old Velas, who is a still older man, got about four boxes of right nice coal-fish yesterday, a little to the south-east.  But half Jaeren [Footnote:  Jaederen, the coast district near Stavanger.] was on the sea, boat upon boat, for the double reason of the coal-fish and that they had not an earthly thing to do upon the land, for this year the earth has yielded us everything well and very early, but the straw is short, which, if the truth must be told, is the only thing to complain of.  But the farmers are making wry faces, like the merchants in Oestersoeen when they complain of the herrings, for they must always complain, except about the sheep, which are going off very well to the Englishman, and I can’t conceive what there will be left of this kind of beast in Jaeren, but it is all the same to me, seeing that I have never liked the sheep at all until last year, when he paid taxes for all Jaeren, which was more than was expected of him.  And it would be well if any one were able to put bounds upon this burning of sea-ware, which the devil or somebody has invented for use as a medicine in Bergen—­they say, but I do not believe it, because it has a stink that goes into the innermost part of your nostrils and into your tobacco besides.  But then the east wind is good for something, at least, for it sends the heaps of ware out to sea, and I can imagine how it will surprise the Queen of England when she knows how we stink.  And I have a grievance of my own, viz., boys shooting with blunderbusses and powder, and with so little wit that my eyes flash with anger every time I see them creeping on their stomachs towards a starling or a couple of lean ring-plovers, and I shout and cast stones to warn the innocent creatures, since the farmer of Jaeren is, as it were, his thrall’s thrall, and lets the servant-boys make a fool of him and play the concertina all night, which might be put up with, but no powder and shooting should be allowed, so that Jaeren may not become a desert for bird-life, and only concertinas left and rascals of boys on their stomachs as above.

Yours very truly,
LAURITZ BOLDEMANN SEEHUS.

KRYDSVIG, December 25, 1889.

MR. EDITOR,

After having, in the course of a long and very stormy life, given heed to the clouds of the sky and the various aspects of the sea, which can change before your eyes as you look, like a woman who discovers another whom she likes better, and you stand forsaken and rejected, because a girl’s mind is like the ocean above-mentioned, and full of storms as the Spanish Sea, and I early received my shock of that kind for life, of which I do not intend to speak, but the weather is of a nature that I have never before observed in this country, with small seas, rare and moderate storms, and on this first Yule-day a peace on the earth and such a complacent calm on the sea that you might row out in a trough.  The wreckage that came in on the