: : . :* : ,;--: . m A SUMMER IN NORWAY? WITH NOTES ON THE INDUSTRIES, HABITS, CUSTOMS AND PECULIARITIES OF THE PEOPLE, THE HISTORY AND INSTITUTIONS OF THE COUNTRY, ITS CLIMATE, TOPOGRAPHY AND PRODUCTIONS. ALSO, AN ACCOUNT OF THE RED-DEER, REINDEER AND ELK. BY JOHN DEAN CATON, LL.D., EX-CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS. SECOND EDITION, WITH MAP. CHICAGO: JANSEN, MCCLURG AND COMPANY. 1880. COPYRIGHT, 1875, BY JANSEN, MCCLURG AND COMPANY. I KKISHT Sc I.SSMAH.D.I ELKCTROTYPED BY A. ZEESE A CO. PREFACE. Having lost the book in which I had briefly noted down the incidents of my visit and travel through Norway, I tried to su-pply its place from memory. The attempt to do this resulted in the more voluminous record contained in this volume. Then came the suggestion that what I had written, and had been read with interest by those who had seen the manuscript, would be of interest to the public, especially as it related to a country and a people not as familiarly known to many, at least, as other countries in Europe. I put the manuscript in the hands of the publishers with much doubt and hesitation, hoping, however, that they will not be disappointed in their estimate and judgment of what may interest the public. OTTAWA, ILL., March, 1875. 2223248 2 CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. The great cathedral; Olaf the Holy ; miraculous spring; kings crowned at Trondhjem ; present dynasty ; union between Nor- way and Sweden; population; steamship lines; variety of lan- guages spoken ; environs of the city, 59 CHAPTER VI. Steamer accommodations; cheapness of travel; Norwegian miles; the currency; rates of watermen; embarkation; reasons why docks not used; daylight at midnight; popular celebration of midsummer night; among the islands; their number; cod fish- ing, catching, drying and packing; meals on the steamer; the flat-bread, 69 CHAPTER VII. Coast towns and people; local travel and traffic; no baggage smashing; Torghatten; the natural tunnel; the Seven Sisters; entering the snow area; the Horseman's Island; legend ol" the horseman and the tunnel ; the midnight sun ; strange sen- sations produced; a school for myths, ... 83 CHAPTER VIII. The Arctic Circle; the island fishermen; snows and silvery streams; light and shade at midnight; eider ducks; gathering the down; the trade in down; the eider family in Norway; Bodo; a good time with the children; their good behavior; flowering moss; an accident; leave Bodo; peculiar fish; arrive at Tromso, 915 CHAPTER IX. Arrive at Hammerfest; excursion by land and water to North Cape; the trip to Vadso; improved whaling; extent of the business; another visit to North Cape; hotel accommodations; primitive habits; most northern town in the world; moderate temperature; navigation never interrupted by ice in Norway; the effect of the Gulf Stream, , . m CONTENTS. 3 CHAPTER X. Hammerfest; its commerce and oil factories; cod-fishing; the Sei; the fishermen ; religion and education ; hostility to Catholics ; confirmation and suffrage ; general education ; the Lapps ; his- tory and language ; nomadic or mountain Lapps ; social distinc- tions; family relations, dress, physical qualities; an insane bridegroom ; domestic virtues ; Lapp women ; use of tobacco ; coast Laps ; religious character ; fanatical crusade ; supersti- tious charms, 125 CHAPTER XI. First sight of reindeer ; garden housetops, their construction ; build- ings in Hammerfest and other towns; fuel; wintering of cattle on fish ; feeding of horses ; cows ; dairy farms ; food for stock ; sheep, goats, hogs, fowls, and Lapland dogs; mails and tele- graphs ; courtesy of people and officials ; temperature and light in winter; winter amusements; love of home and country; fishing at midnight; the midnight sun again, 149 CHAPTER XII. Trade in Hammerfest; the Lapp quarter; American consul; leave Hammerfest; our northern position; island channels; Bosekop, the Lapland Eden; the hotel; an arctic bouquet; rapid growth of flowers; peat bogs; church architecture; the forests; valley of the Alten river; codfish trade; unconsciously aid a truant; an historical monument, 167 CHAPTER XIII. Historical monument; Harold Haarfager, Norway's first and great king; the story of his conquest of kingdom and queen; the expelled jarls; their settlements and colonies; discovery of Iceland ; its settlement, republican government, conversion to Christianity, historians and poets; discovery and settlement of Greenland; Scandinavian claim to the discovery of America; the several expeditions; the first white man buried and the first white child born in America; credit to which these claims of discovery are entitled, 183 4 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. Gardens and grass at Bosekop; copper mine at Kuafjord; leave Bosekop; christening and confirmation pilgrims; fourth of July on the steamer; miss the stars and stripes; meet friends at Oxfjord; the voyage south; changed aspect produced by sum- mer; Tromso; contested lodgings; Laplander encampments; herds of reindeer; arrange for a visit; the trip by water; rather comical landing, 203 CHAPTER XV. The encampment; the reindeer and the Lapland herders; special investigation of the habits of the animal; their keeping, and uses; their breeding and natural instincts; long conversation with the herders; compared with other branches of the deer family ; domestication ; the value of the milk ; Lapland cheese ; the natural food of the reindeer; the universality of the moss where the reindeer are found, 22 1 CHAPTER XVI. A commercial levee; Lapland thread; Norwegian log cabin; do- mestic industry; luncheon; a cutler's shop; the universal sheath-knife, its use and cost; Lapp encampment; a charm- ing sail to town; location of Tromso; dull fishing; social life in towns; general gravity of the people; leave Tromso; mo- notony of perpetual daylight, and desire to escape it; the steamer; second view of the grand coast scenery; the works of nature and of man; human insignificance, 241 CHAPTER XVII. The Lofoden islands; their number, size and location; the Mael- strom ; island scenery ; the inhabitants ; virtue, temperance and industry; the women, able-bodied and good-looking; general cleanliness; the journey among the islands; dangerous naviga- tion; authority of captain and pilot; pass Bodo; leave the Arctic Circle; Norwegian fjords and lakes; recollections of the journey; reach Trondhjem, 255 CONTENTS. 5 CHAPTER XVIII. Attempted imposition; I resist and defeat it; American weakness in such matters ; the landlord ; continued rain, and no dark- ness yet; environs of Trondhjem ; comfortable condition of the people ; mode of curing hay ; Norwegian scythe ; women in the fields ; overland travel ; legal regulations ; the carriole system ; the vehicle and harness ; engage a carriage for my party; the contract and arrangements; leave Trondhjem; the railway to Storen; Norwegian strawberries; Storen, .... 279 CHAPTER XIX. The overland trip ; lose and then recover our carriage ; light baggage; a countryman accompanies us; we start on a good road; pass Prcesthuus, Garlid, Bjerkager and Austbjerg; a lady tries the carriole; a grand precipice; Stuen and Anne ' or Ovne ; first night at a station ; peat ; a case of poverty ; sunny nights; Rise, Drivstuen and Kongsvold; a Norwegian kitchen; try my hand at cooking with astonishing results; the Dovre Fjeld; a bad road; the summit; Mount Snehseton; Hjcerkin; the carriage upsets; in a tight place; the mustang horses of the country, 299 CHAPTER XX. Resume the journey ; bleak and barren district ; delay at Fog- sten; flowers under snow; snowballing in July; another acci- dent, and hazardous travel; Dombaas; wild reindeer; no dark- ness yet; part with our traveling companion; the Norwegian elk ; Thoftemoen ; a royal station-keeper, his pride and wealth ; Laagen valley ; a perilous bridge and road ; Brcendhaugen, Laurgaard, Moen, Bedevangen; Kringlen, an historical site; the story of the annihilation of a Scotch army under Sinclair, at Kringlen; the commemoration monument; the romance, . 321 CHAPTER XXI. Storklevslad ; secure a good dinner; Oien; Norwegian timber; a race for horses ; we win ; Listad ; Skjaeggstad ; the beggars 6 CONTENTS. in Norway ; last of the snow mountains ; Kerkestuen ; the road along the river ; Holmen and Fossegaarden ; vexatious delay waiting for horses ; need of patience ; lower valley of the Laagen; Lake Mjosen; reached Lillehammer, 341 CHAPTER XXII. Lillehammer; docks at the landings; a garden of roses; honest horses ; the falls ; Lake Mjosen ; effect of the Lisbon earth- quake; Helgio; Hamar; Vormen river; Eidsvold; an historical city ; cradle of Norwegian liberty ; transfer of Norway to Swe- den in 1810; the secret treaty; convention at Eidsvold in 1814; a king elected ; the constitution of Norway ; king abdicates, and King of Sweden elected King of Norway; incorruptibility of the Storthing; national independence, 353 CHAPTER XXIII. Leave Eidsvold by rail for Christiana; the hotel porter; his im- portance, his numerous functions, his qualifications, dress and income; hear of the second Chicago fire; difficulty in getting information ; Christiana Fjord and Christiana ; ancient city of Osloe; environs of the capital; parks and palaces; parliament house ; university and museum ; other institutions ; American consul; Mr. Bennett, the generous friend of travelers, . . . 371 CHAPTER XXIV. Leave Christiana by rail ; Kongsvinger ; indifferent accommoda- tions ; absence of carpets in Norway hotels ; cross the Swedish line; Avika; a wheat-field; Laxa; a long and wearisome delay ; gross mismanagement of railways ; the German sys- tem; Stockholm; the Grand Hotel; the northern Venice; water transit; abandon the trip to Russia; the Gotha slack- water canal; Wener lake; Trolhcetta falls; southern Sweden; Gothenburg to Copenhagen, Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne; up the Rhine; Heidelburg; Baden-Baden; Zurich and Lucerne; up the Riga; Rhone glacier; Geneva; Paris; London; Liver- pool; New York, 385 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. A SUMMER IN NORWAY. CHAPTER I. INTEREST IN SCANDINAVIA; CAUSES THEREFOR; WHAT WE KNOW OF NORWAY; THE ROUTE TO NORWAY; ARRIVE IN LONDON; START FROM HULL; LIMITED ACCOMMODATIONS; CROSSING THE NORTH SEA; THE PASSENGERS; THE PROTECTING ISLANDS; STOP AT AALESUND. IT is gratifying to observe the interest re- cently awakened in the United States in all that pertains to the Scandinavian states, and especially to Norway. Many considerations com- bine to excite this interest. In the first place, we know but little of its present or past, al- though not hidden away in the interior, like most other European states, but swept on its western border by that great ocean stream which, beginning at Central America, and carrying with it the forest trees of the tropics to the arctic regions of Norway, and within a few days' sail of the most commercial nation of Europe, still it seems to be wrapt in seclusion, and its natu- (9) 10 A SUMMER IN NOJtWAY. ral features and characteristics escape that notice which other countries receive. We know that Norway has a history, but little of it is accessi- ble in our language. We know they were once a powerful people in war ; that they had liberal, yes, democratic institutions, and were more advanced than many of their southern neighbors in the science of government ; that they left their deep impress especially upon the British Islands, when the institutions of the latter were in a plastic state, and in the process of formation, and thus have had an influence on our own. We know that William the Conqueror was descended from Norwegian stock, and that the present dynasty of Great Britain traces its origin back to Norway. We know that they had their heroic age, when in valor, enterprise and sanguinary deeds they eclipsed all other peoples. We have been told that their brave navigators first discovered our own country, and actually colonized our shores centuries before Columbus was born. We have been told that they have a mountainous, rugged country, reach- ing far into the Arctic Circle, peopled with a hardy race of fishermen, extending much nearer the pole than civilization has elsewhere reached ; but of all this we have but shadows PERPETUAL DAY. 11 and glimpses, which interest but do not satisfy. In the dark shadows of the past we look for faint images of things that have gone before. Into these dim outlines we figure to ourselves great realities, and with credulous ears listen to mythical tales as substitutes for established facts, and if they give but an outline we fill up the picture from our own imaginings. Whether it be of times, of peoples or of countries, if we know but little, our curiosity is excited, our interest is awakened, and we wish to fill up the measure of our knowledge. The human mind is ever striving after something new ; and the higher the culture the stronger is this desire. With the known we are already satisfied, and stretch forward to the unknown. We feel less interest in the perusal of a book which we have already read, or the story of which has been already told us. We travel to see new things. If we visit countries which have filled the pages of history for thousands of years, and the characteristics of whose peoples have been often described to us, it is not so much to see what we have thus learned, but something new something that others have overlooked, or have omitted to describe ; for it 12 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. is a certain truth that no traveler, no matter how observing and painstaking he may be, ever sees all the features of a country or a people which he visits, any more than the artist sees all the features or appreciates all the beauties of a landscape which he beholds ; yet were he to undertake to write a description of all he saw, even in a short study, he would find it almost an endless task. So it is with Scandi- navia. We know but little of it, and this little serves but to sharpen the appetite for more. Why would you prefer to hear of Norway rather than of England or France, or of our own country ? Simply because you wish to hear of something new to you, rather than listen to a tale so often told, and which has lost the charm of novelty. Although its western .islands are washed by the same ocean that laves the shores of our own land although a waif thrown from > our southern keys may be dashed upon the rocks by the maelstrom, or swept beyond the North Cape, yet we know less of that land and its people than of many countries at our anti- podes. ' We know indeed that it is an old country and was once mistress of all the northern seas. PERPETUAL DAY. 13 We know there was a time when the sea-kings of the Norsemen left their midnight sun and swept down upon the more benighted regions of Ireland, Scotland and England, overcame the natives, and placed rulers over their settlements ; crossed the channel, drove the descendants of the Gauls from all the coasts of Normandy, and colonized it with their surplus population ; gave it a new name, commemorative of their origin, and their descendants still hold the lands their fierce ancestors wrested from weaker hands. We know that these later descendants of the Northmen, not content with their continental possessions, in the person of William the Con- queror, crossed the channel, conquered England, and established there a great dynasty, which, with slight interruption, has ruled that great nation ever since. Thus much we learn from the histories of the lands they invaded or conquered ; but back of this we know so little that a charm of mystery hangs over these sea-robbers, as they were called, and the land they came from. If their own histories tell much we would like to f know, they are sealed books except to the most learned of other nations, for the Norske language is con- 14 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. fined to a limited area. So that we are still confined, or at least most of us, to the scraps picked up here and there in the histories of the countries with which they came in contact. We have all heard of Harold and Olaf, and others of their warlike kings who built their rude dwellings upon the rugged cliffs and threaded their way, with their great fleets of little vessels full of devoted followers, among the rock-bound islands and into the deep fjords, whence they dashed, as if from a well-covered ambush, upon the restless North Sea, whose tempestuous gales they braved as if sporting with a plaything, and rushed down upon distant shores, where they loaded their barks with booty, or drove away the inhabitants and took possession of their deserted hearthstones, with the unconcern of real pur- chasers. The purchase-money was blood, which sealed the deed which was written with the point of a lance. Such were the fruits of valor, such was glory in those rude times, when the strong hand claimed as its own all it could grasp, and the right was recognized and the violence ap- plauded by the world at large; when the sense of justice was so perverted as to recognize no rights in the weak which the strong were under PERPETUAL DAY. 15 any obligation to respect. Alas, a thousand years of progressive civilization and christianiza- tion have not sufficed to so enlighten the human mind as to enable it fully to appreciate the wickedness of such perverted principles. If, as between individuals, the sense of mankind will no longer recognize the right of violence, poten- tates and states take to themselves the fruits of force, and complacently look around for applause for their mighty deeds. When, enticed by the charm begotten by a little knowledge only, I resolved to visit Norway and see for myself the country and the people, see what they did and how they lived, I was embarrassed to find out how to go, so I went o ' to London. From the imperfect information which I had received I supposed a line of steamers sailed from England around the North Cape and into the White Sea, to Archangel, and that thence I could find comfortable con- veyance by water and by rail across Russia to St. Petersburg, and such was my contemplated route when I started. I spent two days of dili- gent inquiry in London, without success. I vis- ited the offices of Cook, Bradshaw and Murray, but they could add nothing to my stock of in- 16 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. formation. Norway was out of the beaten track of travel, and so had not commanded attention Murray's Guide was old, and everything might have been changed since. Fortunately I met a countryman at my banker's, who was bound for northern Norway, and who had been several months in pursuit of the very information which I desired. From him I learned that the direct route was to sail from Hull in one of Wilson's steamers, direct across the North Sea, for Trond- hjem ; * that one would sail the next Thursday evening, and he believed every alternate Thurs- day through the season, and that he had en- gaged his passage in her six weeks before, for the reason that he understood that passage in her was in great demand. I immediately telegraphed .to Wilson, at Hull, for rooms, and was answered that everything was engaged long before. As that was the only chance to get to north- ern Norway, when the sun was at the highest, I again telegraphed to Hull that I must go on the Tasso that I learned was the name of the steamer and so would go to Hull on Wednesday. And we did go, trusting to good * In Norwegian names and words the j has the sound of y. In this word dh are silent, so it is pronounced Tronyem. PERPETUAL DAY. 17 fortune for an opening. On my arrival I went to the office and made myself as agreeable as possible to the passenger clerk, who finally admitted that frequently places were given up at the moment of sailing, and if any were aban- doned I should have them. But I had three ladies in my party, and there were but four berths in the ladies' cabin. He could manage one by turning out a lady's maid who only paid steerage fare, but even that would make trouble. The next morning I was at the office early, and was gratified to learn that a state-room was given up, and I should have it. He went with me to the steamer, introduced me to the captain, and requested that everything should be done to accommodate me. The captain promised much, and kept his promise. We went on board with but one place in the ladies' cabin, trusting to fortune for the other ; and that soon came ; when the lady found that her maid could not remain with her, she prevailed upon two gentle- men friends to give up their state-room to her, while they should take their chances on the settees in the dining saloon, although all these were already engaged. So we were all fixed. The first night out we did nicely, for the 18 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. weather was pleasant and the sea not rough. The next morning a fresh breeze came down upon us from the north, and the treacherous North Sea was about to vindicate its reputation. All day long the wind increased, and the little cockle-shell we were in tumbled about in a lively way. However the sun shone brightly, and it was reasonably warm. I got our ship chairs in good positions, and the ladies passed the whole day on deck, and without suffering very much. In the evening the wind had increased to half a gale, and so much water came upon the deck that the ladies could stay there no longer. I staggered aft to our state-room, and saw at once that we could not sleep there. The motion was absolutely murderous. The yerk of the propel- ler, as we toppled over the waves, would throw me up clear off the floor every minute. I knew my wife could not live there half an hour, so I found the stewardess, and slipping a half sover- eign into her willing hand, told her she must make up a bed on the floor in the ladies' cabin for Mrs. C. It was a matter of life and death, and must be done. She demurred at first, as the space on the floor was not more than five by seven feet, and the other ladies could not PERPETUAL DAY. 19 get into their berths. But it had to be done, and so it was done ; and when done I got the lady (she was very sick) upon the floor as soon as possible. It was indeed a terrible night. The little steamer seemed to stand first on one end and then on the other, and then she would lay on either side alternately. Everything that was loose in the ship was thrashing about in a lively way. It was midnight before I got my party