extended boasting, else we should have seized the opportunity, and placed ourselves before the company in the rank of Paul Du Chaillu, Henry M. Stanley, and Captain Burnaby. We were obliged to console ourselves with the thought that our table companions would see from our faces that we were resolute and determined, and would judge from our figures that we could endure the vicissitudes of the trip to the jumping-off place of Denmark. When we started away, shortly after noon, our carriage, a vehicle of the type common in Continental cities, with a seat for two passengers behind and one beside the driver, was crowded with sketching traps, bottles of the landlord's wines and liquors, grain for the horses, and parcels containing luncheon for ourselves. Having determined to see the country as it is, we refused to take any great amount of eatables, and carried along the liquids more in the expectation of bringing rare and welcome luxuries to the inhabitants than of using them ourselves. This inexcusable rashness of improvidence in regard to food supplies was seriously disapproved of by the landlord and his friends, and even by the driver, who looked with visible disappointment on the meagre luncheon. But we were firm, and drove off at a break-bottle pace, eager to face the unknown dangers of the journey, and longing for some adventure, even if it were no more than a night's bivouac in the sand wastes.

For the first ten miles the road is hard and smooth, and leads in a perfectly straight line over a gently rolling country. The soil is thin and poor in places, but in the shallow valleys and on the sunny slopes the farmers were harvesting heavy crops of grain. The farm-houses are all of stone, with thatched roofs, and are surrounded by capacious barns and sheds. No tumble-down picturesqueness disfigures the landscape; everything is well kept, thrifty, and comfortable. At the half-way station, a little cluster of low stone houses called Aarbaeck, the macadamized road suddenly ends. We had been in sight of the sea to the eastward all the way, and while we watered the horses we could hear the swish of the summer waves just over the low dunes beyond the sandy gardens of the little village. To the northward lay a flat, heather-grown waste, bounded in the distance by sand billows, shining white in the afternoon sun. It was past five o'clock when we left the little village and drove down the gentle slope of the last stretch of solid earth and out upon the brown plain. The road was well ditched and kept in perfect order, but of peculiar construction, which we did not thoroughly understand until we came across a family, man, woman, and children, engaged in repairing it. Great stacks of heather twigs had been gathered and stored at intervals along the track, and these were carefully spread over the worn places, and laid in

them; we had not even an empty revolver; so we vented our exasperation on the greenhead flies, which were the only things we could kill, and which began to bite viciously. But the birds paid as little attention to our noisy slapping the flies as they did to our language, and continued the same ungamelike performances until we plunged into the tumultuous sea of sand billows that made the northern horizon. We were glad to be rid of the birds, although their company kept us from noticing the desolation around us, made conversation picturesque, and started no end of wonderful tales of what game each one of us had shot, and what mighty Nimrods we once were and could be again. We left the heather behind, and we now had sand and no life upon it. We soon got far more weary of the lifeless landscape than we had been of the heather and the evolutions of the game birds. The road wound among the dunes in a most erratic way, following generally the lowest depressions and avoiding any steep inclines. On all sides of us rose ir regular summits of various heights, narrow ing the view to oppressive limits, and blinding the eyes with their dazzling whiteness. A sparse growth of tufted sand grass covered the slopes, except where the weather had gullied out a great patch and started a broad avalanche of sand, which scored the hill-side. We could not judge of the size of the dunes, because there was nothing to gauge the height by. At times they seemed as large as the Alps; then, as we approached a hill which in its own proportions and in the character of its lines seemed thousands of feet high, it dwindled into a very ordinary sand hill, the forests on its flanks became patches of sand grass, its ravines and cañons diminished to small gullies, and its majestic summit was seen to be but the wind-swept crest of a shifting sand heap. The road-bed, as we went further and further from the heather plain, became more and more springy, and the sand in places was sifted up through the twigs, and was carried along with the wheels in a cloud of white particles. The horses, now no longer fresh, drew the carriage with difficulty, and at last the pace became a slow walk. Evening drew on, and purple-toned shadows fell across the dunes, contrasting with the orange light of the sunset. In the long twilight the stillness of the dreary waste around us was broken only by the screech of a tardy seagull as it flitted past. The waning light

added new mysteries to the landscape, and made the desolation still more weird and depressing. We shouted and sang, but no echo answered us. Human voices seemed muffled and out of harmony with the surroundings, and we relapsed into a weary silence, each one overwhelmed by a sense of utter loneliness, which the companionship of our small party was inadequate to dispel. The twilight gave place to starlight, minutes lengthened into hours, and we still quietly advanced, the muffled thud of the horses' feet and the "whish" of the sand on the wheels seeming to grow louder and louder.

Suddenly a light, red and flaring in contrast with the twinkle of the bright northern stars, burst into view like a great Cyclopean eye between the shadowy forms of two great hillocks in front of us. The driver brought his whip across the horses, and they started off at a gallop. It was the lantern of the Skagen light-house, and our journey was nigh ended. A half-hour later we whisked through the deep sand of the streets of a great straggling village. No lights shone in the windows of the low houses, and not a soul was astir. High in the air, seemingly close at hand, the great lantern burned, with a protecting expression in its glare, and our loneliness vanished before its cheering rays. To the eastward the Cattegat sparkled in the starlight; to the north, beyond the light-house, we could distinguish the dark expanse of the Skager-Rack; and westward, where a faint rose-color still lingered, the chilly waves of the North Sea tossed phosphorescent white-caps in the air.

We drove into a sandy court-yard, and up to the back-door of long, one-story house. It was strangely like Cape Cod. The same low, straggling out-buildings, the ladder and broken-down cart, the manure heaps, the hen-coops, and a smell of fish overpowering all other odors. We hammered at the open door, and after a long wait a man appeared holding a kerosene lamp, and shading his eyes with his hand. He was Yankee enough as to his manner and his features, but pure Danish as to his speech. We parleyed for supper and lodging.

"Oh, certainly, you can have supper! I'll call the cook. Wouldn't you like some nice fresh flounders?"

Of course we would like fresh fish of any species, and in a short time we sat at a white-spread table. We felt curiously at