General Observations on Norway. 3261 



men to land; in other fjords, the hills slope down gradually to the 

 water, and are cultivated to the extreme edge, or clothed with enor- 

 mous pine-forests : in all cases they are very picturesque, and afford 

 easy communication from the sea with the interior of the country. 

 Such are the arms of the sea, or fjords, one of the most remarkable 

 features in the country ; and these fjords, with the numerous rocky, 

 uninhabited islands in them and at their mouths, form a favourite re- 

 sort for a great variety as well as for immense numbers of water-fowl. 

 The forests, too, are very remarkable, from their immense extent, their 

 extreme silence, and the dark sombre character imparted to them by 

 the deep shade and dark colour of the pines and firs of which they are 

 chiefly composed. Many of these forests have little or no underwood, 

 but huge fragments of broken rock, carpeted with moss and flowers, 

 broken trunks, and many a giant of the forest uprooted by the winter's 

 blast, and rotting in the ground, many a tree-top, broken short off un- 

 der an accumulated mass of snow ; these, and numberless trees and 

 fragments of trees in every stage of decomposition, form the ground- 

 work of the primaeval forests of Norway. In other parts, one meets 

 with an almost impervious underwood of shrubs and bushes ; and 

 sometimes, again, the whole mountain will be covered with copses of 

 various trees, among which the birch, the alder, the aspen and the ash 

 are most conspicuous. Everywhere these forests are carpeted with the 

 most beautiful flowers, the abundance and variety and gay colouring 

 of which must strike every observer : the great majority of them were 

 entirely new to me ; indeed, the botanist would find a grand field for 

 his labours in Norway : not only in the forests, but also by the banks 

 of streams, and on the wild fjelds, many rare and very beautiful plants 

 abound. The forests, too, supply the people with an abundance of 

 berries of various kinds, some of which were most delicious, and nearly 

 all of them were till then unheard of by me ; among which the "multe- 

 bcer" stands pre-eminent. And here we used to pick the well-known 

 whortle-berry, the wild raspberry, and, above all, the strawberry, in 

 the greatest profusion. The latter delicious fruit cannot be enjoyed 

 in greater perfection than in Norway ; considerably larger than our 

 wood-strawberry, although not so large as that grown in our gardens, 

 ripened under an unsetting sun in the forests which clothe the moun- 

 tain, perfectly sweet and with the finest flavour, and eaten after a long 

 mountain journey, in a bowl of most excellent cream, — they prove the 

 greatest treat to the half-famished and wearied traveller. In speaking 

 of the Flora of Norway, I must not omit the heaths, so abundant on 

 some of the fjelds ; nor the bog-plants to be found in the marshes in 



