184 FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 
girls calling the cattle that wended slowly on their way, 
browsing as they went. On the right bank of the lake a 
magnificent cataract fell from a great height. 
‘We followed the shore till we came to the upper ex- 
tremity of the lake. The people were watching us, wonder- 
ing who we could be, for they expected no one from their 
home. 
‘On our arrival they bade us enter the house, which 
was as comfortable as that of a farm, and the usual saluta- 
tions took place ; the milk was passed around in the large 
flat pail in which it is kept for the cream to rise; taking 
the customary sip we handed it back with thanks, and the 
usual pressing invitations to drink more were responded 
to by drinking as much as we could with Many thanks— 
Mange tak.’ 
There, as elsewhere in Norway and in Sweden, he was 
made the more welcome when they learned he was from 
America where a member of the family was settled. ‘The 
father had come the day before to carry back the butter 
and cheese which was made to the gaard or farm, which 
was at a great distance on the Soer fiord, one of the 
branches of the Hardanger. He was the father of a large 
family of grown-up children, . . . atypeof the Norse- 
man—North-man—hospitable but undemonstrative, with 
a tall and spare figure, and a kind face. Three of the 
daughters were at the saeter for the summer, all of them 
pictures of health, and blondes of the type of the descend- 
ants of the fair-haired Vikings. Syvnor, the eldest, rather 
short in stature, was nineteen years old ; Anne was seven- 
teen, tall, muscular, with piercing blue eyes, and fully able 
to take care of herself: she would have made a good model 
for a valkyrie; Martha was sixteen, with golden hair, soft 
blue eyes, and delicate complexion. All three were cele- 
brated on the Hardanger for their beauty, and young 
farmers, without number, were trying to win their hearts.’ 
He praises the maidens, and the invigorating climate pre- 
vailing at such places 4000 feet above the level of the sea; 
and he goes on to tell:— 