settled, when I made a very crooked way to the deck, and for the first and only time in my life acknowledged the supremacy of Neptune. I then, wrapped in a blanket, stretched myself on the floor of the dining saloon in front of the side seats, which were covered with passengers, who could find no better places to sleep. The rolling, rearing and plunging of the ship made their couches anything but stable resting-places, and before long a tremendous sea struck the bow, when it was already lifted high, and the shock was as if she had struck a rock, or at least a floating wreck, and strewed the floor with those who had been holding themselves on to the side lounges, and the dapper gentleman who fell upon my big boots, the feet of which occupied a vertical position, growled and groaned 20 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. as if his ribs were broken, and then apologized for his sudden intrusion on my quiet. I do not think he was to blame. Screams were heard from every quarter; state-room doors flew open, and their occupants rushed out in dishabille. The expression on the countenances of those who suppose they are in a sinking ship in a raging sea cannot be described. It is simply horrible. Then is the time when all the incidents of a lifetime are reviewed in a moment ; when the loved ones at home present themselves as if for the last time, and a last adieu is thought amid the anguish of despair. Such a minute is a life- time long. These fears were groundless, however, for the little bark kept on climbing the waves with per- sistent resolution. In truth, the old North Sea proved itself equal to all I had heard of it, with to use a favorite English expression nasty seas, though not large ones. I have been in the ground swells and in the chopped-up seas of the Mediterranean, the Gulf of Mexico and the British Channel, but they were arhiable as com- pared with the waves of the North Sea, rolling down from the far distant Northwest. During the night the captain had laid his PERPETUAL DAY. 21 course for Bergen, that he might have the pro- tection of the island, from the rough open sea. This brought the seas more abeam and enabled all the large ones to get on board. When I went on deck I found a very portly Englishman, whom I had left a few hours be- fore sole occupant of the open deck, holding on for dear life, in a big chair, and taking the spray like a duck in a thunder-storm. Now he was lashed securely to the chair, and that well secured to the hatch an office which some sailor had performed for him for a shilling, and which he assured me had alone saved him from being washed overboard twenty times during the night. I thought once would have done. He was surely in a sad plight, as wet as if he had been in the cold ocean all night ; his teeth chat- tering so that he could never get his h's in the right place, as he poured out the vials of his wrath upon the North Sea and all it contained, and everybody who was such a fool as to go upon it, even for salmon-fishing in Norway. As the morning advanced the weather moder- ated a little, and our course was again changed for Trondhjem, which brought our head nearly to the seas, when the motion was more fore and aft, 22 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. but less of the rolling or rocking motion, which makes one walk so groggy. All that day and the next night this unpleas- ant weather continued, and the steward's score must have been light, for very few appeared at the table, and most of those who came staid but a few minutes. When, on the following morning, we could see the snow-capped mount- ains of Norway in the far east, all seemed in- spired with new life and hope, for the sight of land is joyful to one who has been tempest- tossed even for a few days, and the thought of getting under the friendly protection of the is- lands gladdened every heart. But our course was not for the islands ; it was almost due north and parallel to them. This day I was able to get the ladies on deck again, for they felt better in the open air than in the confined cabin, and the sight of the distant hills was refreshing. To- ward evening we were evidently approaching the shore, and about eight o'clock the pilot pointed out an isolated island, far ahead, inside of which we should go. This we passed at ten o'clock, while yet the sun was above the horizon. Our course was now changed more to the eastward, the open sea being on our left, while PERPETUAL DAY. 23 we skirted along numerous islands which lay on our right. Oh, how we longed to get inside, where we should have still water and a quiet sleep. At last the door was pointed out through which we should enter and find the long wished for calm. This we entered in the dusk of the evening, between eleven and twelve o'clock, and then we glided along in waters as still as if in a canal. We had not been in the habit of retiring be- fore dark, and so we sat upon the deck, wrapped in cloaks and blankets, waiting for darkness to come ; but it came not. At midnight we stopped at a flourishing town of one thousand inhabitants, named Aalesund, but still it was only dusk. CHAPTER II. ABSENCE OF DOCKS IN NORWAY; PRIMITIVE MODE OF LANDING; DAY SUCCEEDS DAY WITHOUT NIGHT; SINGULAR SENSATIONS; SLEEPING IN DAY-TIME; BRITISH SPORTSMEN; TAX ON PRO- VISIONS; SALMON-FISHING IN NORWAY ; LEASE OF THE RIVERS TO ENGLISHMEN; A DAY AT THE FISHING-GROUNDS; MANNER OF FISHING; MR. BURROWS, A VETERAN FISHER; HABITS OF SALMON; DINE ON A FIFTY-THOUSAND-DOLLAR SALMON. THOUGH midnight, we could see the people passing along the streets and upon the dock, and as they got into the boats to come off to us. We were now in Norway, where steamers do not land at docks but anchor out almost as far as they can get away, and make people come to them and go from them in little boats, and so must the freight be transferred. Boats were used a thousand years ago, in Harold's time, and so they must be used now on every possible occasion. Be- sides, it keeps the people active and used to it, and enables them to earn some skillings which would be lost should the steamer go to dock and let people step on shore or on board so (25) 26 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. must native industry be protected and encour- aged. Here we were in Norway at last. The land of myths and mysteries, of ghosts and hob- goblins, of giants, of norns, of fancy forms and of fairy tales, and a thousand mystic charms with which the imagination had clothed their islands and their fjords, their mountains and their streams, and their people too. We thought not of the night, but strained our eyes in the dim twilight to see how looked their lands, their fences and their houses, their boats, their dresses, their forms and their faces. For the latter we need not have been so anxious, for we had seen some of them at home. When we had exchanged passengers and the Tasso had lifted up her anchor, we steamed away through the tortuous channels among the islands, and we saw it was growing lighter before it was yet dark, and we knew we must now stretch ourselves upon the floor or we should lose the little darkness there was to aid us in our sleep, and this was the last of any show of night for the month to come. Now it was that we began to understand how far north we were, and how near we were to that day PERPETUAL DAY. 27 which is a summer long. But three days be- fore, we had left England in a night which lasted long enough to give one a good refresh- ing sleep, and yet in so short a flight we had outrun the night, only the thin skirts of which still hung around us, holding a last struggle with perpetual day, which lay but a span before us. Already the strange sensation of so great a change began to creep over us, and it seemed as if we were at the confines of another world, where the laws of nature, as we had always known them, were suspended. Already the angel of sleep seemed to have taken his final flight to more sombre and more congenial regions, and left us to our fate, to struggle as we might for a short repose with that light so hostile to his sway. We slept but little that morning, for morning had come so soon as evening had gone by. During the small hours the whistle blew for Christiansund, and I hastened out to get another peep at Norwegian scenery and the Norwegian people. Here some Englishmen with their fami- lies left the steamer, for a summer campaign among the salmon. They evidently meant to have a good time, for they filled a lighter with 28 A SUMMER IN NO IV AY. their supplies, prominent among which were many baskets of champagne, with a great abun- dance of provisions of nearly all kinds which good living could suggest. From this it was in- ferred that they were not well up to Norwegian Custom duties, for of all things provisions are taxed more heavily than any imports admitted to the country, and could be bought outright for the duties which they would have to pay. Well, off they went, with the good wishes of their friends left behind, with a journey of thirty or forty miles before them to reach the river they had rented. The rivers of Norway afford the finest salmon fishing in the world, and all are now rented to Englishmen. The rents are paid to the riparian owners, and the leases are executed by them. Some lease a whole river, others take half a mile, a mile or ten miles. Many have to go forty or fifty miles up the river to reach their fishing ground, where they have built comfort- able lodges. We should consider the rents high for six weeks' sport at the best, ranging from a few hundred dollars to several thousands. Some seasons the fishing is very fine, and the strings taken are very large ; and this indeed is generally PERPETUAL DAY. 29 the case, but sometimes it is very poor, and the sportsman gets the exercise without the fish. This was one of the poorest seasons ever known, and when I left Norway, the season being more than half over, I only heard of four having been taken in the regular way that is, with the fly, and if these were charged with all the money expended in fly-fishing for salmon in Norway, they cost more than ten thousand pounds each. We had the pleasure of helping to eat one of these costly, fish. On our return from above the Arctic Circle some weeks later, we stopped a few days at Storen by invitation of Mr. Burrows, to witness the sport. He was the father of fly-fishing in Norway, having wandered thither a quarter of a century ago in the pursuit of his favorite sport, and there he found it to his very fill. He fished the kingdom over, and finally leased the river at Storen as the most eligible of all, and every year finds him on his favorite ground, whipping the stream every day, morning and evening, rain or shine, whether the fish rise or not. I thought I had seen fly- fishing before, and had even made many a cast myself for trout and bass, though never for a salmon ; but he handled the rod with more dex- 30 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. terity than I have ever seen in other hands. Standing in the tiny boat, worked up and down the rapid waters by a skillful man at the oars, he would cast thirty or forty yards of line at a clean swing with only a single fly, and drop it at the full length, or at any reasonable intermediate point, precisely where he desired. I watched him by the hour, charmed with the skill displayed. He generally fished as wide as possible, the same graceful loop and curve always forming far behind him, and then stretching out its full length far away, the fly would drop upon the water as gently as a light flake of snow in a calm day. But there was no response ; with all his skill and all his perseverance, not a single brake was seen. I would have given much to have seen a rise of a thirty-pounder, and the veteran fisher fight him up and down the river, and I think he would have doubled my offer ; but this could not be, and so I was obliged to be content to witness only half his skill. " But, Mr. Burrows," said I, " are there no fish in the river ? When in other seasons you say you would have taken a dozen while I have been lying on this soft bank, looking at you ? " " Indeed," he replied, as he reeled in his line PERPETUAL DAY. 31 with a heavy sigh, " the river is full of fish as it ever is, but they have the sulks and won't rise. At the mouth they catch them with their infernal nets by the cart-load, and quite as many as they ever do. I can't explain it. I can't understand it. I have studied these fish for twenty years and more, and think I know all their ways, but this is one for which I can conceive of no reason. When I came the water was high, and I thought that might be the reason ; but here I have been after them faithfully every day till now it is low, and yet not a single rise. This unaccountable habit of the fish is not confined to this river, but from the reports I get, it is universal through- out Norway, even clear around North Cape to the Russian line, and probably beyond. The same thing has occurred a few times before, but it is very exceptional. That the fish are abun- dant, and in fine condition, is shown by those taken at the mouths of the rivers, where the nets are allowed to be stretched across them three days in the week. When these nets were first introduced they were in constant use, and practically barred the rivers to the access of the salmon, and would soon have resulted in their total extinction ; but government soon interfered, and now the fish 32 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. stand at least half a chance, and that is enough to make them plenty in these congenial waters." " But," said I, " would they not bite at live bait ? " " Oh, yes," replied the disciple of Izaak, " no doubt I could fill the boat in a short time by tempting them with live bait, but in doing so I should take no satisfaction ; indeed, I should feel myself disgraced, and would never show my- self at the club again." "Of course," said I, "you would not adopt that as a mode of fishing, but in the cause of science, surely it would be permissible. For my- self, I am something of a naturalist, and am interested to learn all the habits of the animals which come within the range of my observation, and it would be interesting to know how far these fish have departed from their usual habits in this exceptional season." " Nay, nay," said mine host, as he gravely turned his face toward the lodge, having handed his rod to his attendant and beckoned the ladies and gentlemen who were seated within the shade of a large white birch tree, beneath which was a soft carpet of green grass, " it would be very un- scientific to take salmon with anything but a PERPETUAL DAY. 33 decent fly. Deceive them with that as much as you can, but do not conceal a hook beneath that which they must take or starve, and then haul them ashore as you would a quarter of beef. Give them a chance for their lives. With the fly it is a trial of wit, and they are pretty sharp too to detect the imposture. Usually they will first strike the fly with the tail to see if it be not a counterfeit, and if it is bunglingly made or handled, they will laugh at you and dart away. Ah, it is glorious fun to deceive such sharp fel- lows, and then to meet and disappoint all their efforts to get away when once you have hooked one ! I have sometimes had to fight a big one an hour, and run all the rapids within a mile, before he would give up, and sometimes in spite of all, he will find a snag or rock to whip the line around, and break loose. An old salmon is as cunning as a fox, but we must look beyond this element in his character to find a cause for their not rising to the fly in a season like this. In the fore-part of the season we attributed it to the high water, arising from the late melting of the snow on the mountains, and indeed, it has always been late seasons when this peculiarity has been observed ; but if high water were the 34 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. sole cause, we should take them now when the water is low, but, as you see, they are as obstinate as ever. " Come, let us to the lodge, and see if they differ in taste as well as habit, from ordinary seasons. Adams killed one this morning, the first of the season in these waters, and I had hoped it was the beginning of a run of luck, but now I see it was exceptional." We soon found ourselves discussing the fish at the hospitable board of our kind host, and listening to anecdotes of Norwegian sports, and so passed the time till eight o'clock, when we returned to our rooms in the town a mile away. The gentlemen accompanied us on our return, when Mr. Burrows, who talks Norsk like a native, explained some of our wants to the landlord, and then left us for the evening. CH APTE R III. CONTINUE THE VOYAGE; AMONG THE ISLANDS; SCENERY AND SIGHTS; RED DEER; ITS ISLAND HOME; FISHERS* HUTS; TROND- HJEM; ANCIENT CAPITAL OF NORWAY; MEET HATTRAM, OUR IN- TERPRETER ; LANDING AND RECEPTION ; NORWEGIAN SALUTATIONS; THE STREETS; FLOWERS; THE HOTEL; NORWAY BEDS; DOWN COV- ERLETS; STROLL THROUGH TRONDHJEM ; POLITENESS OF THE PEOPLE; AN AGREEABLE ACQUAINTANCE. SALMON fishing in Norway has led me to anticipate events by a month or more. We now found ourselves gliding gently along on the still waters of the bays and channels among the protecting islands which border the western coast of Norway for a thousand miles, effectually pro- tecting it from the fierce ocean beyond, which expends its fury upon the rock-bound beaches, leaving all as quiet within as if the winds could not disturb the waters. We enjoyed this morn- ing exceedingly as we threaded our way among the islands which bounded the vision on every side. All was new. This morning we passed the two great islands of Hatteroen and Smoen, which were pointed out to us by the officers of the ship as the last homes (35) 36 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. in Norway of the red deer or stag (cervus ela- phus^) This of course particularly interested me, and I would gladly have stopped upon the islands a few days .to have learned all I could of their habits in their wild state ; but time was precious, if I would see the midnight sun at his highest altitude. So I must content myself with what I could subsequently learn from reliable sources. This interesting deer has not, in modern times at least, been an inhabitant of arctic Norway, nor has its range extended above the sixty-third degree of north latitude, even on the west coast, where the climate is milder. The corresponding species in America I will not stop now to vindicate their specific identity, which was recognized by the old authorities - the wapiti deer or American elk {cervus cana- densis} affects about the same temperature on this continent for its extreme northern range, which it finds in the 56th or 57th parallel of north latitude, and from the iO3d to the uith degree of west longitude, and in lower latitudes to the east and west of this district. Formerly, indeed, probably when the climate was milder in all the higher latitudes of Europe than at present, perhaps when the arctic elephant RED DEER OR STAG OF EUROPE. PERPETUAL DAY. 37 existed in incredible numbers on the borders of the Arctic Ocean, the red deer was an inhabitant of Finmark, as is evidenced by the fossil remains which have been found on some of the islands off that coast. It seems to have preferred the islands rather than the more rigorous climate of the interior for its home, and now in Norway we find it confined to these two great islands, which are separated by a strait but a few miles wide, in which are a multitude of smaller islands, and it may not be improbable that they pass from one island to the other if they are as good swimmers as the other members of the deer family. On these islands I was told by good authority that the red deer are strictly preserved, and here is presented an admirable opportunity of repeat- ing the experiment of interbreeding them with the wapiti, which has been successfully tried in Bohemia. The fishermen's huts at the little intervals along the shores, surrounded by gardens and green patches, looked cheery and comfortable ; their fishing boats gliding along the waters or standing quietly in position, the occupants indus- 38 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. triously engaged in their business, told us that contented people lived here, as well as in lands which we call more favored. We turned a promontory, and the ancient capital of Norway lay before us. Centuries ago it was the great city of the Northmen, whose kings were a terror to other lands. Here they brought their spoil, and reveled with the fruits of rapine. They were rude no doubt, and so were all their neighbors. Bold they were beyond all question, and surrounded by bold and devoted followers, who dared all dangers whether by land or water. About twelve o'clock we dropped anchor in the bay, a third of a mile from the dock, and were immediately surrounded by a squadron of small boats, all seeking passengers to land Hattram, a Norwegian who had lived eleven years near me in America, and who was expect- ing my arrival on the Tasso, jumped on board, and told me he had engaged a boat for my party, and in a few minutes we found ourselves and our trunks, bundles and chairs propelled rapidly to shore. Our baggage had been in- spected before we came to anchor, so there was no trouble of that kind on landing. I may say PERPETUAL DA Y. 39 here that I declared six pounds of tobacco ; but the officials thought that not an unreasonable amount for a gentleman to burn while seeing all the sights of Norway, and so passed it without the asking, but were very particular to inquire for provisions. We stepped from the boat to the floating dock, and walked up to the street between two lines of young Norwegians, who seemed quite as curious to look upon live Americans as we were to see them upon their own soil. The first thing that struck us and it was a decided strike each one took off his hat, brought it down to opposite his breast, and made a graceful bow with a pleasant smile of welcome. Of course I acknowledged the courtesy in kind, and so in fact I passed through the crowd uncovered. The baggage was brought up and put into a little rickety cart, to which was hitched a little unkempt pony, not much bigger than one of the largest trunks, so that I had doubts whether he could manage the load up the pretty steep grade which lay before us. But he did, swinging first to