The girls usually wear on the head a coloured handkerchief. In former times they wore long skirts from earliest childhood, but latterly, much to the disgust of elder dames, short skirts have come into fashion.
In this inner district of Nord Fjord are three very beautiful lakes—Stryns Vand, which I have just referred to, Loen Vand, and Olden Vand. All three are situated in the heart of scenery of the grandest character. The mountains around are higher than any we have yet seen, and glaciers and waterfalls are here more numerous. The valleys are deep and narrow, and farmsteads are few and far between; often some five or six miles of rocky land divides them from each other.
Some of these ancient homesteads nestle among mighty boulders which have detached themselves ages ago from precipitous crags above.
In spring and autumn, after heavy rains, these farms are still farther isolated. The rocky streams are then swollen into foaming torrents, and the footpaths are destroyed, or of very little use, and to pay a visit to a neighbour one must either creep under a waterfall or climb up the steep mountain flank some thousand feet before being able to cross over the impetuous stream.
As we reach the head of a valley we come to those death-still places which have no houses, no road, and no name—desolate wildernesses where huge mountains embrace each other in glacier and snow-field.
These majestic mountains raise their peaks some 6,500 feet into the heavens, and they completely enclose the three enchanting lakes which form the crowning beauty of this district.
The bases of the mountains are clothed with splendid birch-woods, and in the valleys near the water grow roses and other flowers—a rich and abundant flora, which contrasts beautifully with the sombre grandeur of the surrounding scenery. Surpassing the famous Alpine lakes in majesty, these of Norway can also vie with them in charm.
Loen Vand may be considered quite the most characteristic and imposing of these lakes. Glaciers descend from all the mountains around, the magnificent Kjendalsbræ being perhaps most conspicuous. So near to the edge of the precipice do these glaciers creep that they almost appear to overhang the lake.
In several places it is nothing unusual to see enormous masses of ice pushed over the edge of the cliff, and to hear them fall with a metallic rattle down the precipitous rocks, leaving in their wake clouds of finely-powdered snow.