The Argosy — page 141: what you’re looking at

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

126 About Norway. town receded, the crowd diminished and disappeared, the vision faded, and we went below ; night and darkness now left behind us. 4 Some hours later, when once more on deck, all sense of mystery had departed with the twilight. The broad, blazing sun was steeping everything in a golden mist that would soon lift and give place to intense noon-day heat. The rocky, barren coast, looked full of beauty and repose in this rarefied air. All that morning we were winding in and out of islands, through narrow channels, where we could almost touch the land on either side, and where the emerald water was so transparent that one longed to plunge into its cool shallows and pluck the treasures that lurked below. Every now and then, as the rocks and islands opened out, we came into full view of the sea, calm and beautiful, hazy with heat, and sparkling with countless sun flashes. Passing at length through a narrow space, we stopped at Roervik : a picturesque spot mwsre really Norwegian than anything we had seen since leaving Bergen. ‘The houses, overhanging the water and on the slopes, were many of a bright red that harmonised well with the vivid green of the hills in the background: hills so artisti- cally grouped, so full of graceful outline, that it was difficult to believe their arrangement accidental. The boats, painted red and green, lying about the little harbour, added to the liveliness of the scene ; whilst intensely clear and rarefied air threw over all a charm few can realize who have not felt and seen it. One’s ordinary life and breathing seemed suspended; the days passed here must not be counted as days in which we grew older: time was not. Like the sun on the dial of Ahaz, our lives went back ten degrees. It was dreamland : and, for the time being, we were dream people. . We landed two quaint Norwegian carts, took on board a boat-full of boxes, and started on our way to Gudvik: a little spot far less picturesque than Roervik. But in this shimmering atmosphere, this air that almost seemed to endow one with the powers of flying, every place was beautiful; the smallest house or boat, a speck upon the horizon, the most trifling detail, all became interesting. After leaving Gudvik we found ourselves for a time more in the open sea. Here we encountered many porpoises, that dodged about and shot under our bows with amazing swiftness. When the first was seen, an excited cry of ‘‘ A whale! A whale!” was raised. The passen- gers charged from one end of the vessel to the other, and some of the ladies who had been taking a siesta, hastened up the staircase, — with an agonised cry of ‘‘Where? Where ?” fearing the monster might disappear unseen. Then the porpoise obligingly rolled into sight again for a moment, amidst a universal cry of “ There he is!” The ladies excitedly congratulated each other, whilst the men, with a dig- nity befitting the sterner sex, merely exchanged glances that seemed to say they had not come up to the north seas for nothing. All this time I had been on the bridge with the captain, and we Eomicbooks: cor