To appreciate my feelings, one should perceive the winding road along which I was traveling. It was a splendid specimen of engineering skill, but after twenty-seven of these curves, I felt that I was getting cross-eyed. Fancy me perched, as it were, upon a good-sized salad-spoon, flying around the mountain side, with one wheel in the air at every turn, at the rate of the Chicago Limited going round the Horse-shoe Bend. I looked back at my companion, whose horse, excited by my own, was just behind me. His face was deathly pale. Anxiety was stamped on every feature. His lips moved as if entreating me to slacken this terrific speed. Finally, he faintly cried: "If you escape, ... give my love ... to my children, ... William and Henry!"
A VIKING SHIP.
At last I saw, some little way ahead, a cart half-blocking the road. "Great heavens!" I thought, "here comes a collision! Well, it might as well end this way as any other. No more lectures for me!" But, lo! there issued from the small boy's lips the sound, "Purr-r-r!" The effect was instantaneous. The horse at once relaxed his speed, and in a moment came to a full stop. For "purring" is to a Norwegian pony what the Westinghouse air-brake is to an express train. This secret learned, we had no further trouble. For "purr," when uttered by American lips, proved always as effectual as by Norwegian.
A LONELY POINT.
A few hours after that eventful ride, we found ourselves upon the great Hardangerfjord, which, with its branches, has a length of one hundred and forty miles. These ocean avenues possess not merely natural beauty: they also have historic interest. This part of Norway, for example, is old Viking ground. Not far from here lived Rollo, conqueror of Normandy; and from these fjords a thousand years ago went forth those dauntless warriors of the north, who for two hundred years not only ravaged England, France, and Ireland, but even crossed the Atlantic to America hundreds of years before Columbus sailed from Spain.