cocks as they are termed in Lincolnshire, with this difference that mountains take the place of the little stacks. Many of these detached islands are perfectly conical, others quadrilateral, some present the appearance of a church spire, others resemble a cathedral, some might be compared to castles, and as no two individual persons would agree in their opinion touching these resemblances, I shall not attempt a further description of them. They possess another feature well deserving of notice, viz., that of having, more or less, a certain outline similar to that of the coast, or in other words, there exists a kind of parallelism between the two. These detached islands are to be found as numerously studding the surface of the ocean, as little hay stacks are to be found in a meadow, not confined to one locality alone, but extending along a line of coast more than a thousand miles in length.

The difficulty of navigating between these many islands is easily conceivable when under canvas, especially when contrary winds and, above all, when currents are setting in various directions. With steam, however, the navigation is unattended with any difficulty whatever; and it constitutes one of the particular charms of that scene, that by the aid of steam, the traveller is enabled to steer close by the side of these curious islands, and in many instances they are so near to the steamboat, that the course pursued might be compared to the passage of a wide arch, in which the passenger is quite near to the sides of these many thousands of conical detached islands that raise their heads on the surface of the broad Atlantic.

The most interesting feature of this wonderful coast, is when the steamer is passing through these islands, as thickly placed at the bottom of the ocean as apples under a tree after a hard wind, that

the passenger can look up to the summits and sides which rise out of the water as steep as the side of a house, on whose surfaces are to be seen neither shrub, tree, nor habitation, nor any vestige of that which characterises the existence of man, not being suitable for such from the almost perpendicular and conical shapes for the erection of houses; and I should imagine that the only animals that could exist upon them must belong to that tribe denominated the monkey, cat, rat, mouse, or squirrel.

This is another of those scenes in nature in which the soul becomes stirred, deeply stirred to its most inmost recesses, and which may be included in the same rank in point of singularity and sublimity as the primeval forest of North America, the African desert, and the highest peaks of our most elevated mountain ranges, such as the Andes in South America, and the Himalaya of Asia. When the eye rests upon the pyramids of Egypt, the thoughts naturally turn to the hands that raised them, now mouldering in the dust; on man, his origin, the time that may be allotted to him in his destiny here below, on his first advent, fall, and redemption, in this sublunary world, and of his fate hereafter in the world to come. But in these pyramids of the ocean, as the eye sweeps over the vast waters to that line which forms the visible horizon on the coast of Norway, the mind naturally turns to the Great Architect of the world, when the soul is susceptible of those deep-seated impressions which cling to it in after life, and which are never eradicated, although many a dark, and deep, and fearful mental barrier interposes in the many awful vicissitudes of life's chequered career to eclipse and darken the beautiful rays of the rising and setting sun that once illumined the many,

many mountain peaks of the vast and wonderful Norwegian coast.

On the many detached pyramids of the ocean, perhaps the only vestige of the vegetable world may be mosses, lichens, and small ferns. Along the line of coast which forms the main land as distinct from the various groups of islands that stud the ocean, a similar absence of shrubs, herbaceous plants, trees, and cereal crops, is also observable, except in the beautiful and sheltered and habitable nooks and inlets where the steamer occasionally stops stops to land passengers.

I know of very few localities in the wide world so well calculated to delight the eye of the traveller, after a severe tossing on the great billows of the Atlantic, than a sudden retreat into one of these peaceful nooks and corners of the Norwegian coast. "Tis, indeed, a true haven of repose. The sight of the great undulating mountainous swell of the Atlantic, as I have seen it and felt it too, must to the reflective mind form one of those grand spectacles which in after life will be treasured up in the memory, and to which the mental eye will return again and again, in the same way as that visual organ seizes all the beauty, grandeur, and sublimity of the rising sun, shedding his light upon the elevated peaks of the Alps in the Valley of Chamouni. Imagine these columns of moving mountains of the Atlantic, in the fury of the storm striking the bases of these multitudinous ocean pyramids; roaring like the cannon when near to it, and gradually dying away as the angry billows are more or less distant to the position of the spectator.

The perfect shelter that these island barriers afford to the hardy and enterprising Norwegian sailor, as he scuds along the many ins and outs of his native coast, is of incalculable advantage in a

commercial point of view. The dexterity required, and the promptitude and decision of character requisite for navigating that difficult coast when under canvass, can only be duly appreciated by being an eye-witness to the ingenuity and true bravery of those hardy race of continually seatossed mariners of Norway and Lapland.

The colour of the ocean along that line of coast is deserving of notice. On making my first trip in the Mediterranean from Marseilles to Genoa, I little thought at that time that the wide world. contained no equal to that deep purple hue, which magically dances on the surface of the liquid gemlike water of that sea. Since then, however, I have sailed within a few miles of the North Cape, in Lapland, and have afterwards visited the various ocean waters that wash the coasts of North and South America, as well as the European seas, including the ocean waters of the West Indies in the northern hemisphere, to latitude 55° in the southern hemisphere, including most of the appearances visible in the great Pacific along the various shores of Australia and New Zealand, and I am firmly of opinion, that in all my travels I have seen nothing that bears even a semblance to the waters of "La Bella Italia."

The sail from Marseilles along the coast of Italy to Genoa, will present to the eye of the traveller the most lovely portion of earth over which the sun in his wide career shines upon. It is then when close to the coast that the majestic maritime Alps present themselves in all their grandeur, fringed and ornamented with all the beautiful vegetation of Italian landscape, and whose base is bathed in the liquid purple of the Mediterranean water, which taken altogether as a whole, in my opinion, stands unrivalled for beauty, and which may challenge

the great terraqueous globe to produce another such a scene.

The great charm of this scene is produced from three particular features of the maritime Alps,viz.: first, the extreme elevation of the mountain range; secondly, steep acclivities and declivities; thirdly, in its dark colour contrasting so sweetly with the ethereal blue sky above, and the gem-like liquid purple colour of the Mediterranean water below.

To an English traveller first setting out without much previous travel and reading upon the subject, he is apt to suppose when viewing this beautiful locality, that as one proceeds further south that there would be found a proportionate increase of those deep hues of sky and water which constitute the peculiar charm of Italian scenery as he advances towards the equator and tropical latitudes. This idea would hold good as far as a journey to Italy, and no further. The source of this mistake has arisen from the fact of tropical birds, fishes, and insects, possessing a more variegated aspect, plumage, and covering, than those of the extra tropical, temperate, and arctic regions.

Proceeding along the coast of Italy, as far as the mouth of the Tiber, this beautiful and transparent purple of the Mediterranean water gets well contrasted with the muddy white deposit brought from the beautiful, but yet filthy old Rome, with its still more dirty, and filthy, and unhealthy Pontine Marshes. A greater contrast cannot well be imagined than this. I question very much if there ever existed a ditch in the celebrated fens of Lincolnshire of olden time-in the days when geese and semi-barbarous Englishmen inhabited those parts, and when there was no difficulty in steering one's way from town to town by boat from the constantly flooded state of the flat districts-that a