The household arrangements of these posting establishments are often very primitive. The front door sometimes opens into the sleeping-room of the entire family; and if you arrive any time after nine P.M. you may see on entering the master and mistress of the mansion reposing on a broad high shelf at one end of the room near the stove, while the rest of the family and guests of lowly degree recline around on benches, or on the floor, where they can at least have what room they require. This is a luxury which no tall tourist need expect in a Norwegian guest-chamber; there the beds, although furnished with appliances for making them as wide, if need be, as the famous bed of Ware, are seldom longer than five feet eleven. The roads, although necessarily steep at places, are fairly good; but most of the bridges are constructed in a very primitive style. The natives are a kind, hospitable, honest, but somewhat apathetic race. Watching their stolid expressionless faces, one cannot help wondering where the superabundant energy of the old vikings has betaken itself to. During the long winter evenings, the women knit and spin a great deal. They provide themselves plentifully with household linen and homespun clothes, which are often of a dark-brown colour, enlivened in the case of the men by a bright scarlet cap, and in that of the women by a white kerchief tied under the chin. In appearance, a small Norwegian farmer is very like an English labourer. His house, built of wood and thatched with sods, is devoid of ornament, but has no lack of solid comfort, and is sufficiently warmed by a huge quaint-looking iron stove. The women on holiday occasions turn out in the old Norse costume, the chief feature of which is the bodice, which is often made of some bright-coloured velvet, turned down in front with white silk, and laced before and behind, according to our author, 'with several yards of fine silver chain, each chain ending in a silver bodkin, in order that they may be the better threaded through double rows of eyes (in themselves strikingly pretty articles of silver), that run in four lines up the back and front of this showy piece of Scandinavian haberdashery.' Both men and women are very fond of large bright buttons and of silver or plaited ornaments.