State Library of NSW
[Page 100]
which make Caithness anything but what Tasman described the Coast of Australia, "Terra [indecipherable]" & how much has occurred in the interval. I think that I told you something of the Scandinavian scamps I took in [indecipherable] company early in the summer. How in the magnificent glory of the scenery of the Fiords of Norway we forgot that we fed by day on raw salmon & black bread and by night (if that could be called night which was all but as bright as day) were fed upon in turn by beasts that seem more familiar with the Norse than any other men I have encountered except Turks & Arabs. How we fell in with a lineal descendent of Harald Harfagre keeping on here & some of other aristocratic persons of royal descent, yet never saw one man who looked as if he were of the same blood as Roleo or quite as good as the peasantry of Caithness, of whom they seemed caricatures. How we found pine forests not only of pine such as Scotch fir, Norway spruce & larch, but of Birch & wild Cherry as far north as Trondheim [?] in the
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