307 was applied to the open end of the handle, thus retaining the oil in suspense, till the spoon itself had been rammed between my teeth on to my tongue and back into the depths of my throat. Then the thumb was withdrawn, and the contents of the spoon shot down my throat. Resistance was rendered impossible. The S.P.C.K. and R.T. Society tracts were administered by moral compulsion. I do not know that they did any good ; they certainly did no harm ; they were not, however, relished. My father's medical remedial predilections turned in the direction of blue pill to be followed up next day with salts and senna. I think that the contents of the leaden spoon were the least mischievous of the drenchings we received as children. How our constitution stood these administrations is a wonder to me. Whilst at Hurst I got leave of absence, and paid a visit to Iceland, by way of the Faroe Islands. I started June 7th, 1861, and returned August 10th. It cost me a few shillings over a hundred pounds. There are no trees whatever on the Faroe Islands, only tracts of heather and bog. A brief walk from Thorshafn across a dip in the hills brings one to an astonishing prospect of a finger of rock rising out of the sea many hundreds of feet and quite inaccessible. But I had not time to make much of an excursion through Stromsoe, on account of the short sojourn of the steamer at the port. We started in the afternoon and passed between the barred red and black cliffs of Stromsoe and Sandoe, and then headed away due North. I have said in my preface that, like Tristram Shandy, I claim the right occasionally to make digression from personal narrative. I venture to do so now, so as to record the history of a most remarkable man, Sverrir, a native of one of these Faroe Islands, who became King of Norway, and ancestor of many a royal family. But it is specially on another account that his biography is so interesting. Moreover, it is practically unknown to most European historians, though none can be more engaging ; it was dictated by himself. In Stromsoe, the largest of the Faroe Isles, was born Sverrir, the great hero of the close of the twelfth century who alone among the sovereigns of Europe acknowledging the papal claims defied, and defied successfully, that imperious Pontiff, Innocent III.