the right and then to the left, the driver encouraging him vehemently all the way. This was the first horse-talk I heard in the 40 A SUMMER IN NOR IV AY. Norske language. The words of encouragement, if words they were, sounded more like vehement grunts than articulate sounds, and the whoa was only a violent flutter of the lips without the least attempt at articulation, and so my first lesson in Norwegian was to learn how to address a horse. There was no carriage, and as it was only a third of a mile to the hotel, and we had been nearly four days on shipboard without any exer- cise there was no room for a promenade the invalids thought they would try it on foot. As there had been plenty of time to recover from the terrible sea-sickness, they began to dispute the propriety of calling them invalids. We walked slowly up the hill from the wharf, and found ourselves in one of the principal streets, broad and straight, extending more than half a mile to the river. This street we found paved in the usual way with boulders, with a flag side- walk on either side. Next to them were gutters, and outside the gutters, on one side, was another flagged walk about two and a half feet wide. A row of trees stood on each side of the street. Many brick or stone dwellings were on the right hand side of the street, along which we made PERPETUAL DAY. 41 our way with moderate steps, curiously looking for new things. We saw little to criticise, but much to be pleased with. Perhaps the most pleasing of all the observations we made were the beautiful and brilliant flowers which filled every window and every porch. This we subse- quently found in every part of Norway, and it lends a charm to the whole countrv. No fisher- man's cot is without them, and they are found abundant in every mansion. In the latter they find places on elegant articles of furniture made for them. In the former they find convenient place on rude shelves, or directly on the broad window sills adapted for their reception. In no country have I seen more beautiful house plants or more brilliant indoor flowers. Nothing testi- fies to refinement and civilization more than a passion for the cultivation of flowers. To meet them thus on every hand upon our first landing, prepared us to be pleased with whatever else we saw, and so we walked along in great content- ment. At the Hotel d'Angleterre, we found comfort- able rooms with comfortable beds. To the traveler there would seem to be a law in Scandinavia, and in Germany too, though I presume it is not a 42 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. written law, that, two persons' shall never sleep together in the same bed ; and so they make all their beds sufficiently narrow to insure its strict observance, and I have frequently found them so narrow that it required careful balancing to keep on them, though this is frequently insured by high side-boards, and then it is you feel more as if you were crawling into a coffin than going to bed. The truth is, extravagance in Norway does not run to beds or bedsteads. Now, one would suppose that in so cold a country, double beds would have been found comfortable, and become popular, especially during their long, dark winters ; but I imagine, in the hotels at least, they never tried it, and probably would consider it very unbe- coming. I understand that in private houses they frequently have extension bedsteads, which may be drawn out and double beds made upon them, but we met none of these at the hotels. On nearly all beds in Norway we found a very thick spread, made of down, almost enough for a bed of itself, and indeed we used it as such. Now in summer weather, those Children of Israel who were proof against the furnace could not have slept in comfort under this downy cover, but in the winter no doubt it is found very comfortable, PERPETUAL DAY. 43 and in summer it is probably considered orna- mental. Besides being narrow, the beds are also short. I saw none over six feet long, and some were much less. I slept on one not over eigh- teen inches wide and five feet three inches long, with huge side-boards. Imagine two hundred and forty pounds, six feet long, twisted into such a place, sound asleep, and you will think of the last letter of the alphabet. Of course we ordered fish for dinner with as much assurance as we would order oysters at Baltimore, and at six o'clock we sat down to the finest dish of fresh cod I ever tasted. If we saw others as good afterwards, they did not taste so well. Certain it is we were not so fish-hungry afterwards. Meats were on the table, but we passed them by and dined almost entirely on fish. After dinner I took a stroll through the town. It was a time when laborers, merchants, and bankers were either walking for recreation or passing to their homes, so that many were on the streets, which before seemed quite deserted. Whoever I met, whatever his social rank, the hat was removed and brought down to a level with the breast, and I was saluted with a bow, 44 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. which I returned as best I could, but the hod carrier could do this with so much more grace and ease than I could command, that I was really ashamed of my awkwardness, although I never before felt the deficiency. Constant prac- tice from childhood, with careful training by the mother, must secure to all a high degree of proficiency in this act of courtesy so universal here among all classes. I have traveled much and have carefully ob- served many peoples, and beyond all comparison the Norwegians are the politest people I have met. There is a heart, a soul about their polite- ness, without rigid formality or affected frigidity, which I have nowhere else seen. If politeness in French society is more elaborate, it is more formal, and on its face tells you it is false and mere affectation, while in Norway they make you feel that everything they have is quite at your service, and that they are ready to go to any trouble to oblige you, without saying the least word to that effect. If they promise nothing and profess nothing, they perform everything. I had walked but a little way when a young gentleman addressed me in English, and inquired if I were an American, and volunteered to give PERPETUAL DAY. 45 me any information about the place which I might desire. He was a clerk in the bank of the British vice consul, and was now taking his evening walk for exercise. He spoke English very well, was evidently well educated and intelli- gent. We walked together for perhaps an hour, while he furnished me a great fund of informa- tion. During all this walk the same salutations were exchanged with all we met. I asked him to show me where I could get some matches, and he took me to a tobacco shop. The man behind the counter was uncovered, while his hair was carefully dressed. The moment we entered the door my conductor removed his hat and remained uncovered till we left the shop. Of course I did the same and this I found to be the universal custom throughout Norway. It is considered very rude for anyone except he be an Englishman to wear his hat in any store or shop, precisely as in the parlor of a mansion. Americans observe these things and conform to them much more readily than the English. I met several Americans in the city, all of whom conformed to these gracious usages, while I con- stantly met Englishmen in the stores and shops with their hats on. I do not know if they con- 46 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. ceive it to be beneath their dignity to recognize the salutation of the laborer or the coachman on the street, or to remove the hat in the presence of a counter jumper. For myself, I only regret that these acts of courtesy, bespeaking a univer- sal good will among men, are not as prevalent in my own country as they are in Norway. I really believe we should then occupy a higher plane in civilization than we now do. CHAPTER IV. NORWEGIAN HISTORY; OLAF TRYGGVESSON; HIS ROMANTIC STORY; is SOLD INTO SLAVERY; KILLS HIS CAPTOR; TURNS SEA-KING; WONDERFUL PROWESS; HURRIES THE NATIONS; MARRIES AN IRISH PRINCESS; BECOMES A CHRISTIAN; ASCENDS THE THRONE; CHRISTIANITY IN NORWAY; FOUNDING OF TRONDHJEM. A VEIL of mystery hangs over the early times of Norway, and this may be said of much of the early history of all Scandinavia when it was divided into petty principalities, or rather, I should say, little democracies, presided over by jarls or vikings, which generally signified sea robbers or pirates. And this is even true for some time later, and after these petty sovereigns or great freebooters had been subdued and driven to foreign lands, or submitted to the sway of the great Harold, whose brows first bore the unified crown of Norway, and who swayed his powerful scepter over all her mountains and all her valleys, all her seas and all her fjords. The Sagas of the few scholars and the poets, who wrote or sung of those olden times under (47) 48 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. the patronage of the jarls or kings, are generally meagre and often contradictory, full of laudation, which makes one suspect that the fancy of the poet has helped out the facts, or stained their pages with animosities evidently begotten of prejudice or hatred. Hence it is that the stu- dent of Norwegian history must often be at a loss to determine how much of what he is told may be relied upon as fact, and how much is due to fancy. Now that we have arrived at this ancient city in Norway, we may enjoy our visit the more by understanding something of its early history; for without some knowledge of the events connected with the objects which attract our attention in our travels, we enjoy but half the pleasure which they might afford us. Could we know the untold histories of the Egyptian pyramids, the ruins in Yucatan, or even the leaning tower of Pisa, how much it would enhance our interest and our pleasure when we visit them. We have already seen enough of Trondhjem as it now is, and of its people and their habits and present customs, to awaken a desire to recall something of the past; so a brief scrap of PERPETUAL DAY. 49 history, connected with its beginning, will not be out of place. The city of Trondhjem was founded by Olaf Tryggveson, near the close of the tenth century, on the site of an old city called Nidaros. As the founder of this city was one of the most extraordinary men in some respects of which we have any account, and as his early misfortunes and subsequent career have all the vicissitudes of an exciting romance, they are entitled to be remembered during a visit to the city which he founded. The first Olaf was the grandson of Haraldson, who was the third son of Harold Haarfager. His mother was Ostrid, a sister of Segund of Russia. The sons of Gunhilds, widow of Erik Blodoks, conspired against him, when he was three years of age, and drove him and his mother into exile. She sought an asylum with her brother Segund in Russia, accompanied by her son and his tutor or foster-father. On their way they were attacked by a viking, who killed the foster-father and took Olaf and his mother prisoners, separated them, and sold them into slavery. The viking received for the great-grandson of the great Harold a large male goat. His new 50 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. master soon traded him off for a cloak, to one Reas. With him he lived six years, who seems to have treated him well, without making him feel the pressure of bondage, and without break- ing the proud spirit inherited from his ancestors. Reas lived at Esttond, where he was a man of wealth and distinction. One day when Olaf was at play outside the house with some other boys, Segund, who was out collecting taxes, rode up with some assist- ants, when Olaf went up and bowed to Segund, who seemed to be the leader. Segund saw that he was a foreigner, and asked his name and who was his father. " My name is Olaf, and in Nor- way I have my relations, and there was I born," said the sprightly lad. " My father was Tryggve, Olafs son, and Ostrid my mother, was a daughter of Erik of Ofrestad." Then Segund saw that the boy was his sis- ter's son, when he bought him and took him home with him to the Russian court. Olaf was at this time nine years old. Here he lived un- der the protection and instruction of his uncle, making great proficiency in all athletic accom- plishments, in which he showed a dexterity and PERPETUAL DAY. 51 courage far beyond all other boys of his age, which gave promise of his wonderful future. One day when he was in the market-place he saw and at once recognized the viking who had taken them prisoners, and killed his foster-father, and sold his mother and himself into slavery. Burning with indignation at the sight of the outlaw, the boy rushed upon him " and buried his little ax in the viking's brain." He then ran home as fast as he could, and told his uncle Segund what he had done. While his relative could not help admiring and even approving what the brave lad had done to avenge the wrongs received by his family, he knew that the viking's friends would give him trouble ; for those bold and reckless robbers had their friends, and were not without influence even at the royal courts. He therefore quickly took the boy to the queen, and told her his story, and how he had revenged himself upon the viking, and besought her to protect the -lad. She admired his person, his spirit and his courage, and at once took a great liking to him. She extended to him her powerful protection, 52 A SUMMER IN NOR W 'AY. and finally compromised the matter with a fine which she herself paid. As he grew up, however, he became restless and discontented with the quiet life about the court, and longed for more stirring scenes, where valor and prowess could find more scope for action; and so when he was eighteen years of age, he took leave of his protectors and friends, gathered about him other daring spirits congenial to his own, turned viking himself, and made the Baltic country resound with his exploits. Of all the men of that heroic time he was most expert in the use of arms and in all ath- letic sports. The old writers can never exhaust the theme, but dwell, with ever-increasing delight and admiration, upon his wonderful deeds. He was a host of himself in battle. Single-handed he could repulse a multitude. If he could not draw the bow of Ejnor Thomborskoe, immortal- ized by Longfellow, he could throw a javelin with each hand at the same moment, and pierce different objects with them ; he could keep dag- gers flying in the air, some say three and others five, at the same time, catching them by their hilts as they descended, and returning them aloft ; and as a pastime he could walk back and PERPETUAL DAY. 53 forth outside the boat on the oars when the men were rowing ; and indeed it would be diffi- cult to say what he could not do in the way of athletic or warlike feats. After various exploits as a viking, we find him at the court of King Burrislavs, in North Germany, where he was captivated by the charms of the king's daughter Gejra, who returned his love, and his personal accomplishments made all forget that he was an exile and a sea-robber, and he was accepted as a husband to the prin- cess. She, however, did not long live to restrain the roving robber, and when she died, to smother his anguish, he again took to the sea, and be- came once more every inch a viking. He seems to have been quite impartial in his depredations, except that he favored his native Norway. Denmark and England, Scotland and Ireland, all were harassed by his fleets and his forays. In fine, he was the Kidd of his time, terrible to his enemies, who feared him like death itself, and loved by his friends, who were ever ready to sacrifice life at his mere suggestion. In the course of his forays in Ireland, he chanced to meet the beautiful Gyda, who was a 54 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. princess and a great heiress, and to her charms he again bowed his head and submitted to the yolce of Hymen. Whether the identity of her name with that of his ambitious and high-spirited great-grandmother, whose inspiration had stimu- lated Harold Haarfager to his great conquest, we cannot surely say, but no doubt with her person and her fortune she had sufficient charms without the aid of that association. Ireland at that time and for more than a thousand years before had been a great seat of learning and civilization far in advance of many of the other northern nations, and but for intes- tine wars, would have been the most powerful. But unfortunately the Milesian blood expended its valor in domestic warfare, when had their energies been united and directed against foreign foes their less learned neighbors must have sub- mitted to their sway. Christianity was now well rooted in Ireland and in England, and Gyda was one of its devoted followers. She was learned in the literature of her country, while her new husband could only claim supreme personal accomplishments. She proved an able instructor, and converted him from paganism to her own religion much more than PERPETUAL DAY. 55 Elphigus, Bishop of Winchester, who baptized him, and he soon proved 1 as zealous a Christian as he had ever been enthusiastic in his warlike enterprises. By this marriage he received large estates in both Ireland and England, and found himself so much strengthened that he prosecuted the war for the Norwegian inheritance, and finally fought his way back to the throne of that kingdom, which he ascended in 995, conferring royalty upon the Irish princess who had filled his coffers with her wealth and converted him to Christianity, with- out imbuing him with the lamb-like spirit of the Lowly One. But he was not the first king of Norway who had embraced Christianity. Haagan the Good, the sixth son of Harold Haarfager, had been brought up in England, where he had been con- verted from paganism, but he was of a more gentle disposition ; and instead of propagating the new religion, he was obliged to deny his faith and "prove his pagan orthodoxy by drinking a bowl of horse-soup, which was supposed to be the special aversion of Christians. Olaf, however, was made of different stuff. He not only avowed his conversion, but he turned 56 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. the lance which he had used to win his crown to the propagation of his faith, and offered those who had compelled his great uncle to feast on horse-flesh to bow at the altar of the cross or accept the crown of martyrdom. Faggots rein- forced his missionary arguments, and the sword severed the ligaments which bound his subjects to the heathen gods. But his reign lasted only five years, which was too short a time to estab- lish the faith of men whose conversion had been enforced ; and when the pressure of his mighty hand was withdrawn, they relapsed to the old religion and did penance to their heathen gods. Had Olaf adhered to the monogamic teach- ings of Christianity, and been content with a single wife, he might have reigned long enough to have allowed the- new faith to have taken root, but he must marry another wife and go and claim her dower at the point of the lance. This afforded an opportunity for one of his most powerful jarls to betray him, to organize his enemies, and lead them in a great naval bat- tle, in which the king fairly outdid himself in valor, and fought the deck of his flag-ship - the Long Serpent till the last man about him was slain, and he himself was wounded, when he PERPETUAL DAY. 57 disappeared over the side of his vessel and was never more seen. Thus perished in the prime of life the greatest warrior Norway ever knew. Two years after he ascended the throne, in 997, Olaf laid the foundations of this city of Trondhjem, which thenceforth remained the capital of the kingdom till it was united to Denmark. He tore down the temple of the heathen gods, Thor and Odin, which was situated just beyond the walls of the city, and broke in pieces their venerated idols. If this first real attempt to establish Chris- tianity in Norway was a failure, it served to introduce the subject to the people, when it became a theme for thought and discussion, and no doubt somewhat paved the way for its subse- quent acceptance. CHAPTER V. THE GREAT CATHEDRAL; OLAF THE HOLY; MIRACULOUS SPRING; KINGS CROWNED AT TRONDHJEM; PRESENT DYNASTY; UNION BETWEEN NORWAY AND SWEDEN; POPULATION; STEAMSHIP LINES; VARIETY OF LANGUAGE SPOKEN; ENVIRONS OF THE CITY. IF a contemplation of the city of Trondhjem has betrayed us into an episode, a visit to the great cathedral, which is by far the most interesting object in the city, and is intimately connected with the introduction of Christianity into Norway, invites, if not requires, another digression relating to the events connected with its origin, for without these we merely look upon a pile of dilapidated stone and mortar, some parts going to decay while others are being renewed, and its statuary is crumbling away under the breath of time, and many of its sacred ornaments betray the footsteps of the march of ages. Olaf the Second was the great-grandson of the fourth son of Harold Haarfager, and ascended the throne of Norway in 1015, after an inter- regnum of fifteen years since the death of Olaf the First, and eighteen years after the foundation (59) 60 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. of the city. At the time of his accession he was a convert to the new religion, which had already made considerable progress, especially in southern Norway ; but in order to smooth his way to the throne, he, at an assemblage of jarls and chief personages at a feast given by his mother, gave solemn pledges to respect their rights, which they might understand to include their religion. They accepted his pledges without requiring him to undergo the ordeal of the horse-broth im- posed upon the good Haagan, nor even do I find that he was required by any member of the Thing* to renounce Christianity and profess ad- herence to the ancient faith. We must admit those early converts to Chris- tianity belonged to the church militant, in its strongest sense, and were not given to winning souls by gentle suasion. Olaf the Holy soon forgot his promises, or gave them a forced con- struction which would allow him to devote him- self to the good of the souls of his subjects, who were in the bonds of pagan wickedness, especially near Trondhjem, where nearly all were yet pagans; so he occasionally ordered them to adopt the * Thing an assemblage, convention or congress, convened to consider public affairs. PERPETUAL DAY. 61 new religion or die for the old. He sometimes broke their idols to pieces before their faces. He would tolerate no middle ground and admit of no delay, unless at the moment he was too weak to enforce his will. He admired his prede- cessor and namesake, Olaf the First, as a zealous missionary, and emulated his ardor in the good cause. He was a bold and sanguine man, and never allowed a doubt to abate his zeal. But he found he had to deal with a people as zealous as himself. His tyranny disgusted the leading men of the kingdom more than his religion, so they listened to Canute, the Dane, who was then king of England ; they received his bribes, and invited him to join them and expel Olaf, which he was too ready to do. Finally, deserted by the great body of his subjects, and even by a part of the little fleet which followed him along the coast and among the islands, with a few faith- ful followers he fled across the mountains the Doverfjeld into Sweden. Here he was kindly received by his brother-in-law and old ally, the king, but Canute had now become so strong that Olaf's presence was thought to endanger his friend, so he departed for Russia to wait for better times. 