A Jubilee Jaunt in Norway. By Three Girls. (Griffith, Ferran,
Okeden, and Welsh.)—The number of tourists who visit Norway is increasing every year with rapidity, and the number of those who on their return feel constrained to print their experiences is almost phenomenal. Some of these write as if they had, like Columbus, discovered a New World. Others, like the authors of this little book, are content, with what skill they may possess, to describe the interest and fun, or it may be the misery, they met with on their route. The "Three Girls," who seem to have been very lively young ladies, accompanied by older and more sedate fellow- travellers, started from Hull for. Throndhjem, and thence made the usual coasting-trip to the North Cape in order to see the Midnight Sun. This they succeeded in doing quite comfortably, and later on, the journey to Christiania from Throndhjem was made by rail and steamer in easy stages. Thence Stockholm, the " Venice of the North," was visited, going by rail, and returning to Gothen- burg vid the Gotha Canal, and so home, after a five weeks' tour over a thoroughly satisfactory and well-beaten track. These " Three Girls " seem to have the faculty of enjoying themselves heartily and to be ready to make the beat of everything. Indeed, the book is remarkable for nothing so much as the high spirits of its authors, which must have made them pleasant companions either to travel with or meet by the way. There is a curious statement on p. 47 as to the doings of the Midnight San. There we read, on the authority of " the mate," that " had we been ten days earlier or later in the year, the sun would have
appeared to touch the horizon, rest on it some little time, and then rise." This remarkable information was vouchsafed at midnight, or thenabouts, of July 20th-21st--note the date—when we are told that the sun had " sunk to apparently twelve feet from the horizon." As this was a month after the longest day, it must be admitted that the information requires scientific verification before it is accepted. It is curious, too, to find " Trondjhem " spelt thus. The authors give a list of the various forms which they have met with of spelling the name of this city ; but, strange to say, they omit the usual and, as we have hitherto fondly believed, correct method, viz., " Throndhjem," and adopt the one given above, to us a perfectly new arrangement. But these are slight blemishes in the pages of an unaffected and readable little book, which exists as a pleasant record of what was plainly to the " Three Girls " an eminently happy time.
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