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Christiansand.

The first port touched en route for the capital of Norway is Christiansand, which is snugly hidden in the extreme south of the district of Sætersdalen—that land of eccentricity in costume and quaintness of habitation, of short waists and long trousers reaching to the shoulders, above which come the shallow, baby-looking jackets. With what zest does one strain for the first peep at a seaport of a foreign land! What value is attached to the earliest indication of varying costume, or even a new form of chimney! The steamer from Hull generally arrives at Christiansand on Sunday, when it is looking its neatest, the white tower of the church shining over the wooden houses of the town, the Norwegian shipping all in repose, with the exception, perhaps, of the heavy, compressed, Noah’s ark kind of dumpy barges, or a customs’ gig containing some official. As we looked up at the church tower we could not but wonder if we should hear, during our short visit, the whistle of the “Vægter;” for tradition says that, for the protection of the place, a watchman is always on the look-out, ready to give the alarm should a fire break out in the town, which, being built almost entirely of wood, would soon be reduced to a heap of ashes. But no; we heard no whistle, not even a rehearsal. On dit that for three hundred years has the Vægter looked out afar, and no alarum has issued from the tower. Christiansand has been mercifully preserved from fire, and long may it be so!