62 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. In time, when he heard that the vice-regent of Norway, a natural son of Canute, was unpopular, he gathered an army, returned to Norway, and fought a great battle at or near Stickelstad, in which he was killed, fighting like a fiend under the banner of the cross. A few years later, his body was found, as some say, undecayed, but as others explain the miracle, a blind beggar received his sight that he might see the dead body, which was regarded by the superstitious people, who as yet were but half converted, as a divine declara- tion of the truth of the religion in the cause of which he died. Directly a revulsion took place in the public sentiment. His cruelties and atroci- ties were at once forgotten, and he was canonized, his remains brought to Trondhjem and there buried, where he had built a church, and he was ever after known as St. Olaf, or Olaf the Holy. A chapel was erected over his new grave, which, by successive alterations, improvements and addi- tions, has grown to the present cathedral, which is the most celebrated in Scandinavia. To his shrine pilgrimages were made from all parts of the Christian world, and many churches even in other countries were dedicated to this precious saint. PERPETUAL DAY. 63 Of course the first visit the next day was to this great cathedral. Any attempt to describe this building would extend this sketch beyond its purpose. There is a want of harmony in the parts ; many are submitting to the hand of time and crumbling away ; and a part is being rebuilt. Built up of pieces and patches, some hundreds of years ago and others quite recently, the whole is inharmonious ; still there is much in its architecture to be admired, and much in its orna- mentation worthy of study. Several times burned and several times plundered of its costly treas- ures, as we wander through it associations of a discordant character spring up, and we look with interest upon a place which has been the theater of such varied scenes, when ruder manners pre- vailed, and glory, religion and violence were so mingled and associated as to present pictures revolting to modern civilization, and entirely at variance with the hospitality and kindly feeling to strangers and each other so characteristic of the present generation. Through a dark passage in one corner of the cathedral we were shown a well to which tra- dition ascribes a miraculous origin, for it springs up, or rather down, precisely where St. Olaf was 64 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. buried. Its waters are said to possess marvelous virtues, but we did not try them, and whether we were materially benefited by looking down into the darkness I cannot say. The constitution of Norway does not abso- lutely require that the kings of Norway shall be crowned in this city, but from deference to a national sensibility such is the custom, though Oscar I., on the plea of economy, omitted it. In obedience to this custom, Oscar II., king of Nor- way and Sweden, came to Trondhjem and was here crowned by the bishop, in ancient form, the year before my visit, 1873, in the old cathedral, as have been all the kings of the present dynasty except Oscar I. Although strong prejudices existed against the founder of this royal line, the present sovereign is very popular in Norway, and his two imme- diate predecessors, Oscar I. and Carl XV., by wise and conciliatory measures were at least equally beloved by the people. Although under the same sovereign as Sweden, the two kingdoms are in fact as independent of each other as if ruled by different sovereigns. The present con- stitution of Norway was adopted in 1814, and in its support and the maintenance of the independ- PERPETUAL DAY. 65 ence of the kingdom a degree of patriotism is felt and exhibited among all classes of the people, from the highest to the lowest, which is refresh- ing. No suspicion of bribery or corruption among public men is ever heard of. No rings or jobbery is ever thought of, but the public men devote themselves in earnest and in good faith to the advancement of the public weal. The population of Trondhjem is about twenty thousand, and in refinement and intelligence will compare favorably with those of any other city, and for hospitality and courtesy to strangers can scarcely be equaled in other countries. While there are not such colossal fortunes as are some- times found in other lands, the amount of capital owned is large, and there is no indication of extreme poverty. There is no gorgeous display of wealth and extravagance, but rather a refined simplicity in harmony with contentment, virtue, and integrity. There is a line of steamers which runs from Hamburg to Hammerfest in winter, and to Vardo and Vadso in summer. The former is at the ex- treme eastern point of the Norwegian territory. South of this the coast trends to the west, and leads down to the mouth of the great Varanger Fjord, 66 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. just within the mouth of which stands Vadso. Although the whole of this great fjord is within the kingdom, the Russian line reaches nearly to its south cape, so that it is practically the line between the kingdom and the empire. This line of steamers is owned and managed here. At all the hotels, stores, banks, post office, telegraph office, and indeed wherever intercourse may be expected, German, French and English are spoken, and generally with a good accent. Indeed all candidates for appointment in the postal and telegraph service must bear an exam- ination in these languages. It is indeed surpris- ing to observe how large a proportion of the middle classes are really proficient in foreign languages. In the afternoon we took carriols behind little shaggy ponies, and took a fine drive up the banks of the river Nid, and then across the river to the high hills which bound the city on the east. From here the view is one of the finest I have met with in my travels. High above the city, we looked down upon it as upon a map, where every street and alley, every building and every bridge was plainly revealed before us. On one side the bay, one of the most beau- PERPETUAL DAY. 67 tiful in the .world, with its bluffs and rocky islands, on the other the river, which rushes down from the mountains beyond and then winds its way with many turns and a rapid current to the fjord, embrace the peninsula on which the city stands. Out in the bay in front of the city stands the fortified island of Munkholm, which was once used for the confinement of prisoners of state. Here it was that Christian V. of Den- mark confined his chief minister, Count Griffen- feld, for eighteen years in one of the towers, and where he came from Copenhagen to gloat over the sufferings of the great minister who was once his favorite. So it is when love is turned to hate it is the most insatiate. Eight hundred and fifty years ago the great Canute built on this island a Benedictine monastery, and that is the first account we have of its occupancy. Its position is admirable for defensive purposes, but its works could afford no protection against modern means of warfare. CHAPTER VI. STEAMER ACCOMMODATIONS; CHEAPNESS OF TRAVEL; NORWEGIAN MILES; THE CURRENCY; RATES OF WATERMEN; EMBARKATION; REASONS WHY DOCKS NOT USED ; DAYLIGHT AT MIDNIGHT ; POPULAR CELEBRATION OF MIDSUMMER NIGHT; AMONG THE ISLANDS; THEIR NUMBER; COD FISHING, CATCHING, DRYING AND PACKING; MEALS ON THE STEAMER; THE FLAT-BREAD. HAVING done the place the best we could in our limited time, we made preparations to go on board the Hakon-Jarl, the little steamer on which we were to proceed on our northern voyage. I had been on board the day before and secured the only state room on the boat for the ladies of my party, selecting a place on a side seat in the dining saloon for my own bed. These side seats were about six feet long and twenty inches wide, and were all occupied as sleeping berths, while other berths were sus- pended above them. The Hakon-Jarl (so named for an earl of the tenth century, who was a great favorite of the Trondhjemers) is the smallest steamer of the line from Hamburg to Vardo, one of which leaves Trondhjem every Tuesday night, or rather Wednesday morning, for the north, the (69) 70 A SUMMED IN NORWAY. year round, while another steamer of a weekly line from Stettin, on the Baltic, via Christiania to Tromso, leaves every Saturday morning. The fare is very moderate, and by taking a return ticket at the same time, it is procured at about half rates, and this is available on the boats of the other line as well, Another reduc- tion is made to families, whereby a family of four gets tickets for about the price of three fares. The passage fare does not include board on the boat, which has to be paid extra to the steward, to whom that branch of the business is farmed out. This is not high, but cheap as com- pared with the expense of living in other coun- tries. Indeed I may say here once for all, that the expense of traveling in Norway is ridiculously cheap. My whole traveling expenses, including transportation, subsistence and service, did not exceed three dollars per day while in Norway, and this included a land journey of nearly two hundred and fifty miles (when I speak of miles, I mean English miles, unless special mention is otherwise made a Norwegian mile is equal to 7.018 English miles), in a good carriage, across the Dover-fjeld, from Storen to Lille Hammer and Christiania. PERPETUAL DAY. 71 And now I may speak of the currency of the country. This consists of specie dollars, marks, and skillings (pronounced shillings}. One Nor- wegian dollar cost me, including commission, ex- change, and everything, one dollar and twenty-one cents in greenbacks, when my drafts were paid at my home bank. At that time the premium on gold averaged about ten per cent. There are twenty-four skillings in a mark, and five marks in a dollar. Since I left the country a new treaty between Norway, Sweden and Denmark has gone into operation to unify the currency of the three kingdoms, whereby the Swedish kroner is made the standard, and the smaller coins decimals of kroners. Four kroners are equal to one specie dollar. The former Danish standard was equal to half a specie dollar, or two kroners. This change will be a great convenience to travelers in Scandinavia. Let me mention here the tariff fixed by law for watermen, whose services are brought into requisition whenever one wants to go on board or land from a vessel. They are allowed four skillings say five cents of our money for each passenger and two skillings for each trunk or box, while the hand baggage satchels and bundles 72 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. go free. From this one may judge that the boy who blacks your boots is well paid with a skilling. I see I am a good while getting on board, but as it is daylight all the time, and the steamer will not sail till one o'clock in the morning, we need not be in haste. I told Hattram, who I had engaged as interpreter, to have a cart ready to take our baggage on board at eleven o'clock P. M., and at that hour we left our hotel and walked to the dock, which was about a quarter of a mile distant, on the river, near its mouth. When I had visited the steamer the day before, she was alongside the dock, but now I was sur- prised to find that she had anchored out in the stream about twenty feet from the shore and say thirty feet below the stairway leading down to the water. And here was a great crowd of pas- sengers pressing forward to reach the boats which were passing between the landing and the ship. Hattram got our baggage as near the top of the stairs as possible, and then crowded down and engaged a boat exclusively for our party. That being once settled he commanded the situation, for the boatman would allow no one to get into it without his orders. With the help pf a fellow- PERPETUAL DAY. 73 countryman he got all the baggage into the boat and then took us in, and after that admitted as many more as could be seated. The tide was running out like a mill-race, and the water was seething and foaming around our little boat, the foot of the stairs, the bow of the steamer, and every other opposing object. We shot down to the gangway like an arrow, and crawled up the ladder to the deck in the crowd and confusion always observed on such occasions. If asked why the vessel was removed from the dock and all the passengers and baggage sent on board in the small boat, to the very great dis- comfort of the passengers and greatly increased labor in handling the baggage, I can give no more satisfactory answer than I received from the officers of the steamer when I made the same inquiry. So far as I saw or heard, after faithful inquiry, in Norway a steamer never goes to a dock to receive or land passengers, but always anchors out in the stream or bay, and commu- nication is established with the shore by means of small boats. This was universally the case with both passengers and freight at every point above Trondhjem, but at Trondhjem they went to the dock to land and receive freight. At 74 A SUMMED IN NORWAY. every place we stopped on the voyage, and it was many times a day, I could see no possible difficulty in building a dock, nor could I hear of any. The shores were almost always bold, so that a little way from shore deep water was reached always entirely land-locked, no winds or seas could disturb it, or interfere with reach- ing it. Not a particle of ice forms during the coldest winter, so the structure could not be endangered from that cause indeed I could see or hear of no earthly reason why the great expense and inconvenience resulting from that primitive mode of doing business should be incurred, unless indeed it was because Har- old had done so a thousand years before ; and if the truth could be known I have no doubt he run his little barks up to the bold shores and stepped directly from them to the rocks. Indeed, at many places yes, at every town of but a few hundred inhabitants, there was a dock, but the steamers never went near it. For want of practice, the officers of the boats might find it a work of time and trouble to bring them safely to a dock, and so they avoid it whenever that is possible. But a little practice would make them as expert as those in com- PERPETUAL DAY. 75 mand of our western craft, when they bring them up so gently as hardly -to crack a nut by the contact, and without the loss of a minute's time. Indeed, I saw nothing else in Norway which I thought needed reform more than this. It con- stantly reminded* me of putting the corn in one end of the bag and a stone in the other to bal- ance it upon the horse's back. By the time we found ourselves comfortably seated on the upper deck it was midnight, or rather, I should say, low twelve. Still it was broad daylight we could see to read the finest print, although the sun had been below the horizon for some minutes, and it would be some minutes before he would again appear. It was the longest day in the year, that twenty-third of June, and according to an immemorial custom the people were celebrating the event in a right good jolly way. A mile or more away upon the hills which surround the city on the east we could see great crowds of people congregated, many danc- ing upon the ground to music, only the loudest notes of which reached us in subdued strains, while others were playing around great fires, the effect of which was nearly destroyed by the want 76 A SUMMED IN NORWAY. of darkness to afford a contrast, and the boys and girls were playing romping games among the fields. Our glasses brought them close to us, so that only the loud shout, the merry laugh and the national song, which our glasses could not bring within hearing, were wanting to give us the full benefit of the scenes of joy which were enacting on that festive day, or rather night, if you can think of night 'without darkness. There we sat and watched the happy gathering, sometimes noticing a couple steal away from the gay throng and seem to hold converse by themselves, and then we felt sure that Cupid threw about his darts among the youths of Norge as in more southern climes, where warmer blood is supposed to flow, and there is more darkness in summer- time, at least, to hide the timid blush. At last two o'clock came. The sun was well up and shining upon us from above the island peaks which dotted the fjord below, and the crowds upon the hills began to scatter, but we saw no signs that our boat was about to start. So we concluded to try to get a little sleep, though it seemed unnatural enough to go to bed PERPETUAL DAY. 77 in broad daylight, although it was two o'clock in the morning. I was asleep when we got under way, and was dislodged by the cabin boys, who wanted all the room there was to set the breakfast-table. When I went on deck, I found we were gliding along among the islands in still water. The weather was fair, and the sun brightly shining ; still it was cool and even chilly, so that an overcoat was necessary for comfort. Indeed, the tempera- ture was very much lowered since the day before. Hitherto the snow had only been visible on the tops of the far-off mountains ; now it began to appear on the tops of the islands all around us. I could not learn that any attempt has ever been made to count or number the islands on the Norwegian coast. They must amount to many thousands. They are of every size, from a single point of rock rising above the water to many miles in extent ; but everyone may be called a mountain, if it be large enough to hold a mountain. In a very few places, the mainland approaches near to the open ocean, but generally the islands extend for many miles from the main shore. Not all the channels between these islands 78 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. are navigable, but generally they are deep, with very bold shores, so that the steamer may run very close to the land. This feature reminded me of the channels among the islands in Puget's Sound. The islands are nearly all masses of rock, and appeared to be almost naked, and at some places they were entirely naked and smoothly polished. Frequently they would rise almost vertically out of the water for many hun- dred feet, while in other places there would be many acres of smooth naked rock along the shore, not level indeed, but quite accessible. These within the Arctic Circle were generally covered with codfish spread out to dry. The fish taken away up in Finmark are salted in bulk in the holds of the vessels used, and when the fishing season is over they are run down into these warmer latitudes, taken out, and washed and spread to dry on these rocks. When suf- ficiently dried, they are gathered up into small round stacks about four feet in diameter, and five or six feet high, the tails being placed in the center, and the broad portions at the circumfer- ence. The center being kept the highest, they shed off the rain so as to keep the interior perfectly dry. Here they stand until shipped in PERPETUAL DAY. 79 sea-going vessels to foreign countries. If we saw thousands of acres thus covered with drying fish along the channels we pursued, many thousands more must have been so covered along the numerous other channels which we did not see. I do not remember that we saw any of these fish-covered rocks till we passed within the Arctic Circle ; but after that they occurred very fre- quently, till we got nearly to Hammerfest. The drying season was drawing to a close, for we saw many parties, consisting of men, women and children, gathering the fish from the rocks and putting them in stacks. The skilled part of that operation was evidently the stacking, and that, I observed, was generally performed by women, while the children gathered up and brought the fish to them, and the men well, they seemed to be bossing the job generally, and looking at the steamer as she passed along. After we were gone, no doubt they worked the harder. When I had an opportunity of carefully ex- amining these stacks of fish, I saw that real skill was required in their construction ; they were perfectly round, and their walls were as straight and regular as possible. When we re- 80 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. turned some weeks later, nearly all the fish were in stack, and some were being loaded into ves- sels for foreign markets. Their appearance re- minded one of a meadow in our own country covered over with hay-cocks. This morning, we took our first meal on board a Norwegian steamer. It was served at eight o'clock. Those who desired it had coffee brought them on deck before breakfast, or took it in the saloon. The breakfast was only tolerable ; the chops were rather poor, and the steaks were rather tough; but this we expected, for we knew their cattle and sheep could not compare with those from the rich pastures in lower latitudes. The potatoes were very fine. - There, as in our own country, the best potatoes are grown in high latitudes. While rye bread was the staple, there was good wheat bread and sea-biscuit on the table for those who preferred them. I observed that the Norwegians of every class preferred the rye bread; and so we began to use it, so as