The Argosy — page 383: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ABOUT NORWAY. By CHARLES W. Wcoo, AUTHOR OF “THROUGH HOLLAND.” eS eee AERDALSCREN, at NN = ee SSS the head of the iabeGiyie= = = = = Sogne Fjord, is quite ==—==an Important little ~ town for Norway, but aE | ___., In England would be Dia jj. .-'2 == = thought little more Lb eS es aspect is that of a SSS: go 7 ESS hamlet surrounded Aen = gees by high mountains, aS —= 35. which press so closely > on the one side that “3 2° a sense of suffocation SS EGS SM NN eee quickly follows upon BS SSA phe es gn NA oy i % <7 arrival, and a sojourn NWS age The of several days be- ON THE ROAD TO LAERDAL. comes almost intoler- able. Few people stay beyond one night, so that a constant stream of visitors is in motion. A small stream, it is true, since Norway is amongst the comparatively unvisited countries of the earth. Nevertheless, it is so by comparison only. As a matter of fact, during the few available months of the year, Norway finds its worshippers, and they are as many as need be. Laerdalsoren, or Laerdal, as it is indifferently called, has some 8oo inhabitants. A quaint, old-fashioned place, the houses all built of wood; the one street straggling, long, and narrow, with small byways leading round to the cottages and huts facing the fjord: tenements, some of them, that look ancient and in the last stage of consumption, for the most part inhabited by the boatmen and fisher- men of the district. Beyond these settlements the grand waters of the Sogne Fjord open out. On either side rise the mountains, massive and frowning, full of majesty and splendour. As you gaze, impatience seizes upon you to quit the small, confined village, launch out upon those waters, round those great bulwarks of nature, and make acquaintance with what lies beyond. Yet I doubt whether this was precisely our case the night we reached Laerdal. Our four days’ incessant journeying had been full of novelty and enjoyment: but the truth of the old saying, \) Wy 4 ™ ®a* | hr oh COMIC LOO KSaeroy ag]