A NORWEGIAN YOUTH.
In traveling through Norway it is most interesting to observe how the people utilize every available portion of the land. Wire ropes extend from the valleys up the mountain sides, and are used for letting down bundles of compressed hay, after it has been reaped, gathered, and packed on some almost inaccessible plateau. On elevations, where it seems well-nigh impossible for man to gain a foothold, people will scramble, at the hazard of their lives, to win a living from the little earth that has there found lodgment. Seeing with our own eyes these habitable eyries, we could well believe what we were told, that goats, and even children, are often tied for safety to the door-posts, and that the members of a family who die on such elevated farms are sometimes lowered by ropes a thousand feet down to the valley or fjord.
A BEAST OF BURDEN.
A FISHING STATION.
It was on this journey that I took my first and never-to-be-forgotten cariole-ride in Norway. On this occasion, my driver was a small boy, ten years old, just young and mischievous enough to laugh at danger and be reckless. I noticed that his mother cautioned him before we started. She evidently understood him. I did not. Accordingly, while I took the reins, I gave him the whip. Springing like a monkey into his place behind me, he cracked his whip and off we went. The road was good, and for half an hour I thoroughly enjoyed it. Then we began to descend, and suddenly dashed across a bridge beneath which was a foaming cataract. I naturally reined the pony in. But, to my surprise, the more I pulled, the faster went the pony. "Whoa!" I exclaimed; "whoa!" but whether prolonged or uttered with staccato emphasis that word made no apparent difference in the pony's gait. "Whoa," was evidently not in its vocabulary. My hair began to stand on end. Perceiving this, the demon of a boy commenced to utter the most unearthly yells, and to crack his whip until he made the pony actually seem to fly.