to acquire the taste, if possible, for at times we should no doubt be able to get nothing else, and so it sometimes happened. The more we ate of it the better we liked it, and before we left Nor- way we became rather fond of it. One kind of PERPETUAL DAY. 81 rye bread particularly attracted our notice, and it was very good. It was as thin, almost, as the paper I am now writing upon, evidently baked upon a sort of griddle in sheets of an unknown size, perhaps as large as a newspaper. It was broken up into pieces of irregular form, and of a size convenient to pile up on a plate. It would take a piece larger than your hand for a moderate mouthful. You would eat an immense surface of this during an ordinary meal, provided only you liked it. It is called Fladbrod (flat- bread). A different price was charged for each meal, while for coffee, tea and other drinkables, except water, an extra charge was made. We were quite disappointed at not finding fish upon the table, when we had anticipated so much as soon as we should reach that piscatorial para- dise. So it is often, if not always. They thought fish too common, and so they must treat us to poor "mutton and beef, that we might be favor- ably impressed on the start. I managed, through my interpreter, to explain to the steward that we would be content to have fish on the table, and would even like it if well cooked. He profited by the hint, and I had the satisfaction of seeing 6 82 A SUMMEJt IN NOXWAY. some fine fat salmon taken on board at the next stopping-place, and the attention we paid to them at dinner encouraged him to supply us regularly thereafter. In fact, we had so much fish before we left Norway, and of the best in the world, that I really felt scaly, and was sometimes almost afraid to look at a hook. CHAPTER VII. COAST TOWNS AND PEOPLE; LOCAL TRAVEL AND TRAFFIC; NO BAG- GAGE SMASHING; TORGHATTEN, THE NATURAL TUNNEL; THE SEVEN SISTERS; ENTERING THE SNOW- AREA; "THE HORSEMAN'S" ISLAND; LEGEND OF THE HORSEMAN AND THE TUNNEL; THE MIDNIGHT SUN; STRANGE SENSATIONS PRODUCED; A SCHOOL FOR MYTHS. OUR stops were so frequent that our real progress was slow, though the little steamer was smart when under way. These fre- quent stops furnished an excellent opportunity to observe the people, and many of their habits and customs. Here the waters are the public high- ways, and so their carriages must be water-craft. They go visiting, to church, and to business, in their boats. A young lady does not hesitate to jump into her light shallup, and row off half-a- dozen miles to call on her associates and have a chat about parties, picnics and beaux. Young people enjoy their social interviews in these boreal regions as much as in warmer countries, and the good dames enjoy their tea parties in the fishermen's huts with as much neighborly (83) 84 A SUMMER IN NOR W 'AY. gossip as those who occupy more stately dwell- ings in other lands. At every station more or less passengers were let off or taken on. Sometimes hundreds would be crowded on the lower deck, men, women and children, with pigs, chickens and ducks, calves and cows, going to a fair, with provisions con- sisting of pickled herring and black rye bread to last them a week. These might stay with us a day, or only a few hours, when they would disem- bark with all their impedimenta. It was astonishing to see with what celerity and care the sailors would handle all this stuff, con- sisting largely of frail boxes or chests, every one of which our baggage smashers would have de- molished in a very short time. In place of a satchel, each woman had a little tub or box made something like a bandbox, with an erect side- handle like a piggin. It has a thin board cover, which catches in a notch at the handle, and fastens with a button at a point opposite. In this they carry their knitting or sewing-work, small articles of apparel, and their bread and the like. These are of various sizes, are very frail, and I felt in constant apprehension of seeing them crushed as they were quickly handled by the sailors, mixed PERPETUAL SUMMER. 85 in with the other baggage; but I never saw one injured. All this baggage had to be taken up the steamer's sides from the small boats and landed in the same way. Two donkey-engines were placed fore and aft to hoist heavy articles from the boats and lower them into the hold. During all the time I was on board Norwegian steamers, I never saw but one article injured, and that was a heavy chest, from which the rope slipped, and which fell into the hold. At this the mate gave an exhibition of loud talking, but whether it was Norske profanity I could only judge from the accent and the wag of the head. From these I judged it to be such. I would cordially recommend to American rail- road superintendents to employ Scandinavian baggagemen, if they can procure them, before they have become so demoralized as to think it a commendable feat to smash a trunk and scat- ter a lady's wardrobe all about the platform, and then chuckle over the exhibition. On the second morning, soon after breakfast, we were notified that we were approaching Torg- hatten, which is one of the sights not to be missed on this route. This is a very steep, sharp mount- ain more than one thousand feet high, situated 86 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. on an island. About half-way up, the mountain is pierced through and through with a large opening. To see daylight right through a mount- ain was indeed a novelty; so all were on deck, and every glass was brought into requisition. We passed within less than a quarter of a mile of the island, or the foot of the mountain, which gave us a fine view of the natural tunnel. The light through it looked like a large white star. The mate told me that he had been through it, and that it was fifty feet wide and nearly twice as high, and even much larger in some places, and about five hundred feet in length ; that the arch at the top is very perfect, while the floor is highest in the middle, though not sufficiently so to account for the removal of the material which had been disengaged to form the opening. The floor is thickly strewn with masses of rock and debris, and no doubt the tunnel is constantly enlarging ; only I do not understand what brings out the fallen material. We can readily under- stand that after it is once brought out it rolls down and is buried in the deep water at the foot of the mountain. I will further on give the legend which accounts for this hole in the wall. Before noon, the first of the Seven Sisters PERPETUAL DAY. 87 came into view, and presently all were visible. These are seven very lofty snow-capped mount- ain peaks, which rise clear and sharp against the sky from the islands to the west of our course, though we passed quite near the feet of some of them. There is a sort of order in their arrange- ment, and they are near enough together to war- rant a relationship. They are bleak naked rocks, and rising so far above all surrounding objects as at once to attract attention and secure an interest. In fact they constitute one of the sights always to be pointed out, and which the traveler must in no wise omit to see. As we were approaching the Arctic Circle, the snow upon the mountains prevailed more and more, and approached nearer to the water's edge. The intervals along the shores which afford sites for the fishermen's huts became less frequent and smaller, and the vegetation became more scanty. Already the white birch became the prevailing tree, and this was rarely more than a shrub. As we left the last landing, about eleven o'clock at night, the captain told us that we should soon be in sight of Hestmandon, or Horse- man's Island, which for several reasons must be considered one of the interesting sights of this 88 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. journey. The top of the mountain on this small island is supposed to resemble a cavalier mounted on a prancing steed, with his cloak flowing behind him ; and from some points of view, doubtless, with the aid of the imagination, it may look so. Many could see all this very plainly from our position as we passed it ; but for myself, I had to confess to defective eyesight, though I claimed to have as much imagination as the best of them. One of the passengers, an intelligent public officer of the kingdom, gave us the legend which ac- counts for the horseman on the mountain, and the hole in the mountain behind us, and I am sure I can do authentic history no better service than to insert it substantially here. " Before the Norwegians embraced Christianity (and very long before that time), all the large, rocky islands along the Norwegian coast, as well as the largest mountains in the interior of the country, were inhabited by monstrous giants or trolls, of both sexes. At the island of Leko lived such a troll, a fair lady of great charms, and at Hestmanden, nine* miles north of Leko, a valorous giant. Of course this giant must fall in love with the lady, and accordingly he made her * Remember one Norwegian mile is equal to seven .^nglish miles. PERPETUAL DAY. 89 a proposal of marriage. However, the lady re- jected his courtship, and he, becoming furiously enraged, meditated revenge, and resolved to kill her. Being a good archer, as most of the in- habitants were in former days, he took his bow and shot an arrow at the maiden ; but before this arrow could reach her, it had to pass the j mountain of Torghatten, through which it made / a large hole, and struck off her head, she being then on the further side. This hole, which ap- I pears as a round horizontal passage through the I mountain, is to be seen at this day by every/ traveler in passing up the Norwegian coast to' Nordland, as are also the fair lady and the giant's arrow, both transformed into stone, at Leko. The giant man was Hestmanden (a horseman), after whom the island took its name ; the lady's name was Leko Moya (the maiden of Leko)." Our informant omitted to state one important infirmity ascribed to these ancient trolls, and that is, that they were inexorably doomed to night-work. During the day they must remain secluded in their dark cavern homes, and if by any chance they became belated, so that the rays of the sun once touched them, they were in- 90 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. stantly transformed into stone, with all their ap- pendages. So it was with Hestmanden. He lingered on the island, which was his favorite nocturnal abode, till he saw the sun was about to rise, when he donned his armor with his cap and cloak, and leaped upon his ready steed, which made a single bound, when the sun peeped over the mountain top and struck him with his rays, when all became fixed in solid granite ; and so has he there remained ever since, a warning to all other trolls to keep better hours, if not to curb their rage and forbear to shoot at lady trolls who reject their suits. It is to be much regretted that the captain would not stop, as we passed it twelve hours before, and allow us to examine the petrified arrow which pierced the mountain, and the pre- served remains of the fascinating giantess. But who can doubt the truth of the story and the prowess of the ancient inhabitants of the islands, with the palpable evidence of the pierced mount- ain before us ? The Arctic Circle passes through or over the highest point of Hestmanden as if it would split the cavalier's cap, and for that reason, too, it must be an object of no small interest to every PERPETUAL DAY. 91 traveler. A good while ago we were in sight of this interesting point, and we very naturally desired to pass it as near midnight as possi- ble, and so as we approached it watches were compared with the ship's time and held in hand. I know not if the captain regulated his motions to produce that result, but so it was that we passed the imaginary line within a minute of twelve o'clock ! and, directly after, we passed an opening between the islands which gave us a view of the sun when his lower edge was just leaving the horizon and he was commencing a new day's journey. Now we had seen the mid- night sun the glorious spectacle we had come so far to see. The sun had shone upon us at midnight, with feeble rays no doubt, giving a strange, I may almost say an unearthly, light ; still it was day, though soft and subdued, at midnight. No lights were needed on the ship, and none had been lighted since we had come on board, for it was always broad daylight. Up to this time, when the sun had sunk below the horizon, the obscuration was as brief as if hidden by a passing cloud. Practically the last three days had been but fractions of that long unbroken day most of which was still before us. 92 A SUMMED IN NORWAY. Thus far none had thought of sleep, and now to go to bed after the sun was so high up seemed to smack of dissolute habits ; but we knew we must have rest to enjoy the scenes of another day, so we said good night and stretched our- selves upon our narrow shelves to sleep, and dream wonderful dreams inspired by these new surroundings. There is something about the appearance of this strange land which inspires one with a strange sensation, and makes one feel as if he had got into another world. The light of day without a break of night forces an impression that we are in some far-off place, where the laws of nature are suspended, and we are prepared to see an actual giant striding from island to island, or an arrow shot that can pierce a mountain, or any other strange scene or occurrence, no more new than the perpetual day that shines upon us. The daylight, too, differs from the light of our own days. The rays of the sun strike us so obliquely that they give a weaker light than in our own short days at home. They seem to be deprived of some of the elements of the rays which reach us in lower latitudes. The light seems faint or sickly; at least it lacks the force PERPETUAL DAY. 93 and vigor of that which shines on us at home. Though you may see as far and as distinctly here as anywhere, yet the light is different. Some- times when the sun is low at home, and has been hid away behind great masses of black and angry clouds, he may for a few minutes find a crevice and break through, and shine full upon the earth; yet the light is not cheering, but rather threaten- ing, and inspires a sort of feeling that something unusual is about to happen. It seems to me so here. It is not alarming, but it produces a weird sensation as if a new leaf was about to be turned in the book of nature, when you may look for something out of the ordinary course, and so your interest never flags in watching for some- thing new and strange. One day of such sensations is worth a month or any longer time you please of sight-seeing in other lands, where all of interest is the work of poor feeble man, which at the best but exhibits his puny powers in efforts to imitate that which God has made in absolute perfection. If I am singular in preferring Nature's beau- ties to the charms of art, I cannot help it. I have tried to love the husk and neglect the corn, but somehow still I feel subdued and yet elated 94 A SUMMER IN NO&WAY. in beholding the phenomena which' are the finger- marks of Him who makes stars, suns and sys- tems with no more effort than the least of all the things He has ever made. In looking upon the things around me, and feeling the weird charm and the strange sensa- tion which they must inspire, I could easily com- prehend the source of the wild legends which those who, in former times and with no other literature, lived amid such surroundings, loved to hear and tell and, if possible, to believe. Love for the marvelous should here be strongest, where so much of what we see and feel seems marvelous and unnatural. CHAPTER VI II. THE ARCTIC CIRCLE; THE ISLAND FISHERMEN; SNOWS AND SILVERY STREAMS; LIGHT AND SHADE AT MIDNIGHT; EIDER DUCKS; GATHERING THE DOWN; THE TRADE IN DOWN; THE EIDER FAMILY IN NORWAY; BODO; A GOOD TIME WITH THE CHILDREN; THEIR GOOD BEHAVIOR; FLOWERING MOSS; AN ACCIDENT; LEAVE BODO; PECULIAR FISH; ARRIVE AT TROMSO. 1KNOW I had learned at school the precise latitude of the Arctic Circle, and was ashamed to own that I had forgotten it. A general in- quiry, however, showed that all were as ignorant as myself nor could the captain or the mate give us the desired information. This led to an examination of the chart, and I may state for the information of others whose memories may be as treacherous as ours proved to be, that we found it to be 66 30' 15" in north latitude. Probably none of us who were on board that ship will forget these figures again, for before they were found the point created quite an interest. But you must remember that passengers on shipboard are disposed to make much of every incident which can afford a little excitement or amusement. (95) 96 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. The next morning, when I went on deck, we were gliding swiftly along the still waters between the islands. The islands were more precipitous, the birch shrubbery not so abundant, and the intervales along the shores less. Still we were rarely out of sight of a fisherman's hut, and fre- quently clusters of them, where the ground would admit ; sometimes two or three of these little settlements would be on the same island and quite near together, with no roadway between them, their only intercourse being by water. Under such circumstances we can well under- stand that each member of a family can pull an oar or set a sail skillfully, and is quite as much at home upon the water as upon the land. It was very rare we were out of sight of fish- ermen engaged at their work, although they seemed more generally to select the night, or those hours which are night in other countries, rather than the day, because at that time it is said the fish bite the best, though I am at a loss to determine how the fish know the difference. Now the snow covered the tops of all the mountain islands, and in protected places ex- tended to the very edge of the waters. The flow- ing rivulets down the mountain sides showed that PERPETUAL DAY. 97 the snow was fast melting under the influence of a perpetual sun. These rivulets looked like silver threads against the dark background of the smooth and almost vertical rock, in the face of which they have worn for themselves little channels which concentrate the waters. Sometimes, many of these will be united into one before they reach the bottom, forming a considerable stream, which oftentimes makes a sheer leap of ten to a hun- dred feet, the light spray waving in the wind like the bridal veil in the Yosemite Valley. In one place, this day, we counted twenty-seven of these little streams tumbling in milk-white foam down the face of an unbroken rock, which rose almost vertically from the waters of the tjord many hundreds of feet high, and about half a mile long. Their sources were in the snow-capped mountain beyond, quite out of sight. Sometimes, when the mountain side was less precipitous, great snow-banks had accumulated, beneath which the streamlets from above would disappear, and then again emerge before being swallowed up by salt sea waters. The scenes among these islands were ever changing as we passed rapidly along, the view now being confined by the black precip- 7 98 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. itous walls between which we passed, and now, distant vistas were opened among the islands, to be again closed as we passed into the dark shadow of some overhanging mountain. It is toward midnight in the Arctic Circle in the summer-time, that the richest scenes of light and shade are presented to the view of the trav- eler among the islands on the Norwegian coast. Objects are then presented as in the shifting scenes of a moving panorama. Sometimes he sees the sheen of the glittering snow on the distant mountain-top as the bright rays of the sun are reflected back in gorgeous splendor, some portions much lighter than others. Presently an intervening island shuts out the view, and then again a different one is opened to his sight. Before him, he thinks he sees the mouth of a glowing furnace bursting forth from a rent in the side of a mountain, which shortly fades into a rich red, or pink, or yellow shade, and diffuses itself over a broader surface ; when presently, he sees the brightness dying out by his changed position, till a sombre shade seems to settle down upon all around him, to be again dispelled by a virgin brightness, which lights up all within his view, and smiles upon him a win- PERPETUAL DAY. 99 ning welcome. Surely this is a land of fairies, where they dance and laugh and sing, without a shade of night to break their revelry. You think you see them in their gay attire flitting from crag to crag, or hiding in their dwelling-caves, which you imagine are lit up with gems and jewels more gorgeous than human hands have ever set. Well may we expect that the humblest fisher- men living in the midst of such enchanting scenes are filled with a glowing imagination, and people the hills and caverns with unreal beings, and ascribe extravagant forms to those who. lived there long ages since. This day we saw the first eider-ducks (soma- teria mollissima). These birds are only found, at least abundantly, in the arctic waters. On the Norwegian coast they are protected by stringent laws, which are rigidly enforced, and as a conse- quence they are quite tame, though the passage of the steamer alarms them, and they fly away before it. They are a size larger than the Mal- lard duck. The male is white and black, the female is of a nearly uniform tawny brown. Their down is a source of considerable rev- enue to the owner of the ground where they nest, who alone is allowed to gather it; for it is 100 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. considered as much his private property as are his domestic animals. They have their favorite haunts for nesting, and the value of an island is much enhanced by their partiality. When the female makes her nest she plucks down from her breast sufficient to line it abundantly. This the owner of the ground, after a time, carefully removes. She suffers this to be done without leaving. Again the bird plucks herself and lines the nest anew, which is again re- moved, when her pertinacity again prompts her to furnish her nest with a new lining. With this she is allowed to remain undisturbed, to complete the incubation. After she has left with her young brood another harvest is gath- ered