at 6 o'clock in the morning, as she anchored near the custom-house at Bergen. It was the latter end of May. The steamer was boarded by many persons, and amongst them by the Amtmand, Herr Oscar Nordal, to whom Harild Tyssen was soon pointed out.

"Welcome to gamle Norge," said the Amtmand; “I am Oscar Nordal, your father's friend."

"I am very glad to know you, Sir," said Tyssen, as they shook hands and regarded each other with curiosity.

"It is Hans Tyssen over again; but a thinner man, with a strange and foreign look," said the Amtmand; "your eyes are like Hans Tyssen's, but he had not that yellow moustache, and his features were not so clear cut; but it gladdens my heart to see you, and welcome to me is the son of my friend."

"Thank you a thousand times," said Harild Tyssen, "you make me expect a good time."

"But we have no time to spare now," added the Amtmand ; "the little Fjord steamer starts in less than an hour, and your baggage must be passed through the Customs and put on board."

"So your letter, that I got at Hull, informed me," said Tyssen, "but the steward of the English steamer has undertaken to arrange all that. I travel with little luggage, and, if I want anything, I buy it wherever I am; but we have now forty minutes to see Bergen, and can see it all in that time."

"That is American," said the Amtmand, "but an old fellow of fifty-five, like me, would rather not be hurried off his legs; besides, there is too much of interest in Bergen for even an American not to give it a whole day."

"But we could do it," urged Tyssen, "by being smart."

"No," said the Amtmand, "not even by being smart; and I do not wish to miss the steamer for Nordby. In this older world we are slow, and fail to see the advantage of breathless haste, without severe necessity." "But," said Tyssen, "we have half an hour, and by being smart might see

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"Our Custom-house people here are slow," interrupted the Amtmand, our boatmen are slow, and I cannot miss the Fjord steamer, which I know starts punctually; but," he added, on seeing Harild Tyssen's look of disappointment, "if you wish to exhibit any smartness, you shall have many chances of being smart at Nordby."

The little Fjord steamer started a very few minutes after they were on board, and the Amtmand, seeing that Tyssen now knew that there would not have been time for sight-seeing, said:

"If we had missed this steamer, we should have had either to remain a week in Bergen, or have taken a journey partly by Kariols and partly by boats, which would have occupied two days to reach Nordby. You

must recollect my time is not my own, and that I have already been a week in Bergen waiting to meet you."

"Then I consider," said Tyssen, slowly, "that this country cannot be very thickly settled about here."

"No," said the Amtmand, smiling at this American view of Norway, "the people from this district have, however, settled in great numbers in Iowa and Minnesota. There is a continual struggle with nature here; the Norwegian farmer lives a hard life. He has no luxuriant corn crops from fields adjoining his farm-house, easy to cultivate and rich in yield. It is only here and there in Norway where tillage affords a subsistence, to say nothing of profit. It has often been urged upon me to encourage the introduction of English agricultural implements and machinery; but it is only in comparatively few cases that it pays or answers. The grazing on the Fjelds is what suits the people best; or, I should say, the Norwegian farmer has to look to his cows and sheep, goats and pigs, and their produce, rather than to the soil. In some valleys there are spots of good land, but these spots are too few. It is no wonder that America has had attractions in her broad lands for Scandinavians; but they emigrate with regret, and even a prosperous man like your father still feels a love for his fatherland, and a longing to see his old home under the Fjelds."

"That's so," said Harild Tyssen, " and it explains how

and why I am here; he wishes me to see Norway, and his kindly nature and goodness have given me ample time and means."

"We say of such a man as Hans Tyssen, that he is good i Grunden (at bottom)," said the Amtmand, "and I read between the lines in his letters that he is the same Hans Tyssen who wished farewell to me now thirty-five years ago."

"That's a fact," said Harild Tyssen in his American manner. "I thought the rocky land was higher in Norway; but we are passing through a lot of low rounded islands. Your mentioning my father makes me recollect that he always describes the scenery about Bergen as the finest in Norway."

"We are

"And quite right, too," said the Amtmand. passing the islands on the coast; we shall soon get into grand scenery that will keep your eyes and mind occupied, as it is new to you. You will see narrow defiles of water edged by precipices, and expanding, as we round a cliff, into lakes; and then again a change of scene, of wood, and rock, and water, with here and there a farmstead. Suddenly you will see a pleasant country house and a little valley, or a rattling river with a waterfall into the Fjord. When the precipices admit of it, there is the distant yet clear prospect of the snow in the higher Fjelds, that bounds the view with a bold background of wild and gigantic beauty."

"I consider what you say is a picture," said Harild "but there is such a word as breakfast."

Tyssen;

"You can get little on board here," said the Amtmand, "but in my provision-box we shall find something; and as you look hungry, we can open it at once."

The Amtmand opened the wooden box in which he had, however, a good supply, as he had expected the contingency.

"You see," he added, "it is not often this steamer takes passengers, other than the Bønder, and they always have their provisions with them. It is true, as the summer advances, many English and Americans travel on such a boat as this, but their preparations are made accordingly. If you wanted anything now, probably you could get but little except something to drink, and that not very drinkable. You will not arrive at Nordby until six this evening, possibly later; but my place, Nordal, is close to the landing-pier, and where you will have what my house can afford, and a welcome from my wife and family."

"Thank you a thousand times, Herr Amtmand," said Harild Tyssen; "I am sure of a good time. But, do you know, I do not like your objecting to my father's sending you that draft on Bergen, which he mentioned in his letter; he said to me, 'I guess I'll pay him out,' and he's a determined man."

"That may be," said the Amtmand, "but he might let