the wear and tear of wind or ocean. Pontoppidan promised us sea-cats, sea-mice, and sea-wolves. This part of Jutland, as far as the village of Aalbæk, is more densely populated by the peasant tribe than any we have yet visited—gaards, farm-buildings, cattle in abundance; and then later we pass by a wreck—a ship sunk among the shoals; dip into a quick-sand, and are dragged out again; then drive by the manor of Lindholm, the most northern of all Jutland strong holds, in Queen Margaret's time, of the noble house of Bugge. Twilight comes on; the lighthouse of Skagen is faintly visible on the horizon. We drive now inland -brown moor, relieved by shining sand, and dunes glistening in the evening shades like snow. Pass by old Skagen church-tower, half buried beneath a waste -boats on the shore, nets hung to dry. We enter the village, or rather settlement, toil our way through the "sand; each cottage stands by itself on a square plot of land, on espalier-frames; to a network of ropes hang fish drying by hundreds; corn too and potatoes flourish. At last we reach a small, long, one-storied house, embowered in trees-the kro-our restingplace. We knock. Hallo! No answer. What traveller ever arrives at Skagen after midnight? At length the master appears, and later women but half awake; in ten minutes our beds are prepared, and before long we are asleep.

SKAGEN.

July 1st. We wade out through the sand, knee-deep, to our bath before breakfast-fish split and drying in their netting-frames, and something else, by no means grateful to the smell: they look like peas; so I ask a

"The sea."

Peas grow

woman where they come from?

in the sea! Then calling to mind the stranded vessel of last night, I discover how Skagen has been doing "a little wrecking," like her Cornish cousins: a vessel, on her way from Stettin, ran aground last week. Our bath was less private than we imagined; for though we sneaked out early, almost unseen; the news got wind of ladies swimming in the Kattegat; fishwomen and children (the men had been out at sea since dawn of day) crowded the dunes, too happy to stare and wonder.

Breakfast over, we drive to the newly-built lighthouse, mount to the summit, and, glass in hand, gain some idea of the village of Skagen. Gazing northward, the land runs tapering finely down, like a bullock's tongue-though the name is derived from some ancient Scandinavian word signifying "nose," at whose extreme point the sister waters of the Northern Ocean, stormy and violent, embrace and mingle with the more gentle Kattegat, who, as she nears the meeting-point, makes believe to a little tide of her own. Kattegat is not an open sea; her velvet paws betray her; she looks meek and placid, but in the course of this present week has wrecked two vessels, stranded on the shore before they gained the open sea.

Turning to the south, before you lies the village, planted in the sand in the form of an English X. You will wonder why the fishers chose this place of sand for their settlement, when heath and dry moor-terra firma —were at command on the western coast: patience, and you will hear.

In front, to the right, stands the old lighthouse, now for sale, but no purchaser appears; who would wish to drag old materials over a plain of sand? by its side some

pretty, clean, striped houses, backed by a little grove of trees; then again, beyond the village, in the centre of a baby forest, stands the house of the chief magistrate; you can hardly see it, so shut in is it from the wrath of wind and sand.

Further still, on the western coast, stands, rising from a mountainous sea of silver-glistening sand, the halfburied church of "Gammel Skagen," long since disused,-built, says tradition, of the stones brought by English and Dutch seamen; not improbable, as in old popish days these church landmarks fared well in offerings from the grateful mariner.

It was in the year 1775, on a common prayer day,— of which in the Danish Church there were formerly many, thanksgivings for fires extinguished and pestilence stayed, and other mercies long since forgotten,—while the inhabitants of Skagen were engaged in divine service, there arose suddenly a storm, accompanied by a whirlwind of "flying sand," carrying desolation over the fields and the village of this devoted settlement, and entirely filling up the holy well of St. Lawrence, whose water proved infallible even in the 18th century. Before the affrighted inhabitants could leave the building, where they still remained cowering for shelter, the church was half-buried beneath its fury, the doors blocked up, and they compelled to escape by the windows of the belfry. Since that period the building has been no longer used. The colony emigrated to the opposite coast, where the village is now situated.

We inquired if any English vessels ever touched at Skagen? "Yes," the man at the lighthouse replied; "when they are wrecked, not otherwise:" a visit more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

Behind the tower stands the residence of the people employed at the lighthouse-the head man a retired officer.

The melons of Skagen enjoy a considerable reputation in the gastronomic world, and fish in considerable quantities are exported to Sweden. The man at the Phare takes a pride in his flowers: splendid oleanders, passion-flowers, and picotees were blooming in his parlour-window. Whilst on high we observed a curious effect of the clouds over the Kattegat; three ships appeared in the horizon, the mist separating them from the water, giving them the effect of naval balloons floating through the heavens. Skagen, too, boasts one sepulchral tumulus-resting-place of some stormloving Scandinavian.

We now embark again, and

drive to the "Nose's" point; stand one foot in the North Sea, the other one in the Kattegat, and do-I forget what, but something our host, who accompanied us, told us was the correct thing. Huge masses of glutinous substance, of brick-dust red and cobalt blue, lie stranded on the shore, some three and four feet in circumference, beautiful to look upon; what a trouvaille for a vivarium! These animals are said to possess medicinal qualities; and at Sandifiord in Norway there exists a sea-bathing place, where those who are martyrs to rheumatic pains go and make a "cure aux actineæ," bathe in the burning sand, and have their bodies rubbed down with live jelly-fish.*

*Pontoppidan, worthy old prelate, does his very best to get up a few remarkable events in honour of this the most northern village of Jutland. In the year 1281 a fish very like, not a whale, but a lion, ravaged the coast, devouring fishermen and women, cracking their bones like filberts. Passing over a few awful battles with the North