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The land-road was extremely difficult on account of the steep rocky mountains. The way over the frozen sea was much more easy and pleasant, but often extremely dangerous, as, where it is not inclosed and fixed by the islands, in changeable and stormy weather it is liable to be broken up, and exposes the travellers to almost inevitable destruction.

I was glad, nevertheless, that we had an opportunity of seeing the Miösen, from the deck of a steamer. Moving over the glassy pale-green water, midway between its shores, we had a far better exhibition of its beauties than from the land-road. It is a superb piece of water, sixty miles in length by from two to five in breadth, with mountain shores of picturesque and ever-varying outline.

Two portages but little frequented* are situated between the Rio Branco and the Rio Essequibo, south of the chain of Pacaraina; they shorten the land-road leading from the Villa del Rio Negro to Dutch Guiana.

Rome began as a thousand American cities have done, by being a convenient place for barter and horse-trading. It lay in the heart of the plains of central Italy The Tiber provided direct access to the sea. The land-road from north to south found here a convenient ford which could be used all the year around.

For this reason there is no continuous road in all western Norway, but alternate links of land and water boats and post-horses. The deepest fjords reach very nearly to the spinal ridge of the mountain region, and a land-road from Bergen to this line would be more difficult to construct than any of the great highways across the Alps.