fair-haired youth with his swarthy bride, the coal and potato were placed; and P——, poising for the second time the precious parcel, rolled up his shirt-sleeve, and, throwing himself well back, hurled, with all the elegance of a Parthian, coal, potato, and parcel toward the Norwegian captain's head. But, horror! the potato and coal combined proved rather too heavy, and, retaining their impetus longer than intended, carried the luckless brown-paper bundle over the lee-side and into the North Sea.

The ship immediately backed her main-yard, and, lowering one of her stern boats, sent her off in search of the unhappy letters; but having rowed about for some time without catching a glimpse of coal, paper, or potato, the search was abandoned, and the boat came alongside of us. After delivering another packet of brown paper, and presenting each man (there were four) with a bottle of brandy, we parted company with mutual good wishes conveyed through our interpreter, King, not omitting

sundry well-meaning gesticulations telegraphed between the fat Norwegian captain on the weather quarter and ourselves. This was the first specimen we had met with of northern kindness; and, although we had heard a great deal of their unaffected goodness of heart, this act of civility made no slight impression upon us. At four o'clock, while our Norwegian bark was just hull down, the galf-topsail was taken in, a strong S.E. wind with rain having arisen. The wind still increasing, at seven the first reef in the mainsail was also taken in, jibs shifted, and the bowsprit reefed.

During the rest of the evening I was a martyr to all the miseries of sea-sickness, and, stretched at full length on the cabin sofa, I closed my eyes, and, allowing my thoughts to wander where they would, hoped to cheat myself out of my present discomfort; but nausea, like no other ill to which we are subservient, is not to be pacified, and I lay the whole night sensible of the keenest pain.

VOL. I.

с

CHAPTER II.

FOGGY WEATHER-FIRST VIEW OF NORWAY-CHRISTIANSAND

FIORD-ARRIVAL AT CHRISTIANSAND-DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWN-THE TOPTDAL RIVER-EXCURSION INLAND-THE ENTHUSIASTIC ANGLER-RUSTIC LODGINGS-HUNTING THE

BEAR THE TRAP-THE DEATH-NORWEGIAN LIBERALITY.

SUNDAY, the 9th, dawned on us, tossed about on a troubled sea indeed; for a strong wind was blowing from E.S.E. However, at eight o'clock, just before breakfast, we sounded in thirty-five fathoms. We had scarcely concluded this cautious operation before the wind began to lull; and after conjecturing, both from our calculations and soundings, that land was not far away, we were confirmed in this opinion by a thick fog rising above the horison on our lee beam. We went to dinner in

great glee, and, in spite of the hazy atmosphere which now surrounded us, compensation was felt and accepted by us at the hour of six, when a perfect calm prevailed; and our peasoup and curry were threatened, for the first

time this week, to be demolished in that gentlemanly and collected mode which the usages of society had rendered familiar to our observation in England.

At eleven o'clock at night the haziness cleared away, and in about half an hour afterwards a light was seen. It was imagined to be the light at the mouth of the Christiansand Fiord, the name of which, amidst the bustle and joyousness of the moment, I could but indistinctly learn, and cannot now remember. As midnight approached, our old friend the fog gathered density, and effectually deprived us of the slightest glimpse of the light; and we retired to rest ill at ease, plunged into the vale of anxiety in the same ratio as we had been exalted on the peaks of expectation and joy.

Sunday at sea retains all the monotony of the shore; for the waves seem to show deference to the day, and move their crests with more solemnity and order; while the sailors gather round the vessel's bows, and, in a group, listen with wrapt attention to the sublime and poetic sentences of prophetic Isaiah.

YACHT VOYAGE TO NORWAY,

I cannot, in all my wanderings at sea to mind a tempestuous Sabbath, nor the s who would profane it. Mark them! solemnly the shadow of thought hangs their countenances; and how, with cradled on the hand, with pipes unsmok their mouths, leaning over the bulwarks, eyes intently riveted on the clear di horizon, as, carried away by the inspi and fervour of the great prophet, a mess who reads with energy of gesture, ever anon raises his voice, which, by its trem intonation, tells the deep feeling of his and the quickness with which its pulse vil in answer to the burning words he utters a

Monday, the 10th, the most lovely of mornings, fanned by the softest of south Land in all its grandeur of mountain a cloud lay before me, the towering peaks mountains, capped with everlasting snow piercing an atmosphere of the intensest b

I sat down on the after-lockers, and 1