A desire which was transmitted from generation to generation was the desire to travel. In the book-cases at Krogskogen books of travel predominated, and additions were constantly made to their number. Even as children the Krogs travelled. They planned tours with the help of books, pictures, and maps. They sat at the table and played at travelling. They voyaged from one town built of coloured card-board houses to another of the same description. They navigated cardboard ships, loaded with beans, coffee, salt, and wooden pegs. In the bay they rowed and sailed and swam from the pier to the island. One day it was from Europe to America, another, from Japan to Ceylon. Or they crossed the ridge, that is the Andes, to the most wonderful Indian villages. No sooner were they grown up than they insisted on seeing something of the world. They generally began with a voyage to Holland and a visit to their kinsfolk there. Some two hundred years ago a youth of the family, after a very short stay in Holland, went off in a Dutch East Indiaman. He, however, returned to Amsterdam, resolved to become an architect and engineer--the professions were at that time combined. He made himself a name, and in course of time was called to Copenhagen to teach. He entered the military service and rose to the rank of general in the engineer corps. At the time of his retirement his earnings, added to his patrimony, constituted a considerable fortune. He settled at Krogskogen, which he bought after the death of a childless brother. He called himself Hans _von_ Krogh. It was he who erected the present house, which is of stone, a very unusual building material in a Norwegian forest district. The old engineer-architect wanted occupation and amusement. Though he was not married, he made the house large, "for those to come." He rebuilt the farm-steading; he drained and he planted; he sent to Holland for a gardener--old Siemens, of whose strictness and angry insistence upon cleanliness and order stories are still told. For him the General put up hot-houses and built a cottage. The General lived to be a very old man. After his day nothing special happened until the younger of two brothers emigrated to America and settled on the shores of Lake Michigan--at that time virgin soil. This was regarded as a great event. The man's name was Anders Krog. He prospered over there, and people wondered that he did not marry. He invited one of his brother's sons to come out to him, promising to make him his heir. And thus it came about that Hans, the elder brother of the Anders Krog of our story, went to America.