NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY* 59 



not built of any extraordinary ftrength, being ufed only by foot- 

 paffengers, or horfemen ; for there is no road for carts, and many 

 peafants here who have not fo much as feen a cart, when they 

 come to Bergen, look with amazement at it, as a curious ma- 

 chine. A fourth evil refulting from the mountains, and efpe- 

 cially in this province, is the fhelter their cavities and clefts afford 

 to wild beafts of prey, which renders it difficult to extirpate 

 them. It is not eafy to defcribe what havock lynxes, foxes, 

 bears, and efpecially wolves, make among the cattle, the goats, 

 hares, and other ufeful animals. In the chapter of the wild beafts 

 we mail give a more particular account of this. Another very 

 pernicious evil is, that the cattle, goats, &c. belonging to the 

 peafants, often fall down the precipices, and are deftroyed. Some- 

 times they make a falfe ftep into a projection called a mountain- 

 hammer, where they can neither afcend nor defcend ; on this occa* 

 fion a peafant cheerfully ventures his life for a fheep or goat ; and 

 defcending from the top of a mountain by a rope of fome hun- 

 dred fathom, he flings his body on a crofs-ftick, till he can fet his 

 foot on the place where his goat is, when he faftens it to the rope 

 to be drawn up along with himfelf. But the moft amazing cir- 

 cumftance is, that he runs this rifk with the help only of one 

 fingle perfon, who holds the end of the rope, or faftens it to a 

 ftone, if there be one at hand. There are inftances of the alliftant 

 himfelf having been dragged down, and facrificing his life in fidelity 

 to his friend, on which occafion both have perifhed *. The fixth, 



and 



to make a pafTage for his army, doubtlefs for his cavalry, which could not poffibly 

 have palled it, had they not been Norway horfes, thefe being accuftomed to climb 

 the rocks as nimbly as goats. I add, that the molt dangerous, tho' not the moft 

 difficult road I have met with in my feveral journies in Norway, is that betwixt 

 Skogftadt and Vang in Volders •, along the frefli-water lake called Little Mios, the 

 road on the fide of the fteep and high mountain, is in fome places as narrow' and 

 confined as the narroweft path, and if two travellers meeting in the night, do not 

 fee each other foon enough to Hop where the road will fuffer them to pafs, and 

 chance to meet in the narroweft parts, it appears to me as it does to others whom I 

 have afked, that they muft ftop fliort, without being able to pafs by one another, or 

 to find a turning for their horfes, or even to alight. The only refource I can imagine 

 in this difficulty, is, that one of them muft endeavour to cling to fome corner" of 

 this fteep mountain, or be drawn up by a rope, if help be at hand, and then to 

 throw his horfe down headlong into the lake, in order to make room for the other 

 traveller to pafs. 



* Of thefe melancholy, and not unfrequent accidents, of a man or a beaft falling 

 fome hundred fathoms from the precipices, it is obferved, that the air prelfes with 

 fuch force againft the bodies thus falling, that they are not only fuffocated 

 and deprived of life long before they reach the ground, but their bellies burft 



Part I. R an j 



