Well, had I even arrived as far as this in my journey, I would unfold to you a very different canvas, with warmer colors and a softer touch. I would, in the fertile valley of Fortun, at 62° latitude N., conjure up to your astonished gaze entire groves of wild cherry-trees laden with ripe fruit; I would show you corn, weighty and yellow three months after being sown, in close rich rows, or undulating oats ready for the sickle, covering extensive fields. I would lead you to the shore of the majestic fjord, and let you behold the towering mountains reflected sharp and clear in its depth, as though another landscape lay beneath the waves; and I would guide your glance upwards, towards the little farms nestling up there on the slope, a couple of thousand feet above your head, and which are only accessible from the valley by a rocky ladder. Yes, this and more too I would show you, but remember we stand at this moment on the crest of the mountain, and a yawning gap still divides us from the Canaan which is our journey’s end. I have therefore no choice but to lay down my pen, and I do so with a call on you, my reader, to undertake this journey and experience for yourself its indescribable impressions; and if you do, I feel confident you will not find my description exaggerated. Ride only once down the precipice between Optun and Lysterfjord, and you will find, I think, that the descent cannot be accurately described in words; but believe me, the memory thereof will never fade from your mind, neither will you repent the toil. A summer’s day in the Sogne Mountains of old Norway will, as well for you as for me, create rich and charming recollections—recollections retained through one’s whole life.—_Temple Bar._ FOOTNOTES: [4] See Virgil, _Ecl._ viii. [5] Napier’s _Scotch Folk-lore_, p. 95. [6] _The Folk-lore of the Northern Counties and the Border_, by W. Henderson, pp. 106, 114. Ed. 1879. [7] Napier, p. 89. [8] _Ibid._ p. 130. [9] Henderson, _Border Folk-lore_, p. 35. [10] Henderson, _Border Folk-lore_, p. 35. [11] _Ibid._ p. 35. [12] _Miscellanies_, p. 131. Ed. 1857. [13] Brand’s _Pop. Antiqs._ i. p. 21. [14] _Border Folk-lore_, pp. 114, 172, 207. [15] Kelly’s _Indo-European Folk-lore_, p. 132. [16] Brand, vol. i. p. 210. [17] Kelly, p. 301. [18] Brand, i. 292. [19] Henderson, p. 116. [20] Lowell has written a good sonnet on this belief. See his Poems. [21] Cockayne’s _Saxon Leechdoms_, &c. (Rolls series), vol. ii. p. 343. [22] _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III. section 2. [23] This church was originally the temple of Pythian Apollo, and stands much as it originally did. [24] The peasants believe still that the Madonna opens gates, out of which her son issues on his daily course round the world—an obvious confusion between Christianity and the old Sun-worship. [25] _George Eliot’s Life._ By J. W. Cross. Three volumes. Blackwood and Sons. 1885. THE QUANDONG’S SECRET.