784 



NORWAY. 



lichens, pickled meat, hides, furs, feathers, oil, tar, and pitch. The imports are grain, wine, 

 spirits, salt, and dry goods. 



16. Fisheries. These are largely carried on, and are very productive. They employ 

 80,000 men, and produce yearly, $ 1,500,000. Faage, in the LotFoden Isles, is the central 

 point of the northern fisheries. The herring fishery is not so productive as formerly. 



17. Divisions, Population, &c. Norway is divided into 17 bailiwics, but on maps it is 

 often merely represented as consisting of 6 great divisions. Finmark, which is included in 

 Lapland, Nordlarid, Aggerhuus, Christiansand, Bergen, and Drontheim. The population is 

 1,200,000. The revenue is 1,500,000 dollars. The military force is about 20,000 men. 



18. Inhabitants, Manners, &c. The inhabitants of Norway are hardy and robust, and the 



women, like those of Sweden, are many of them beautiful. The 

 dress is plain, and generally of a stone color, with white metal 

 buttons and red buttonholes. Furs are much worn in winter. 

 The language has an affinity with the Danish and Swedish. The 

 usual food of the peasants is milk, cheese, and fish. Flesh and 

 oat-bread, made hard, as in Sweden, are more rare. In times 

 of scarcity the bark of fir trees is mixed with the oat-meal. A 

 common soup is made of oat-meal or barley-meal, seasoned 

 with a pickled herring or salted mackerel. The Norwegians, like 

 the Swedes, are much addicted to the use of spirits, though 

 without siifiering the injurious effects produced by intemperance 

 in warmer climates. The use of tobacco is general. The peo- 

 ple are far more sprightly than the Danes, and it would not be 

 easy to find a nation more cheerful than the Norwegians. They 

 are brave, energetic, and patriotic. The peasants are frank ana 

 hospitable, and have great independence. Their mode of salu- 



by shaking hands, and this is the way also in which they return 



Korwegian. 



lation, even to superiors, is 

 thanks for a favor. 



The Norwegians have some of the amusements common in Sweden, and they delight also in 

 recounting tales of their ancestors, which, in their social meetings, they often do by turns. 

 Skating upon the snow is a practice very common in this country. The skates are made of 

 wood, and are very large. The snow is frozen so hard, that the skaters pass over it as svvift- 



.4 scene in Morway. 



Shale- 



runners. 



ly as upon ice. At Drontheim is a regiment of soldiers called skate-runners. They carry a 

 rifle, sword, and a long, climbing stafT, shod with iron. They go 200 or 300 paces apart, and 

 move so swiftly, that no cavalry can approach them. 



Without a great many establishments for education, the people, nevertheless, are not illite- 

 rate, and there are few peasants who cannot read and write. There are two seminaries for the 

 instruction of teachers. There are many itinerant schoolmasters, who stay in a hamlet about 

 two weeks at a time. There is not much national literature ; and mathematics is the favorite 

 study. The religion is Protestant, and there are some vestiges of paganism. At funerals a 

 violin is played at the head of the coffin, and questions, as in various countries, are addressed 



