As kilometres are generally used abroad for telling distances, a Scout ought to know how to compare the two and here is a simple way of doing it: Multiply your number of kilometres by five and divide the result by eight, and you will have the number of miles. Thus:
We want to know how many miles our forty-nine kilometres are.
49
5
—-
8)245
—-
30 5/8 or about 30 1/2 miles.
As I have said, we were to leave early, but we found that the
Norwegian idea of early is not so very early as with us in England.
They thought eight o'clock breakfast very early, and the cart, which
was supposed to start at nine, did not get away till 10:30.
It was a little ramshackle sort of dogcart with a very high seat, which just gave standing room for us among our baggage, while the boy in charge of the pony hung on as best he could behind.
The pony was fine and strong and fat, but awfully sedate; in fact, it was only after a lot of persuasion that we got him to move at a trot, and then it was a marvellously slow trot.
However, I found that if one showed him the spare end of the rope reins, and offered to strike him with it, he mended his pace considerably. He kept his eye on me all the time—
The Norwegians seem to be very kind to their animals. They don't use whips or blinkers or bearing-reins on their horses and before we had gone very far the boy in charge considered it time to unharness and feed his horse for a few minutes. We walked on while he did so, and as it wasn't for an hour and a half that he overtook us again, we guessed he had given the horse a very fine feed indeed.
[Illustration: THE HORSE KEPT HIS EYE ON ME ALL THE WAY.]
We didn't do ourselves badly, either, because all along the road, which ran through beautiful woods along the hillside, we found lots of excellent raspberries growing wild.