these inlets. But each peasant has his gaard, 

 or group of wooden huts forming the farmstead, while the churches, municipal 

 buildings, and post-offices stand apart on some prominent site, or at the cross- 

 ways. 



In the days when the Norse seafarers cast eager glances towards the British 

 Isles and Western Europe, the western fiords, such as those of Trondbjem and 

 Bergen, were the most convenient for their purpose, and here accordingly they 

 settled. But after the roving expeditions had ceased the southern slopes, facing 

 the shores of Denmark, Scania, and Germany, became the most attractive, and of 

 twenty-one Norwegian towns with upwards of 4,000 inhabitants, no less than 

 fourteen are situated in this relatively small tract. 



With the exception of Christiania, a modern city, and Bergen, the old 

 Hanseatic emporium, all the towns of the Norwegian seaboard are much alike. 

 Standing at the extremity of a fiord accessible to large vessels, they rise generally 

 in amphitheatre form on the hillside, and are composed exclusively of wooden 

 houses, painted in white, grey, yellow, pink, or more commonly blood-red colours. 

 Here are no carvings or external ornaments, as on the Swiss chalets — nothing 

 beyond a painted casement enclosing each window. The houses, in fact, are 

 merely large boxes resting on stone foundations. But they are embellished 

 within, and the window-sills are gay with roses, vervain, and geraniums. The 

 153 



