The scenery in Norway is remarkably beautiful; the mountain roads often wind along the base of huge gray cliffs with steep dells beneath, where some bright salmon river may be seen sparkling along beneath the gloom of the overhanging pine-trees, or some soft blue lake may be discerned glimmering like a sheet of silver in the sunshine, or pillowing on the stillness of its waveless breast the mighty shadows of the everlasting hills.
At Strande Fjord, one of these lovely lakes, which was shut in by a dark background of pine-clad mountains, whose rugged sides were furrowed with deep torrents and white lines of waterfalls, our travellers found in the pleasant station-house a party of seven English ladies and gentlemen, tempted, like themselves, to make a halt of a few days at this charming spot. Here there was every variety of scenery--lofty mountains, precipitous waterfalls, dense pine forests, and wide undulating stretches of fresh green meadow-land; while in the midst slept the tranquil lake; now kissing with tiny wavelets the pebbles on its silvery shore, now bending away round the bold red cliffs, that guard like weird sentinels this lake Paradise of the North. The face of the huge crags is frayed and worn into deep shadowy caves, whose roofs are tapestried with a profusion of ferns; while by the precipitous margin of the lake, long verdant palm-like fronds wave in the breeze, or stoop to meet sub-aquatic forests of weeds and water-flags.
Lœrdalsoren, the highest point which they reached, was a quaint overgrown village, nestling between high green and purple hills. Insignificant as they accounted it, it was a town of no small repute in the surrounding wilderness, for it possessed a doctor, a church, two hotels, and a telegraphic office. Still, in spite of all these advantages, it was an undeniably dismal little place, intensely cold, and with nothing to offer by way of comfort for the inner man, except salmon, a viand of which, when confined to it exclusively, people tire sooner than of any other.
Wide ranges of mountains extend all around Lœrdalsoren, towering up one above the other in savage grandeur till their jagged snow-clad peaks seem to pierce the sky. Gray and yellow patches of reindeer's moss carpet the sheltered nooks and hollows among the hills, and the deer themselves are abundant: the skyds-carl pointed out a hill where a native sportsman had recently shot nine in one day.