34 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



Scandinavia, and especially Norway, have steered a boat among 

 the skerries, and have sailed round the country from the extreme 

 south to the farthest north. Marvellous, indeed, is the country; 

 marvellous are its fjords; still more marvellous is the encircling 

 wreath of islands and reefs. 



Scandinavia is an alpine country like Switzerland and the Tyrol, 

 yet it differs in a hundred ways from both of these. Like our Alps 

 it has lofty mountains, glaciers, torrents, clear, still alpine lakes, 

 dark pine and fir forests low down in the gorges, bright green birch 

 woods on the heights, far-stretching moors — or more strictly tundras 

 — on the broad shoulders of the mountains, log-huts on the slopes, 

 and the huts of the cowherds in the upland valleys. And yet all is 

 very different from our Alps, as is obvious to anyone who has seen 

 both. The reason of this difference lies in the wonderful way in 

 which two such grand and impressive features of scenery as lofty 

 mountains and the sea are associated and harmonized. 



The general aspect of Scandinavia is at once grave and gay. 

 Stern grandeur and soft beauty go hand in hand; gloom alternates 

 with cheerfulness; with the dead and disquieting is linked the living 

 and exhilarating. Black masses of rock rear themselves perpen- 

 dicularly out of the sea, rise directly from the deeply-cut fjords, 

 and, riven and cleft, tower precipitously upwards and lean threaten- 

 ingly over. On their heads lie masses of ice stretching for miles, 

 covering whole districts and scaring away all life save the torrents 

 to which they themselves have given birth. These torrents spread 

 themselves everywhere in ribbons of silver over the dark masses, 

 and not only give pleasure to the eye, but murmur to the ear the 

 sublime melody of the mountains. They rush down through every 

 cleft to the depths below, they burst forth from every gorge, or 

 plunge in mad career from rock to rock, forming waterfall after 

 waterfall, and awakening echoes from the farthest mountain sides. 

 These rushing mountain-streams which hurry down to the valley 

 through every channel, the gleaming bands of water on every wall 

 of rock, the ascending smoke-like spray which betrays the most 

 secluded falls — these call forth life even in the most dread wilder- 

 ness, in places where otherwise nought can be seen but rocks and 



