_lensmand_ to _lensmand_ to our native valley as we intended to leave the country without permission being given in the passport from the bailiff. The government here, he said, was in a bitter rage against all emigrants and we could not count on any mercy. On this man’s advice we departed secretly from Stavanger under cover of night in order to avoid the danger that threatened us and without attracting any attention we got to Tananger. Here we met a skipper who, with his yacht loaded with herring, was ready to sail to Gothenborg. He promised to take us on board, but when we told him what had happened to us in Stavanger, he became doubtful. He praised our honesty, and on further assurance that we would assume all responsibility if we got in trouble, he decided to accept us as passengers. We acted discreetly while we were ashore and we felt greatly relieved when we finally got to sea. In Gothenborg we had no mishaps, and we secured passage in a vessel loaded with Swedish iron and bound for Fall River, Massachusetts. The journey lasted thirty-two days and we paid fifty dollars each for transportation and board. From Fall River we went to New York where we met a few Norwegians who helped us to get to Rochester. Here we talked with some of our countrymen who, twelve years ago, had come in the sloop from Stavanger that brought the first Norwegian immigrants to America. Rochester and vicinity did not meet our expectations in regard to the new world. Many of the first immigrants had left the first settlement in Kendall and had gone west to find new lands, particularly to La Salle County, Illinois, near Ottawa on the Fox River. The Fox River colony received a very considerable increment by the great exodus from Stavanger in 1836, that is, the year before I came to America. The most of these immigrants had located in that settlement. This we learned in Rochester, and there we heard for the first time the name Chicago. We determined to go west and see what we could find. When we had reached Detroit, I was walking in the streets to look at the town. There I accidentally met a man by whose clothes I could see that he was from the western coast of Norway. I greeted the man and he returned my greeting, and the meeting was like that of two brothers who had not seen each other for years. He informed me that he had left Bergen some months before, together with about seventy [should be eighty-four] passengers and that the whole company of which the University secretary, Ole Rynning, was the leader, had been waiting a week for transportation to Chicago. We were glad to meet our countrymen and we joined the party, in which there was at least one [Rynning] who could speak English. On landing in