water-falls like North America, but it is not America. The landscape
is adorned with picturesque cottages, and processions of inhabitants,
clad in costumes of a former age, like Holland, but it is not Holland.
The Telemark is far better than any or all of these; it is the
Telemark, noted above all countries in the world for the beauty of
its scenery. The writer has had the pleasure of visiting it. He has
explored it thoroughly, in a kariol with relays of post-horses--when
he could get them--and he brought back with him such a vivid
recollection of its manifold charms that he would be glad to convey
some idea of it to the reader of this simple narrative.

At the date of this story, 1862, Norway was not yet traversed by the
railroad that now enables one to go from Stockholm to Drontheim, by
way of Christiania. Now, an extensive network of iron rails extends
entirely across these two Scandinavian countries, which are so averse
to a united existence. But imprisoned in a railroad-carriage, the
traveler, though he makes much more rapid progress than in a kariol,
misses all the originality that formerly pervaded the routes of
travel. He misses the journey through Southern Sweden on the curious
Gotha Canal, in which the steamboats, by rising from lock to lock,
manage to reach an elevation of three hundred feet. Nor does he have
an opportunity to visit the falls of Trolletann, nor Drammen, nor
Kongsberg, nor any of the beauties of the Telemark.

In those days the railroad existed only upon paper. Twenty years were
to elapse before one could traverse the Scandinavian kingdom from
one shore to the other in forty hours, and visit the North Cape on
excursion tickets to Spitzberg.

In those days Dal was, and may it long remain, the central point