compass the wealth of beauty nor the poetry of this Norwegian coast.
Can your thought be as vast as the ocean that bounds it? as weird as
the fantastic forms drawn by these forests, these clouds, these
shadows, these changeful lights?

Do you see above the meadows on that lowest slope which undulates
around the higher hills of Jarvis two or three hundred houses roofed
with "noever," a sort of thatch made of birch-bark,--frail houses,
long and low, looking like silk-worms on a mulberry-leaf tossed hither
by the winds? Above these humble, peaceful dwellings stands the
church, built with a simplicity in keeping with the poverty of the
villagers. A graveyard surrounds the chancel, and a little farther on
you see the parsonage. Higher up, on a projection of the mountain is a
dwelling-house, the only one of stone; for which reason the
inhabitants of the village call it "the Swedish Castle." In fact, a
wealthy Swede settled in Jarvis about thirty years before this history
begins, and did his best to ameliorate its condition. This little
house, certainly not a castle, built with the intention of leading the
inhabitants to build others like it, was noticeable for its solidity
and for the wall that inclosed it, a rare thing in Norway where,
notwithstanding the abundance of stone, wood alone is used for all
fences, even those of fields. This Swedish house, thus protected
against the climate, stood on rising ground in the centre of an
immense courtyard. The windows were sheltered by those projecting
pent-house roofs supported by squared trunks of trees which give so
patriarchal an air to Northern dwellings. From beneath them the eye
could see the savage nudity of the Falberg, or compare the infinitude
of the open sea with the tiny drop of water in the foaming fiord; the
ear could hear the flowing of the Sieg, whose white sheet far away
looked motionless as it fell into its granite cup edged for miles