take the rest we so much needed, as the unabated violence of the wind in the open detained us there two days.  On 31st July the captain insisted on leaving, despite the pilot’s warning.  We had been on board the Thetis a few hours, and were in the act of eating a lobster for the first time in our lives, when the captain and the sailors began to swear violently at the pilot, whom I could see at the helm, rigid with fear, striving to avoid a reef—­barely visible above the water—­towards which our ship was being driven.  Great was our terror at this violent tumult, for we naturally thought ourselves in the most extreme danger.  The vessel did actually receive a severe shock, which, to my vivid imagination, seemed like the splitting up of the whole ship.  Fortunately, however, it transpired that only the side of our vessel had fouled the reef, and there was no immediate danger.  Nevertheless, the captain deemed it necessary to steer for a harbour to have the vessel examined, and we returned to the coast and anchored at another point.  The captain then offered to take us in a small boat with two sailors to Tromsond, a town of some importance situated at a few hours’ distance, where he had to invite the harbour officials to examine his ship.  This again proved a most attractive and impressive excursion.  The view of one fjord in particular, which extended far inland, worked on my imagination like some unknown, awe-inspiring desert.  This impression was intensified, during a long walk from Tromsond up to the plateau, by the terribly depressing effect of the dun moors, bare of tree or shrub, boasting only a covering of scanty moss, which stretch away to the horizon, and merge imperceptibly into the gloomy sky.  It was long after dark when we returned from this trip in our little boat, and my wife was very anxious.  The next morning (1st August), reassured as to the condition of the vessel, and the wind favouring us, we were able to go to sea without further hindrance.

After four days’ calm sailing a strong north wind arose, which drove us at uncommon speed in the right direction.  We began to think ourselves nearly at the end of our journey when, on 6th August, the wind changed, and the storm began to rage with unheard-of violence.  On the 7th, a Wednesday, at half-past two in the afternoon, we thought ourselves in imminent danger of death.  It was not the terrible force with which the vessel was hurled up and down, entirely at the mercy of this sea monster, which appeared now as a fathomless abyss, now as a steep mountain peak, that filled me with mortal dread; my premonition of some terrible crisis was aroused by the despondency of the crew, whose malignant glances seemed superstitiously to point to us as the cause of the threatening disaster.  Ignorant of the trifling occasion for the secrecy of our journey, the thought may have occurred to them that our need of escape had arisen from suspicious or even criminal circumstances.  The captain himself