Of the first peopling of Norway comparatively little is known, but the population must have been sparse indeed until man was fairly well equipped to cope with that region's serious difficulties. It is a country of ledges along a broken coast, fantastically cut by fjords which are deep valleys of the edge of a high plateau modified by ice and then partially submerged under the sea. The partial submergence has converted outlying hillocks into a maze of islands, between which and the land there is, for long distances, a fairly open channel, an old longitudinal valley no doubt. The men of the fjords are in large measure of the tall, fair, long-headed Nordic type, but around the seaward ends of the southern fjords are dark broad-heads, who in this case are almost beyond doubt settlers from the sea. The physical geography of Trondhjem Fjord, on land and water, helps to make clear its special early importance, particularly during a period of good climate, but the whole of Norway suffered sadly in the fourteenth century from bad harvests and Hanseatic interference, and from that time onwards to the nineteenth century Norway's fortunes were low. As in other lands of ancient poverty (note Finland and Switzerland) the nineteenth century brought the final merging of the old aristocracy in the people; the relation with Denmark was {55} loosed and a temporary link with Sweden, partly under fear of Russian Tsarist aggression, did not take deep root in the lives of the people. Much importance must be attached to the linguistic and literary revival of which the famous Bjornsen is the central figure. Meanwhile British Free Trade, and especially the repeal of the British Navigation Acts (1849), gave the Norse sailor and shipbuilder a chance, and the country developed a great mercantile marine, which managed to maintain itself until 1914, in spite of the advent of the iron ship and steamer. During and since the war Norway has not managed to keep pace with other mercantile marines like those of the United States of America and Japan.