Christiania is a singular city if one knows how to see under the surface, and I enjoyed my stay there greatly. The Hull boat was to sail at 4.30, and I had sent my things down early; for I was to dine at the Grand at two with a cousin, a typical Christiania man. It was a fine, clear day, and Karl Johann was thronged with folks. The band was playing in the park, and pretty girls and laughing students walked up and down. Every one who is anybody may generally be seen about that time. Henrik Ibsen--if you did not know him from his portrait, you would take him to be a prosperous merchant--was going home to dine; but Björnstjerne Björnson, in town just then, with his grand, leonine head, and the kind, keen eyes behind his glasses, was standing near the Storthing House with a group of politicians probably discussing the vexed question of separate consulship. In no city does one see such characteristic odd faces and such queerly cut clothes. The streets are full of students. The farmers' sons among them are easily recognized by their homespun, sometimes home-made, suits, their clever heads and intelligent faces; from them come the writers and brain-carriers of Norway. The Finns, too, have a distinctive type of head, and a something elusive in the expression of their changeful eyes; but all, the town students too, of easier manners and slangier tongues,--all alike are going, as finances permit, to dine in restaurant or steam-kitchen. I saw the _menu_ for to-day posted up outside the door of the latter as I passed,--"Rice porridge and salt meat soup, 6_d._,"--and Hans Jörgen came back with a vivid picture of childhood days, when every family in the little coast-town where we lived had a fixed _menu_ for every day in the week; and it was quite a distinction to have meat-balls on pickled-herring day, or ale soup when all the folks in town were cooking omelets with bacon. How he used to eat rice porridge in those days! I can see him now put his heels together and give his awkward bow as he said, "Tak for Maden tante!" Well, we are sitting in the Grand Café after dinner, at a little table near the door, watching the people pass in and out. An ubiquitous "sample-count" from Berlin is measuring his wits with a young Norwegian merchant; he is standing green chartreuse. It pays to be generous even for a German, when you can oust honest Leeds cloth with German shoddy: at least, so my cousin says. He knows every one by sight, and points out all the celebrities to me. Suddenly he bows profoundly. I look round: a tall woman with very square shoulders, and gold-rimmed spectacles is passing us with two gentlemen. She is English, by her tailor-made gown and little shirt-front, and noticeable anywhere.