from the deserted nest. This is much less valuable than the others, owing to its impurity. None, however, is fit for the market as it is taken from the nest ; all has to be carefully picked out from the twigs and dirt with which it had become entangled in the nest. I was informed that it takes about four pounds, as it is taken from the nest, to furnish one pound of clean down, fit for the market. I paid four dollars per pound for the clean down in Tromso. This down is of a pale lead color, PERPETUAL DAY. 101 and is exceedingly light and elastic. A pound may be compressed into a bag holding less than two quarts, and no matter how long it remains thus compressed, when removed it springs out to an incredible bulk. I have already spoken of the bed covers lined with down, and some were claimed to be of eider down, but probably this is rare, or indulged in only by the wealthy. The coarser down from other water-fowl is light enough and warm enough to satisfy one not ambitious of making a great display. In other regions, where the law does not protect the eider-ducks, they are killed, not for food but for their skins, which are tanned and made into blankets or robes. The coarse feathers are plucked out, leaving only the down, which is very thick set. The different colored skins of the male and female being interspersed make a very pretty robe, though rather expensive, no doubt, and probably would not stand much hard wear, and indeed it should be considered an article of luxury rather than of utility. Tromso and Trondhjem are the best markets for the purchase of this class of goods, including furs. Eider-ducks grew more abundant as we pro- 102 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. ceeded north, and many were met with every day. We saw several broods of young ones following their mothers, generally near the shore. They are sprightly little fellows and swim with great vigor, and, when hard pressed, dive and swim some distance under water. The eider-duck, which the Norwegians call eddr-fugl, abounds on both sides of Fin mark, being as abundant in the Varanger Fjord as on the west coast and in the Lofodens. It is at home also in Greenland, Iceland, and Spitzbergen, and the other islands in the arctic seas, but the great value of its skins has offered such induce- ment for its pursuit that it is sensibly diminished in numbers where not rigidly protected by law, and, I may add, by public opinion. Although properly ranked as an arctic fowl, it is not strictly so. While Iceland and southern * Greenland are below the Arctic Circle, yet, as we have seen, they must be included in its habitat ; and it was formerly found even south of Trondhjem, and perhaps now and then a stray eider-duck may be seen farther south. But south of that point it is beyond the protection of the law, while north of it the penalty for killing an eider-duck at any time is one specie PERPETUAL DAY. 103 dollar. It is only when we remember that a little money goes a great way there that we can under- stand how this is an adequate protection. The islands where these birds breed are called by the Norwegians fugle-vaer, or bird-islands. It is the great elasticity of the eider down which renders it so very valuable. It is said that this elasticity is entirely destroyed if the down is plucked by hand from the breast of the dead bird. It certainly retains its elasticity, at least to a great extent, when it remains on the tanned skin. About one ounce of cleaned down may be gathered from a nest in a year. I saw none of the king eider (somateria spectabilis), which is said to be smaller and much more beautiful in its colorings than the eider- duck; but I obtained a robe composed on both sides principally of the skins of the eider-duck, but a part of it is of the skins of the king eider. From these skins the feathers are all plucked, leaving only the very thick coat of down, except where a part of the feathers are left to show the more beautiful markings. Soon after breakfast we reached Bodo, which is a very pretty town situated on a rising bank of about six hundred inhabitants. In 1850, the 104 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. population of Bodo was but two hundred and twenty-eight, but the great herring fisheries re- cently developed in that neighborhood have given to the place new life, and greatly increased its population and commerce, so that it now pre- sents a picture of busy activity. So soon as the anchor was dropped, we were surrounded by little boats all anxious for fares. It was announced that the steamer would remain some hours here, so nearly all went on shore. The streets were long, straight and clean, and the houses looked neat and comfortable. I observed a good many children in the streets, from the infant in its little carriage to boys and girls a dozen years old. I directly made a raid upon a candy shop and filled my pockets. I soon proved that the children of the far north have tastes similar to our own, but they were decidedly more courteous and well- behaved than those to be met with in any Amer- ican town. I gave candy to every child I could see, either in the street or in a house, and my fame spread throughout the town in an incredibly short time ; but there was no rushing, noisy, begging crowd gathered around me. None asked me for candy, but all took it freely when offered, and then by PERPETUAL DAY. 105 way of thanks shook my right hand. No doubt when they saw me walking along a street they managed to throw themselves in my way, and looked anxiously, but a polite courtesy or bow was all. If I passed by without offering any, perhaps the little miss would look disappointed ; but then when I turned around and motioned her to ap- proach, holding the candy in my hand, she would come up in a becoming way, while the boys and girls beside her would not rush up as if to rob one, as we should expect of Young America, but would remain standing aloof till called up in turn. They were smart enough to try to cheat me a little in a very pardonable way, for I soon ob- served that after receiving my candy in one street, some of them would throw themselves in my way in another street, in company with new associates, and looking as if they had had no candy that day; and a few managed to get a third supply, but I was careful not to let them know I recognized them, for that would have made them unhappy, and my object was to make them all as happy as possible, for so did I promote my own happiness. I soon found myself famous in Bodo, and I feel sure I may add, popular, too. Even the 106 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. adults seemed anxious to see how I looked, for I could see the mothers and grown sisters slyly peeping around corners or through doors ajar to gratify their curiosity. I accomplished my object. I made many children happy ; but above all, I learned their habits, and how they were treated and taught at home. I found that the first and constant lessons they receive at home are court- esy, politeness and good behavior, and so it is they show such courtesy when grown up. After I had shaken hands with most, if not all, the little children in Bodo, I took off my hat and made the last as proper a bow as I knew how, waved my hand as a final adieu, and went down to the shore of the fjord, where a fisher- man was cleaning his fish, and I admired the dexterity displayed in the operation. Thence I went to the hill back of the town, to get a view of the back country. On the way, I came across some of the most beautiful flower- ing moss I ever saw, which was in full bloom, a tuft of which I pulled up and took on board, where it was the delight of all who saw it, and the great regret was that all had not time to go and find some for themselves. I failed to find my party as I returned through PERPETUAL DAY. 107 the town, who had been interesting themselves in looking through the shops and purchasing little mementoes, and so I went on board alone ; but I had to wait some time before they came, for they had been waiting for me. The day was bright and warm, of which I have many pleasing recollections. But I met with an accident going on board, from which I suffered many weeks, and the effects of which I felt many months. I would advise travelers in Norway to beware of young boys for boatmen, or they may suffer for it. We left Bodo in the afternoon, and made our way through the little fleets of fishing-boats, which told us how industrious were the people in pursuing their avocations at even unfavorable seasons of the year, and in the worst part of the day. But it is their business, and nothing else, and so they must work in season and out of season. We were always interested in watching them, and when one was discovered fighting with a big fish, glasses were brought to bear, and the con- test excited a real interest, till the great catch was hauled over the side of the boat and lay floundering in the bottom. Occasionally, we passed a group of boats which the officers pointed 108 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. out ,as fishing for a peculiar and favorite kind, found only in those particular places, and which bite only at particular times. These fish, in northern Norway, are called iier, and in south- ern Norway, rofish. As the last name implies, they are of a red color, have very large eyes and mouths, and very large coarse scales. They are considered the finest and the most delicate fish in Norway, except the salmon, and command in the market a corresponding price. They were much admired on our table. I did not learn that they are salted for foreign markets. The morning of the next day brought us to Tromso, in front of which we dropped our anchor, and word was given that there would be plenty of time for the passengers to go on shore and do the town. Tromso is the metropolis of Finmark, or Nor- wegian Lapland, and is the largest city within the Arctic Circle. Its population is about five thousand five hundred an increase of one thousand five hundred in ten years. It has a considerable foreign commerce, its exports con- sisting principally of fish, oil, furs, deer skins, and eider down. It is very prettily situated on the south bank of the fjord. The ground rises . PERPETUAL DAY. 109 rapidly toward the interior, so that the city stands upon a hillside. It has many fine wharves and docks, at which vessels were constantly loading and unloading, but none of the steamers in port approached them, and all the loading and unload- ing, both of passengers and goods, had to be done with the small row-boats. As I was unable to go on shore at Tromso on our way north, I will take occasion to say something more of the place on our return. CHAPTER IX. ARRIVE AT HAMMERFEST; EXCURSION BY LAND AND WATER TO NORTH CAPE; THE TRIP TO VADSO; IMPROVED WHALING; EX- TENT OF THE BUSINESS; ANOTHER VISIT TO NORTH CAPE; HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS; PRIMITIVE HABITS; MOST NORTHERN TOWN IN THE WORLD; MODERATE TEMPERATURE; NAVIGATION NEVER INTERRUPTED BY ICE IN NORWAY; THE EFFECT OF THE GULF STREAM. A r TER noon we weighed anchor and steamed away for Hammerfest At Ox Fjord the little coasting steamer came alongside and ex- changed mails and passengers with us. She belongs to the same company as the Hakon-Jarl, and is employed to run from Ox Fjord up to Alten Fjord and Bosekop, and through various interior channels to Hammerfest, thus saving the regular steamer a day's time each way, and afford- ing more frequent communication to the interior settlements. It makes the round trip twice a week, and between Bosekop and Hammerfest three times a week. On the fifth day from Trondhjem we reached Hammerfest about noon. After due deliberation we determined to make this the terminal point (in) 112 A SUMMED IN NORWAY. of our northern passage. Although the steamer went round to Vadso, which is the terminal point of her route in summer, I could learn of no means to get from there to Archangel except by a chance sail-vessel ; hence we determined not to take so uncertain a chance, but to return to Trondhjem and proceed thence to Christiana by land. I have since learned that there was a steamer running between Vardo and Archangel, but very irregularly. After I left there she came around to Tromso for repairs. Beyond Hammerfest the route is, most of the way, in the open sea, the shelter of the islands there terminating. This suggested the idea of again tumbling about in a boisterous ocean on a little boat, with its attendant discomforts of sea-sickness and cold weather, almost in sight of the frozen ocean beyond, and to compensate for all this there was nothing to see but an un- inhabited bleak and rocky coast many miles distant. It would be something, no doubt, to see North Cape, a bold headland nine hundred feet high ; but then we had seen many such within the last few days, only they were not North Cape. It is only three-quarters o f a degree PERPETUAL DAY. 113 north of Hammerfest, so there was little to be gained in that direction. The only object, then, was to be able to say we had seen the North Cape. That, after all, is not the most northern point of Europe. Nordkyn extends still farther north ; but as it is the point of a low-lying peninsula still farther west, and as the great promontory on the island of Magero is so much more conspicuous and may be seen from the ordinary route of steamers around the pen- insula, it has robbed its more humble neighbor of the distinction to which it is justly entitled. All the passengers went on, however, but ourselves. A part stopped at a fishing hut on the mainland, south of the cape, and got the fisherman to take them to the island and guide them to the cape. From their account it was a terrible journey. They were two hours in the sail-boat reaching the island. They then had to walk ten miles over the most killing ground, crawling over snow-banks softened now by the perpetual sun, frequently sinking to the waist ; then climbing precipices or clambering over huge rocks, which strewed the surface every- where. Six hours such work as this brought them to the cape at midnight. Here the view 114 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. was very grand' no doubt. The sun was shining in the north, high above the horizon, which, from so high a point, extended to an immense distance toward the frozen ocean, far beyond the line of vision. But it was water ! water ! water ! nothing but water, agitated by a moderate breeze, sometimes reflecting the rays of the midnight sun, which covered the ocean with brilliant but transient spots of intense light. There may be a sort of grandeur in desolation itself, if only it be vast enough. If so, then Magero, with its surroundings, is a grand place. On the land every part presents a scene of the wildest des- olation, and to look out to sea one involun- tarily shudders at the thought of being there in a howling storm or of being cast upon the frowning rock and of what a cold sepulchre it would make. Perspiring freely under the excessive labor of the journey, our friends soon felt chilled with the bleak winds of the cold North Cape. It was worth a human life to stand there Jong to gaze upon what they had come so far to see. The guide had brought some rye bread and cold reindeer meat, which they hastily dis- patched, and soon started on the reiurn journey. PERPETUAL DAY. 115 The guide led the way at a rapid pace, and the already half-exhausted pedestrians scrambled along as best they could, over the snow-banks and broken rock, through pools of water from the melting snows the trail sometimes leading through deep clefts of the rocks, through which they had to squeeze themselves. There was one lady in the party, and she proved herself equal to the occasion. If the gentlemen had feared they would have to pack her in, they must have felt relieved when she not only took care of herself but was able to help do some packing for others. That is the sort of woman to go roughing it with. In such places no doubt they are very good. They reached the boat after twelve hours of as hard work as the most enthusiastic traveler would desire to endure. It was in the night-time too, but then it was night only in name, for night and day are all the same up there. But then they had seen the midnight sun from North Cape, and this but a very small proportion of the human race have ever seen or may ever hope to see. The wind was adverse, and blowing a smart breese, so there was nothing left for them but to beat their way back to the fisher's hut, 116 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. where all the ladies of the party had been left except the one referred to. This took four hours of pretty wet work, for the little sail-boat would often take more water than was comfort- able for those within her. The wives and mothers who remained at the hut looked long and anxiously for the return of the party, and long before they could descry the little vessel dancing on the top of the waves, struggling with the adverse winds, a sickening fear came upon them that some sad calamity had happened, which alone could cause such unex- pected delay. Their anxiety would not have been lessened had they known the actual facts. Nor was the relief complete when they saw the party were returning. Who that has seen a sail- boat containing some loved one miles away upon the rolling waters, does not remember how the heart will sink and almost cease to throb when- ever the boat drops quite out of sight between the waves, almost sure that she had sunk beneath them ; and who can forget the flutter of returning joy and hope when it is again seen to rise proudly over the swell and hurry on its way ? Four hours watching such a boat, with the rapid alternations of fear and hope, is a sickening task, and harder PERPETUAL DAY. 117 on the nerves, at least, and more distressing, than the rough journey which the others had endured. There was joy in that cabin when the party safely landed, though wet, and well worn out, and nearly famished. They had been gone eighteen hours, and had seen the North Cape, and some other things, too. I am indebted to the Rev. Mr. K , who was one of the party, for an account of this excursion, which he gave me when we met a few days later, and who expressed 'the opinion that we had acted wisely when we stopped at Ham- merfest, and his wife and mother emphatically concurred in this opinion. Mr. R , of Chicago, was more fortunate. He continued in the steamer and went on to Vadso. This is a distinguished whaling station, where the business is carried on by a wealthy company on a large scale. They employ several steamers in the service, which are provided with the most improved device for killing their prey. The most important is a harpoon which is shot from a portable gun, which may be carried in the bow of the whale-boat, or from the steamer. After the harpoon has been shot into the whale, either from the steamer or the whale-boat, he is 118 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. followed as in the old way, or if from the steamer with all the steam possible, and when he rises to blow an explosive torpedo is fired at him, and when one takes effect it kills him at once. When the fish is killed it is taken in tow by the steamer and brought into port, where with the aid of powerful tackle it is hauled upon ways, and the blubber is peeled off and tried out, and every part of the animal which can be utilized is saved and prepared for the market. Two were on the ways and being cut up when he was there. f Up to the first of July the catch had already amounted to twenty-eight this season, and I heard afterwards from a gentleman who had left there a month later that a dozen more had been added to the number. The steamers cruise out a hundred miles or more in pursuit of their game. This business was first started by an enter- prising Norwegian by the name of Sven Toyen, who had made a fortune in catching seals on the island of Yan Mayen. When he first proposed to catch whales by steam he was as much ridi- culed by the whaleman as Fulton was when he proposed to propel a boat by steam ; but his resources proved equal to the undertaking, and PERPETUAL DAY. 119 he now has probably the most successful whale fishery in the world. The first steamer which he used in this novel service was called the " Spes and Fides." Those who made the round trip on the Hakon- Jarl were more fortunate than those who stopped at the fisherman's hut. When North Cape was reached, the wind had died away and the sea had gone down, so that a landing was practicable. The captain ran the steamer in as near as was prudent to the only point where a landing can be made, and an ascent possible. He lowered away the boat, and took such on shore as chose to undertake the feat, and led the way himself up the steep ascent. Some gave out on the way, but five gained the summit in time to see the sun at midnight from the same point occupied by the other party the night before. They were just forty-five minutes climbing the nine hundred feet. No serious difficulties were met with ; it was simply a question of muscle and endurance. Beside being very steep, the foothold was bad, so that one had to fairly cling to the side of the ascent, and a misstep was liable to start him rolling to the beach below. As the position of the ship was not considered a very safe one in case of a sud- 120 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. den change of weather, which was liable to occur in that latitude, the stay on the cape was not un- necessarily protracted. But indeed no great time was wanted, for however grand the view, the whole could be comprehended in a glance. It is not often that the weather is such as to safely admit the landing to be made ; yet when- ever it is practicable, I understand it is usual to make this landing if there are passengers on board who desire to make the ascent. But if one must ascend the cape the only thing for him to do is to stop at the fisherman's hut, and obtain his aid to accomplish the journey. This, too, will introduce him to a plainer way of living than even he will find in towns along his route, and this is necessary if one would understand every phase of life in the country which the traveler visits. We dined on the steamer before going on shore at Hammerfest. After dinner, we bade our friends good-by, and got into a little boat and pulled to shore, which was not two hundred feet from the dock. Just across the street from the dock we