FAREWELL TO KAAFIORD, 
275 
I think my last letter left ns enjoying the pleasant 
hospitalities of Kaafiord. 
The genial quiet of that last evening in Norway 
was certainly a strange preface to the scenes we have 
since witnessed. So warm was it, that when dinner 
was over, we all went out into the garden, and 
had tea in the open air; the ladies without either 
bonnets or shawls, merely plucking a little branch of 
willow to brush away the musquitoes: and so the 
evening wore away in alternate intervals of chat and 
song. At midnight, seawards again began to swirl the 
tide, and we rose to go,—not without having first paid 
a visit to the room where the little daughters of the 
house lay folded in sleep. Then descending to the 
beach, laden with flowers and kind wishes weaved to 
us by white handkerchiefs held in still whiter hands, 
we rowed on board; up went the flapping sails, and 
dipping her ensign in token of adieu—the schooner 
glided swiftly on between the walls of rock, until an 
intervening crag shut out from our sight the friendly 
group that had come forth to bid us “ Good speed.” 
In another twenty-four hours we had threaded our 
way back through the intricate fiords; and leaving 
T 2 
