File:Lake Lenongen (JW Edy plate 41).jpg

Situated a few miles from Helgeraac, is more remarkable for its picturesque beauties, than for its extent. This view was taken in a narrow pass, at the farther extremity among the mountains, under the lofty and secure protection of which, a number of small islands and rocks are beautifully associated. The solemn and venerable grandeur of those large masses, many of them covered with gloomy forests from the water's edge to their summits; the bare and precipitous sides of others, which like huge pyramids of stone, are seen rising out of water, whose surface may be compared to the highest polished mirror, interspersed with the smaller decorative islands, covered with evergreen trees, and shrubs, form a strikingly varied, yet harmonious whole. The waters in the passes, and under the perpendicular rocks, are in general inconceivably deep ; the fisherman's line frequently descends one hundred fathoms in those abysses, to entangle groundfish. A sombre hue prevails in the deep water, which has a brackish taste. Some marine vegetation attaches itself to the rocks and the bottoms of the boats. It is without currents, a circumstance which indicates one of these subterranean Communications with other lakes, not unfrequent in the inland waters of Norway. On the little verdant spots, attended by a man, woman, or children, may be seen a cow or two, picking up the scanty blades of grass. When the pasturage is exhausted in one spot, the cattle are removed in a boat to finish their repast at another. In the evening by the same conveyance, the whole party are safely conducted to their habitation; thus their cows are fed and preserved from being lost in the forest, or devoured by wild beasts.

In some instances the herdsmen provide themselves on the way with a Dutch cheese, or a little meal, if their voyage or peregrinations are to a distance. By the side of a rivulet stood a small hut or cottage, with a few nets hanging to dry: the female part of its poor but honest inhabitants, were cheerfully employed in nursing and spinning. One of the women soon attracted my attention, by taking from a large wooden chest, something of the form of an Egyptian mummy, about eighteen inches long, and fastened on its back to a board, fashioned on purpose, projecting about six inches below its feet, for the convenience of placing it erect against the wall, in a corner. However, I was soon undeceived as to the antiquity of the object before me ; as it proved to be a living little lord of the creation. During sleep in the day, or in the absence of its parents, the child is deposited in the chest, to protect it from savage intruders, which are continually on the alert, howling around, or lying in ambush in the deep mosses, which wholly cover the land of this district. The natural beauties of the place must be numerous, but to hunt them out in its secret and unexplored recesses, might be attended with imminent danger. From the scantiness of its population, or perhaps from the inertness of the inhabitants, this region, although abundantly rich in minerals and timber, is much neglected. The traveller walks on a bed of moss, soft as down, thinking it a paradise, until he is aroused by the screams of birds of prey, or the howling of the wolf, of which the fine echoes give ten distinct reverberations.