found our hotel, to which we had sent a telegram for rooms. I believe it is the only hotel in Hammerfest, and cannot be charged with mak- PERPETUAL DAY. 121 ing great pretensions. We found two rooms ready for us, with two little beds in each ; or rather, in the one we occupied there was one of the coffin-like beds, and a sofa on which a bed was made up when we wanted to go to sleep. But all was reasonably clean, and the landlady was as kind as she possibly could be. The key to our room, which opened into the lower hall, and very near the front door, was lost. But what mattered that in a country where robbers and burglars are unknown ? Still, fresh o as we were from countries not so blessed, we thought we should feel safer with the door locked. Besides, servants up there have a knack of bolt- ing into your room at all times and at all hours without knocking, and if they happen to find you in dishabille, they reason, perhaps correctly, that from necessity everybody must be in that condi- tion at least as often as once in twenty-four hours, and what matters it who sees them, so long as the fact is well known and perfectly understood by everybody? After all it is noth- ing to be ashamed of, anyway. Then what is the matter, and why so much concealment, which at best is nothing but sheer affectation. Now we had nothing to answer to all this rea- 122 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. soning, which was not said but only acted, except our simple fastidious prejudices. We lacked the innocent simplicity which would have enabled us to consider the subject in its true light, so we had a search instituted for the key, and when it could not be found, I contrived to barricade the door, when we concluded to try and go to sleep, so that an entrance could not be effected without a noise at least. Hammerfest being the most northern town in the world, has for that reason acquired considera- ble celebrity. The reason why this is so is that it is the warmest portion of the globe in so high a latitude. It is hard for one who has walked across the East river from New York to Brook- lyn on the ice, to believe that at a point nearly thirty degrees farther north, and more than four degrees within the Arctic Circle, ice never forms within tide water, except quite at the head of some of the fjords. All else of the bays and sounds, and wherever the waters of the sea reach, is as clear of ice as if in Florida, even through the long winter night of eleven weeks, during which the sun never rises above the horizon. Back in the interior, and beyond the influence of the sea atmosphere, it is no doubt cold enough PERPETUAL DAY. 123 to please an Esquimau. Heavy snows fall at Hammerfest, and on all the islands along the coast, and are abundant to the very edge of the open water, and there they lay for a long time, but they cannot invade the waters themselves. Hence navigation is practicable the whole year, and the steamers on which we traveled make their trips to Hammerfest in winter as well as in summer ; and the steamers from Christiana to Tromso, on which we also traveled, continue their trips throughout the winter, never seeing any ice in the North Sea, while they are some- times embarrassed with ice at Christiana, though few places on the globe in so high a latitude have so mild a climate as the latter place. Of course wherever this warm sea reaches it must greatly raise the temperature of the atmosphere, and so ameliorate the climate ; and finally we be- come surprised that its influence extends only so short a distance inland. To this, however, we must soon become reconciled, when we remember the severity of the cold in other longitudes in the same latitude. Nor is Hammerfest the limit of the open sea in the coldest winter along the Norwegian coast. It extends clear around the North Cape 124 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. and into the great Arctic Sea beyoncL The reason of this has been obvious ever since the gulf stream was discovered and its track traced across the ocean. Issuing with its tropical waters from the Gulf of Mexico, with a current of four miles an hour and more, forty miles wide and four hundred feet deep, it plows its way through the Atlantic with a resistless force in a northeast direction, widening as it goes, sweeping by the north capes of Ireland and Scotland, washing the shores of the Hebrides ; ever spreading out, where not prevented by the land it meets, it sweeps across the North Sea and impinges upon all the northwest coast of Norway, by which it is deflected still more northerly, and finally loses itself in the Northern Ocean, beyond the North Cape. Of course it loses much of its tempera- ture before it reaches Norway ; but the wonder is that the cold currents, setting down through Baffin's Bay and the Northern Ocean, east of Greenland and Iceland, have not entirely de- stroyed its identity and reduced it to the tem- perature of their own cold waters. That they have not, serves to tell us what a mighty force is ever there at work, and yet never expends itself or grows weaker as time rolls en. CHAPTER X. HAMMERFEST; ITS COMMERCE AND OIL FACTORIES; COD-FISHING; THE SEI; THE FISHERMEN; RELIGION AND EDUCATION; HOS- TILITY TO CATHOLICS; CONFIRMATION AND SUFFRAGE; GEN- ERAL EDUCATION ; THE LAPPS ; HISTORY AND LANGUAGE ; NOMADIC OR MOUNTAIN LAPPS; SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS; FAMILY RELATIONS, DRESS, PHYSICAL QUALITIES; AN INSANE BRIDE- GROOM; DOMESTIC VIRTUES; LAPP WOMEN; USE OF TOBACCO; COAST LAPPS; RELIGIOUS CHARACTER; FANATICAL CRUSADE; SUPERSTITIOUS CHARMS. HAMMERFEST is a town of about two thousand people, and is situated at the head of a large land-locked bay and is sur- rounded by high mountains. Immediately be- hind it the face of the mountain is nearly ver- tical. For a third of a mile the foot of the mountain is so near the shores of the bay that there is only room for a single street. At the north end of that a valley opens, through which a considerable creek .comes rushing down. This valley widens out farther back, presenting a very pretty country beyond. At the south also the shore of the bay sweeps around in a graceful curve, leaving a broader belt between it and the foot of the mountain, and upon that the princi- (125) 126 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. pal part of the town is situated, where sufficient space is found for several streets. On the water are good wharves and docks and storehouses, and on the streets back are the shops and dwellings, some of which are fine and comfortable. Its commerce is very considerable. There were seventeen sea-going vessels in port when we arrived. Of course the fisheries are the principal source of this commerce. The place is most distinguished for its cod- liver oil manufactories, which are very numerous, and do a large business. From these a sickening odor pervades the atmosphere, which is very of- fensive to the stranger upon his first arrival, but after a few days he becomes accustomed to it, and finally ceases to notice it. We visited several of the factories and examined the process of mak- ing the oil. These establishments do not confine themselves to the cod-liver as a source of their product, but work up any product of the sea which will produce oil, including a variety of fish and seals. The raw material is first put into large tanks, where it stands for some time undisturbed. While here, a portion of the oil separates from the tissues, and rises to the top. This is the purest and best, and is carefully removed and kept by PERPETUAL DAY. 127 itself, and of course brings the highest price in the market. When no more pure and limpid oil will rise to the top, the residuum is removed from the tank to large kettles set in arches, where it is thoroughly tried, and then the remaining oil is expressed from it. This is of an inferior quality, and goes into the market as such. It is from this trying process that the odor arises that is so unpleasant to the stranger. It is stronger and more offensive than the odors arising from the stagnant tanks. The residuum from these trying houses, as well as the heads and backbones of the fish which are cleaned, are thoroughly dried, and sold to be ground up for manure. In clean- ing the fish, the head and gills and backbone are all removed together. These are strung to- gether on twine, and then hung on poles and dried as thoroughly as possible, when they are packed in bales and are ready for export. During February and March the codfish are in the finest condition, and are most abundant. At that time, also, they take the hook the most freely; hence, this is considered the codfish sea- son. Still they are taken at other seasons, and are very excellent. During the time we were there the sei were 128 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. the most abundant, and were the principal object of pursuit They are nearly as large and much resemble the cod. These are not salted at all. They are cleaned, and split quite down to near the tail, and are then hung on long poles sup- ported on high tressels, close along the beach, or at the edge of the water at high-tide, where they become very dry indeed so dry that there seems to be scarcely more than skin left. They are then packed in bales and sent to market. These are principally in request in Sweden and other countries bordering on the Baltic ; but I have seen them in the Chicago market since my return. These I learned were ordered from Ber- gen ; as also the Lofoden cod, which are also found in our market. Although there are more independent fisher- men in Finmark, proportionately, than in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, still a large proportion are in the employ of capitalists, who furnish them boats and tackle, and pay them fixed wages, or so much per hundred for the fish caught. Indeed, it is the exception where the fisherman cures and markets his own fish. In this, as in all other business, capital divides the profits with labor. Of course fish are the principal article of diet, PERPETUAL DAY. 129 as meats are in our agricultural region. In the larger towns the fish markets are the great dis- play. I was much interested in an early visit to the market in Trondhjem, and was astonished at the variety of fish there exhibited. Some most repulsive-looking specimens were taken as de- licious by customers who, no doubt, knew what they liked. There were an unusual number of Lapps in Hammerfest while we were there, who had come in from the mountains for confirmation. The State religion is Lutheran, and it is sustained by law with some rigor, and is very universally professed among the people. All other denomi- nations are called sects, and are looked upon with disfavor, and the Catholics most of all. The Catholics evidently have a hard time of it in Norway. Although the law does not prohibit that or any other form of Christian worship, yet the prejudice against the Catholics is very great among the people, who are loth to believe any good of them. There is a Catholic church at Tromso, and one of the public-houses is kept by a Catholic lady. Everybody advised us not to go to that house, as we should surely fare very badly, and we considered ourselves very 130 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. fortunate in having secured rooms at the other hotel beforehand, and blessed the telegraph which enabled us to do so. Several of the other pas- sengers who landed from the same boat were obliged to go to the Catholic house, though they did it with great reluctance. Among them was a Presbyterian clergyman from Massachusetts, with his family. When we met and compared notes, it was manifest that they had the best of it altogether. They had the best rooms, the best service, the best beds, and decidedly the best table, and he declared there was no sort of doubt that the universal cry against that house origi- nated in the inveterate prejudice which was felt against the religion of the lady who kept it, who was really modest, unassuming, attentive and obliging, and spared no effort which could con- tribute to the comfort of her guests. His favor- able report certainly did not arise from a con- cordance of religious sentiments. Yet there is no doubt that the people who advised us to avoid that house really believed there was something terrible about it which would render us very uncomfortable. True they probably knew nothing about it, and perhaps not one of them had ever been in it, but they accepted the universal defama- PERPETUAL DAY. 131 tion as undoubted truth, and so gave their advice from a real conviction. There are few other sects in Norway, but I did not chance to meet with any of their followers, and so I learned but little of them. Many important civil rights are dependent on confirmation, as I was informed, and especially the right of suffrage ; hence it is a matter of great importance to the citizen to be thus received into the bosom of the church. The claim to this rite is no doubt more dependent upon the educa- tion of the candidate than upon the fervor of his piety. The law prohibits the confirmation of any who cannot read and write, and who have not been instructed to a certain extent in the tenets of the Lutheran church. This constitutes a rigorous system of universal education, not only among the Norwegians, but among the Lapps as well. Hence it is that teachers are sent to all their camps, even among the distant mount- ains, to impart to them the required instruction to qualify them for the important ceremony; and the result is, as I was credibly informed, that all can read and write, and very many have a very good common education. When I asked one to 132 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. give me his name, which I wished to enter in my note-book, he took the pencil and entered it in a good, bold hand. To me at least the Lapps are by far the most interesting race of people in Europe, and I longed to see with my own eyes what sort of people they were ; and the strongest inducement I could have had to spend a much longer time in Finmark was the study of this interesting people in their remote mountain homes, where I might hope to see a nearer approach to the ancient habits, cus- toms, and superstitions than is possible on the sea-coast, where a closer contact with the Gothic race must have modernized these to a certain extent While the ancestors of the Lapps once occupied all northern Europe and Asia within the polar circle, and far south of it, even to the latitude of Berlin, and ethnologists assure us, with the greatest confidence, that they established them- selves in Hungary, and constituted the original stock whence sprung the present Magyars ; the Lapland of the present day is confined between very narrow limits, having the Arctic Ocean on the north, the White Sea on the east, an irregular line on the south, the latitude of the gwlf of Fin- PERPETUAL DAY. 133 land being its most southerly point, and the Atlantic Ocean on the west. This Lapland is divided into Norwegian Lapland, Swedish Lap- land, and Russian Lapland, according to the juris- dictions in which the different parts are situate. The great antiquity of this people seems to be conceded on all hands ; and so also that they are descended from the same original stock as the Finns. Indeed the difference between them now is not very striking, and the evidence of relationship is abundant. When this ancient people first occupied that northern country, or by what name they were formerly designated, or whence they came, no one can pretend to know. Antiquaries find evidence that they were preceded by a race who created the age of polished stone, and that they introduced into western Europe the age of bronze, which testifies to a pretty advanced stage of civilization, when they expelled their prede- cessors of the stone age; or possibly they may themselves have been of the stone age, and so advanced in civilization as to attain the art which characterizes the bronze age. Authors disagree, as we might well expect where the evidence is so slight and uncertain, as 134 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. to the extent of the territory which they origi- nally occupied, some confining them to the Volga and the Dnieper on the south, excepting where the break extended them into Hungary ; while others give them all north of the Danube, and assign to them the whole of Germany and France. Ethnologists have invented for this ancient people a name, which of course is a new name, of which the ancients never heard ; but as they must have a name for the purpose of designation, no doubt the selection has been made for good reasons. They call them Ugrians. This embraces many families, some of which reach nearly to Behring's Strait on the east, and probably they might, without great effort, bring our Esquimaux into the same great division of the human family. By what name they should be called, or whether they preceded the age of bronze or not, I do not now propose to discuss; but I have said this much merely to show that it is conceded on all hands that they are by far the oldest people of Europe. They alone have been able to outlive the heavy tread of the hardy hoards which swept from northern Europe all the others of the ancient peoples ; and finally, after how many centuries we know not, crossed the ^ Alps, and PERPETUAL DAY. 135 spread terror through the higher but degenerate civilization of Rome. We most readily accept the conclusion that the Lapps and Finns are descended from the same stock. In many respects they strongly resemble each other, though the latter may be more ad- vanced in agriculture and many of the arts of civilization. Finmark or the march or territory, as it seems here to mean, of the Fins shows that Fin was a common name, and embraced the Lapps as well. This relationship between the Lapps and Finns is recognized in another way. The Lapps differ from all other aboriginal peoples in the fact that they refuse to intermarry with other stocks of the race, but through all the cen- turies in which they have been in close contact with the Gothic races, they have kept the blood pure and uncontaminated. This could hardly be done as a mere matter of principle or pride, and could only result from inclination. But this aver- sion to other peoples does not extend to the Finns, for with these they freely intermarry, and think it no degradation. The language of the Lapps is very distinct, and but few Norwegians understand it. It differs even from that of the Finns, but philologists have 136 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. no difficulty in tracing their similitudes, and give them a common origin. In quite recent times, the Lapp language has become a written language, with its own alpha- bet and grammar, the two most approved of which are by Stockfleth and Rask. Their alpha- bet is formed upon the phonetic principle, each letter representing a simple sound, which enables the beginner to learn to read much more readily than with our own barbarous and unphilosophical orthography. Since the boon of a written language and printed books has been conferred upon the Lapps there has been a commendable progress in their education, and this is much stimulated by the governmental system, which makes the right of suffrage and other important civil rights depend- ent upon a certain amount of education. This the government places within their reach by sending the schoolmaster among them, who visits their towns and settlements far back in the mountains. The mountain Lapp is still a nomad, partly from habit and choice, and partly from necessity. His herds consist of the reindeer, and they are, to an extent, migratory, as will be hereafter PERPETUAL DAY. 137 noticed, when we come to treat of that animal ; and so he must from necessity follow his wealth in its migrations from the mountains to the coast and back, If Lapp be a proper designation, it is a mod- ern one. Their own native name is Sabme, and, as before intimated, they were formerly called Finns by the Norwegians; hence Finmark for the country which they occupy. Lap is properly a Swedish term, and so is Swedish Lapland called Lapmark. As here used, the word mark, or march, seems to mean something more than the borders of a country, as in England and Scot- land ; but it embraces the country itself occupied by a distinct people, although it occupies the ex- tremity or border of the kingdom. They have no tribal organizations, and affect no independent form of government, like our Indians. The patriarchal influence is quite pro- nounced. While individuals do not acquire titles to the land they occupy, in general they confine their range within certain limits more or less broad, and their preferred right to their camping grounds is respected, while they are not jealous of those who wander into the territories thus occupied. 