THE LAND OF FJELD AND FJORD. 
19 
like a ton of hay up steep pathways. One feels inclined 
to proffer assistance, but is restrained by a conviction 
of sheer inability to essay the job! Last year we 
employed a girl as cook, etc., and during a month’s 
sojourn in the backwoods, really feared we had worked 
her too hard. Yet, while busy with this chapter, I 
received the following message, which, I believe, the 
Norwegian gentleman, who deciphered its somewhat 
obscure caligraphy, took for a love-letter ! 
“A thousand thanks, kind Chapman” [Note: no 
prefixes in Norway], “for the time we spent last autumn, 
and for our travels through the forest. I long for your 
return, and hope I may come with you when you go to 
fish in the S-- river. If you will not take me, I 
shall be very sorry, kind Chapman. I hope I may 
come and prepare your coffee and food while you are 
fishing, and if not, I shall be very, very sorry. Welcome 
back to Norway and to big fish and big bull-elks ! ” 
So much for my peasant friends—not a word but 
what is good. Of the “ classes ”—to use the modern 
cant—I know nothing, beyond the fact that my small 
business relations in the matter of renting shooting and 
fishing rights have been marked by unvarying fairness 
and good faith. 
I have omitted some chapters descriptive of my two 
journeys in Sweden, inasmuch as the parts of that 
country which I visited, both as regards their character 
and fauna and the sport enjoyed therein, so closely 
resemble the adjacent districts of Norway, that a de¬ 
scription of the one almost suffices for both. 
Denmark, on the other hand, is the antithesis 
of Norway in every respect; hence I include a brief 
