THE VICTORIA HOTEL.
Excited by our anticipations, we disembarked as speedily as possible, and hastened to the Hotel Victoria. It is a well-kept, comfortable hostelry, whose chief peculiarity is a spacious courtyard, where frequently, in summer, table d'hôte is served beneath a mammoth tent of gorgeous colors. Moreover, it is a pleasant rendezvous for travelers; for while some tourists are here setting forth upon their inland journey, others have just completed it, and with bronzed faces tell strange stories of the North, which sound like tales invented by Munchausen.
MR. BENNETT, THE TRAVELER'S FRIEND.
Impatient to arrange our route, after a breakfast in the hotel courtyard we went directly to the individual known as "Bennett." "Bennett? Who is Bennett?" the reader perhaps exclaims. My friend, there is but one Norway, and Bennett is its prophet. Bennett is the living encyclopædia of Norway; its animated map; its peripatetic guide-book. Nor is this all. He is the traveler's guide, philosopher, and friend. He sketches lengthy tours back and forth as easily as sailors box the compass; tells him which roads to take and which to avoid; sends word ahead for carriages and horses; engages rooms for him within the Arctic circle; forwards his letters, so that he may read them by the midnight sun; gives him a list of carriage-coupons which the coachmen cry for; and (more important still) so plans his numerous arrivals and departures on the coast that he may always find a train or steamer there awaiting him. This is a most essential thing in Norway.
A NORTHERN LANDSCAPE.