Fishes, $c. 3229 



general belief in the country regarding the animal in question : but all 

 (with one single exception), naval officers, sailors, boatmen and fish- 

 ermen, concurred in affirming most positively that such an animal did 

 exist, and had been repeatedly seen off their coasts and in their fjords, 

 though I was never fortunate enough to meet a man who could boast 

 of having seen him with his own eyes. All however agreed in unhe- 

 sitating belief as to his existence and frequent appearance, and all 

 seemed to marvel very much at the scepticism of the English, for re- 

 fusing credence to what to the minds of the Norwegians seemed so 

 incontrovertible. The single exception to which I have alluded was 

 a Norwegian officer, who ridiculed what he called the credulity or 

 gullibility of his countrymen ; though I am bound to add my belief, 

 that he did this, not from any decided opinion of his own, but to make 

 a show of superior shrewdness in the eyes of an Englishman, who, he 

 at once concluded, must undoubtedly disbelieve the existence of the 

 marine monster. That Englishman, however, certainly partakes of 

 the credulity of the Northmen, and cannot withhold his belief in the 

 existence of some huge inhabitant of those northern seas, when, to his 

 mind, the fact of his existence has been so clearly proved by numer- 

 ous eye-witnesses, many of whom were too intelligent to be deceived, 

 and too honest to be doubted. 



The Porpoise, (Phoccena communis). The seas and fjords which 

 so bound and intersect Norway, seem full of strange monsters. On 

 all sides one may see porpoises rolling and gambolling and tumbling 

 over in the sea, and well are they denominated "nise" by the Norwe- 

 gians, which word means originally "hobgoblin;" for their antics are 

 strange indeed : and often have I watched with admiration the rol- 

 lickings of these unwieldy fellows, who find their way to the heads of 

 the fjords, sometimes a hundred miles from the open sea. Once when 

 steaming down the Fjord of Christiania, the ship seemed surrounded 

 by enormous monsters of this kind, but whether they were porpoises 

 or dolphins, or the smaller species of whale, I cannot say. 



In the Christiania Fjord, too, the clear transparent water seemed 

 full of a species of jelly-fish, which, seen from the bow of the ship, 

 looked exactly like slices of lemon, but as the water dashed from the 

 keel disturbed them, shut up immediately like a hollow bag, and then 

 resembled hyacinth-bulbs in a glass of water, with their long roots 

 depending all around. But I feel that I am getting out of my depth ; 

 and indeed to describe the wonders of the fjord, into whose unfathom- 

 able depths, the intense clearness of the water enables one to gaze, — 

 to describe the inhabitants of those waters, the strange quaint uncouth- 