138 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. There are distinctions of rank among them, arising largely from considerations of wealth. Their wealth consists almost exclusively of rein- deer, which are bought and sold, inherited and given as marriage portions. Some of the most wealthy have many thousand reindeer, and have hired servants to tend them. But their aristocracy is of the primitive kind, and does not depart from the simple habits and mode of life of their ancestors. The rich man lives in the same smoky and filthy hut as the poor, only it is larger, because it must be so to accommodate his larger family ; for his servants or herders are strictly members of his family, and live on an apparent equality with himself. The great kettle is hung over the fire in the middle of the hut and filled with the flesh of the reindeer, and, when it is boiled, all go up and help themselves alike, with fingers or sticks, or with forks and spoons made of the bones or antlers of the deer, or their sheath knives, which always hang at the hip of young and old. All sleep together in the hut on the pallets of deer-skins wherever they can find room. The most wealthy, as well as the poorest, dress in the deer-skin trousers and coat which comes PERPETUAL DAY. 139 nearly to the knees and are girded by a broad belt about the waist. These skins are tanned and made into garments in each household. All that I. saw were tanned with the hair on, and were made up with the hair inside. I saw some little chaps I know not whether girls or boys not more than two or three years old, toddling about the streets in full deer-skin suits. Their shoes are a kind of moccasin, made from the skin taken from the legs of the deer where the hair is short and firm, and much more durable than from other parts of the deer. They are constructed with the hair outward. They come up around the ankles, have a seam under the hollow of the foot, forward of which the hairs have a backward set, and behind which the hairs have a forward set, which prevents slipping. They differ from the Indian moccasin in having a regular sole, which, however, is but one thickness of skin. They are often ornamented with red and tinsel. These are made largely for sale, of various qualities and prices. The little store at Bosekop, where I got a pair, had many bushels of them. An ornamented pair costs a dollar. The Lapps wear them considerably larger than the feet, so they can wrap the feet in a good coating of dried 140 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. grass, which is placed in most of them. Nearly all the Lapps wear caps of a uniform style, mostly made of cloth, so far as I saw, but some of skins. They consist of a heavy, broad band around the forehead, surmounted with a large square crown with sharp points or angles, to some of which small tassels were attached. They varied much in quality and ornamentation. The Lapps are a race of small, hardy men and women. They are stocky or stout in proportion to their height, which is several inches below the standard of the Norwegians among whom they live. They have, in general, broad faces, short chins, and high cheek bones, dark complexions, brown hair, some light and some dark eyes, but I do not remember that I saw one with black eyes. They look more like a smoked white man than like men naturally tawny, and I am not sure but they owe their dark complexions to smoke and mountain soil. Some of them have a wonderfully pleasing and winning expression of countenance. The first Lapp we saw was on the steamer after we left Trondhjem, and I thought I never saw a more agreeable expression on a human face. Perhaps PERPETUAL DAY. 141 this was heightened by the circumstances of his position. He was a wealthy young man, perhaps twenty- four years old. Three months before, he was married to a young lady Lapp, to whom he was devotedly attached, of a wealthy neighboring family. The wedding was a great occasion, and there were high festivities in their mountain home, though there were no newspaper reporters there to describe the table, the presents, the dresses of the ladies or the costume of the bride, or in any other way to honor or to annoy them ; had there been, we might explain what followed. The fes- tivities went on without interruption or mishap, till suddenly the bridegroom was found to be a raving maniac of the violent type. Rejoicing, of course, was turned to grief. There was nothing to be done but to bind him and take him from his weeping bride and place him in an insane asylum, probably at Ganstad, where, I understand, is the only one in Norway. When we met him on the steamer, he had just been discharged cured, and was hastening home to enjoy the bliss of wedded life. Of course his story was soon told among the passengers, and he became an object of general 142 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. solicitude and sympathy. All agreed that he looked happier each hour as it brought him nearer his home and those he loved, who were as anxiously waiting his coming. When he left us at Tromso, and procured a boat to take him on his way, it is not probable that he stopped to fish or play, but more likely that he pulled the oar, as a lusty young man about to commence his honeymoon should do. For four days he had been our fellow-passenger and the object of our sympathy, and it is not strange then that we watched him anxiously so long as his form was visible, and followed him in imagination to the Lapp encampment among the far-off mountains, and pictured to ourselves the joy of father and mother, and, above all, of the bride from whom he had been torn in the very hour of their nuptials. Lapps can love as well as others, and perhaps better too, and certainly more faithfully, for con- jugal infidelity is hardly ever known, and the standard of virtue is so far above that of any other people of whom I have any account, that no comparison can be instituted without doing them injustice. Such fidelity must surely be rewarded with domestic happiness of the highest PERPETUAL DA Y. 143 order, and we may well picture to ourselves the joys of love in a camp as well as in a cottage or a mansion. I saw similar pleasing expressions of counte- nance on many others, though on none other to so great an extent, and some were quite the reverse, though I saw none who looked wicked, vicious and repulsive. The women are generally very plain, and I saw none which might be called handsome. You may endure a man if he is not the pink of neatness, or even cleanliness, but a dirty woman well, it is rarely indeed that you can say she is charm- ing, and so I saw no charming lady Lapps. The Norwegians, as well as the Lapps, use tobacco very freely ; indeed they are absolutely prodigal of it. Both chew it most extravagantly, and smoke it as well. I have met with no other people that I thought could beat my own coun- trymen as chewers of tobacco, or even equal them. The Lapp and his pipe seem as insepara- ble as the Arab and his horse ; and the Nor- wegian, too, is scarcely behind the Lapp in the love of his pipe. Among them I saw none use snuff. Perhaps the ladies of Lapland do so on the sly, as it is said they sometimes do in other 144 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. countries, but I do not believe they do, for I doubt not they would be quite indifferent as to who saw them, if they desired thus to indulge in the use of the soothing herb. I have met some Norwegians who never use tobacco, but they are fewer than in this country. But all the Lapps do not live in the mountains and eat reindeer flesh. Those who have lost their reindeer by some mischance, or who never had any, are forced to come down to the coast and become fishermen for a living. And this in the course of time has established two classes the mountain Lapps and the maritime Lapps. The former are generally well off and often wealthy ; the latter are always poor. These become as expert boatmen and as expert fishermen as the Norwegians, but I heard of no instance where o one, by the force of superior talent or business capacity, had risen above his fellows and become wealthy by employing and directing the services of others ; they seem incapable of rising to a higher level when driven to the pursuits of other races. It does not, however, follow that there are not degrees of capacity among the Lapps, as among other races of men, but rather we should conclude PERPETUAL DAY. 145 that those whose talents would raise them to wealth and distinction among the maritime Lapps have the capacity to acquire wealth and distinc- tion among the mountains, and prefer the mount- ain life, and acquire reindeer rather than the kind of wealth which others more highly prize. Like our own aborigines, they prefer the wild life of the forest and the mountain, and their deep shades and crags and glens, rather than that artificial life of a higher civilization. To a certain extent they may be considered a religious people, like the civilized African in this country, and like him they sometimes develop this sentiment in a frenzied zeal which amounts to a mania. In 1854 some of their religious teachers found some passage in the Scriptures which they con- strued to enjoin as a religious duty the killing of a thousand or some other large number of men, which alone could insure eternal salvation. It did not much matter who the victims were, so as they should be sure and kill enough. Under the influence of this religious frenzy they preached a crusade, and of course found followers, first from zeal and conviction, and then from fear and compulsion, till they collected a great body of 146 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. men, women and children, and rushed to the coast like an avalanche. They first fell upon Bosekop, where they killed several, and among others a prominent merchant and a woman named Ruth Kantima. Long before they had sacrificed the requisite number they were arrested in their mad career, the ringleaders apprehended, and the multitude were driven back to the mountains. Some twenty or thirty were tried for their offenses and convicted, three were decapitated, and the rest suffered imprisonment for various terms. My informant, a Norwegian of intelligence and cult- ure, himself witnessed the capital executions. While this shows a high susceptibility among the Lapps to religious impressions, it also shows a want of balance, examples of which may be found among all peoples and in every age, though much less frequent now than in former times, with the advancement of thought and knowledge and civilization, we may hope that these erratic outbreaks will continue to be less frequent. Even yet the Norwegian peasantry, as well as the Lapps, are prone to superstitions, and have implicit faith in charms and amulets. These are nearly all derived from wild animals of the coun- try. A drink of the warm blood, or a dose of PERPETUAL DAY. 147 pulverized bones, or of the antlers of the deer, strings of the claws or teeth of certain animals worn around the neck, are believed to be wonder- ful remedial agencies for certain diseases, or to have most potent effects to ward off diseases or dangers, and we may understand that a poultice of the finely-chopped flesh of animals may in many cases be a very good application, without attributing to it any supernatural virtues. A string of the claws of the glutton is believed to be an effectual remedy for vertigo or flightiness, and the oil of the same animal is used effectually for the cure of cutaneous diseases. To drink the warm blood of certain animals is supposed to give strength and courage. CHAPTER XI. FIRST SIGHT OF REINDEER; GARDEN HOUSETOPS, THEIR CONSTRUC- TION; BUILDINGS IN HAMMERFEST AND OTHER TOWNS; FUEL; WINTERING OF CATTLE AND HORSES; COWS; DAIRY FARMS; FOOD FOR STOCK; SHEEP, GOATS, HOGS, FOWLS, AND LAPLAND DOGS; MAILS AND TELEGRAPHS; COUR'TESY OF PEOPLE AND OFFICIALS; TEMPERATURE AND LIGHT IN WINTER; WINTER AMUSEMENTS; LOVE OF HOME AND COUNTRY; FISHING AT MIDNIGHT; THE MIDNIGHT SUN AGAIN. r I ^HE morning after our arrival in Hammerfest JL I commenced an exploration of the town and its environs. I first walked the street to the west, and crossed the bridge which spans the raging little stream which there debouches into the bay, and so around the shore at the foot of the mountain which bounds the bay on the west. High up the mountain side several moving objects attracted my attention. I scrutinized them through my glass, and then saw my first reindeer. They were too far away to satisfy my curiosity, and so I returned and walked up the valley. The road led me across a bank of snow a quarter of a mile in width. Far up the mount- ain side I saw another small herd of deer, which 150 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. seemed to be making their way down, and I watched them through the glass for half an hour. Some were white and some brown, but scarcely any two of the same shade of color. Their ant- lers were in the velvet, and seemed to be half grown. The antlers of the does seemed to have made relatively about the same advance as the bucks, but were scarcely more than one fourth the size. When they got within three hundred yards they took alarm, probably from winding me, and dashed away into the valley below, and next appeared half a mile distant. I confessed a surprise that domesticated animals, the probable descendants of those who had been in domesti- cation for many centuries, should be so wild, while they are herded and yarded, and driven from place to place, like sheep, in my own country. Subsequent observations and informa- tion explained this phenomenon. The domesticated reindeer retain the discrim- inating sense of smell, scarcely impaired, from the wild state. Like all the others of the deer family, their powers of vision are obtuse and uncertain, while this is compensated in a remarkable degree by the sense of smell. The odor from the Lapp is peculiar, and differs widely from another race, PERPETUAL DAY. 151 and so does the odor of one individual differ from that of another. They become familiar with that of the herder and all those with whom they come in constant contact, and so take no notice of them, while that of a stranger alarms them, and they make off almost with the timidity of the wild deer. We have observed that the fishermen's huts, and even buildings of considerable pretensions, are covered with earth, on which was growing a good coat of vegetation. The roofs are first covered with strips or sheets of bark from the white birch. This bark is an article of commerce. It is gathered in the back country, and packed down to the coast in bales or bundles of about one hundred and fifty pounds each, as I should judge from those I saw at the landings. It appears to be precisely the same as that used by our Indians in the construction of their bark canoes, and I am surprised it has not been used in Lapland for the same purpose. After the roof has been well covered with this bark, it is then covered with about eight inches of earth, supported at the eves by a flange or upright board of the proper width. On this the vegetation grows. I was surprised that this did 152 A SUMMED IN NORWAY. not die out with the drouth, in an atmosphere where fish without salt will in six weeks' time dry to a mere scrap, and become almost as hard as horn, and where the meat will be scarcely thicker than the skin. During all this time there are frequent showers, but they are usually of short duration, and do not saturate the drying fish ; but the moisture left on the surface is soon dispelled by the sun, in that cool and pure atmos- phere, leaving no taint or even stain behind. These showers moisten the earth on the house- tops, and keep the vegetation in vigorous life. On one of the houses in Hammerfest, on the main street of the town, an exceedingly small white kid had taken up his abode, and was always seen whenever we passed the house, sometimes cropping the grass and weeds, sometimes gambol- ing and frisking about in the happiest imaginable mood, as if he had no fears of falling to the ground, and sometimes sleeping in the bright sunshine. All along the coast, in the little hamlets, and in the larger towns, the buildings are of wood, built not of boards and joists, but like a block house. Poles or small logs are hewn down to a thickness of four or six inches. The edges PERPETUAL DAY. 153 are then flattened, and all brought to a width, and with these the walls of the house are built up, the corners being dovetailed together. The partitions are often of the same material. Some- times these sticks are dressed with a plane with great nicety, and at others are rough hewn, depending on the pretensions of the structure. In all cases the seams between the logs are calked with moss. The finest finished wooden houses in the towns all have their walls built up in this way, though they are covered inside and out with a finish, so as to entirely hide the walls proper. No plan can be conceived to make a warmer house than this, which explains the reason of its adoption in so cold a country as Norway. These houses are nearly always painted. Among the peasantry and fishermen red is the prevailing color, though I saw some of yellow. In the towns and cities both white and red are ob- served. The fuel for domestic use is wood, white birch or fir, which has to be brought down from the mountains in the interior in the high latitudes, and so is rather expensive ; but they economize it much by making their dwellings as warm as possible. 154 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. Even at this extremely northern point horses and cattle are kept, but both are very small and appear to be very hardy, and I have no doubt are so. I should have said ponies rather than horses. I saw none under the saddle, though I understood they are frequently ridden. A num- ber were at work in little rickety carts, hauling stone, earth and goods about the town. They were rough-looking brutes, and appeared as if they could live on pine shavings. The cows are more peculiar, and I may say deformed, in their structure than the ponies. I met a herd of eleven one day coming in from the mountains, and they afforded me a fine study. Six of the lot were pollards, or entirely destitute of horns. They were very small with large necks, and legs so short that their bellies came nearly to the ground, and were of various colors. Udders of good size in proportion to their bodies. They seemed to be very gentle. I heard of several dairy farmers within the Arctic Circle, but they live at the heads of the fjords and in the lower valleys, and drive their cattle back into the mountains in summer, where they have regular dairy establishments. In winter they all move down to the coast. It was a mystery to me how PERPETUAL DAY. 155 they could get fodder for their stock through these long cold winters. I learned that it is an object of solicitude with the dairyman. He secures all the hay he can on the little patches where it grows, but his principal resource is the reindeer moss. This is short, of a dull white color, and crispy, with very short roots, and is very nutritious. It covers all the mountains with a very dense coat. This moss the farmers rake up by the roots into bunches, when it is allowed to stand and cure for a time, then it is carefully housed and reserved for winter fodder, for which it serves an excellent purpose. The amount of cattle food furnished by this moss in Norway is absolutely unlimited, when we consider its nutri- tive qualities. While it is not universal on the mountains it is very prevalent, and the burthen is very large. In crossing the Dover-fjeld I saw it in abundance. An important auxiliary is found in the sea- weed, which the absence of ice enables the dairy- man to rake up from the bottom of the bays in the winter season. As this is likely to freeze so soon as it is exposed to the atmosphere, it is cooked before it is fed to the stock, which process, no doubt, improves its digestible qualities also. 156 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. This reminded me that I had often seen cattle wade out into the shallow waters of the St. John's river in Florida, and submerge their heads entirely, and then raise them with mouths full of seaweed or grass brought up from the bottom. Browse, also, is made available for winter food for cattle ; but it is not in extensive supply. As a last extremity, herring, which are caught in very large quantities in all these waters, is used as food for cattle, and while they do not take to it kindly at first, they do eat it, and without injury so far as I could learn. The herrings are piled in stacks, where they freeze into solid masses, and when wanted for use portions are chopped off with an ax, and are cooked, and mixed with the sea-grass, when it is treated in the same way, so that the animal is mixed with the vegetable food when fed to the stock. Within the Arctic Circle I saw many flocks of sheep. They are of an inferior quality, have coarse wool, with a very large proportion of black among them. With wild animals the most northern of a given species furnish the finest fur, and generally, though not always, white prevails more in the North than in the South, while in both these respects the reverse seems to be the PERPETUAL DAY. 157 case with the sheep. We have always been taught to look for the finest wool in Spain, where the sheep are nearly all white. I compared a flock in Tromso and found one third to be black, and many of them intensely black. Goats are frequent in northern Norway, but cannot be said to be abundant. As might be expected, they are of inferior size, but their ability to live on almost any vegetable, we sup- pose recommends them to favor. Swine are kept everywhere there, but not ex- tensively. They are raised rather as a family in- stitution than for profit. Their fondness for fish should insure them an abundance of palatable food, but it is probably not the kind best adapted for fattening purposes. Common chickens -I observed about the barns and yards not half the size of ours, but they were well-flavored and very acceptable after hav- ing feasted on fish till you think you will never want to see another brought upon the table. I was disappointed to find so few domestic ducks and geese where their favorite element almost o washes every door-step ; probably they do not like the long cold winters. Cats and dogs are found wherever human 158 A SUMMED IN NORWAY. beings are, and of course are represented in Norway as in all other places. Among the Lapps they have a valuable breed of dogs, corresponding to the shepherd's dog in countries where sheep are extensively kept. These dogs are carefully trained to their work, and are of the greatest service in herding and driving the reindeer. As they are all brought up together the deer know them, and learn to submit to them in a very exemplary way. It is said that one of these dogs is worth more than several men in the man- agement of a herd of deer. They even learn to know each individual deer in a large drove, and will readily distinguish a stranger which may join the herd. These dogs are not fed sumptuously, but quite the reverse, although their valuable ser- vices and great fidelity should entitle them to a good living. I could learn of no case where dogs are worked in harness, as is the case with our Esquimaux. The post and telegraph are established along the Norwegian coast to Vardo and Vadso, which may be considered the confines of Norwegian jurisdiction. For the telegraph many short cables must be used to cross the fjords and straits which everywhere intercept the route along the coast. PERPETUAL DAY. 159 It is established and maintained by the govern- ment, and is managed in a very satisfactory way, generally in connection with the post, each depart- ment occupying separate rooms, which are adjoin- ing. All telegraph operators must undergo an examination in writing and speaking Norwegian, German, English, and French, though the latter is less indispensable, and some of them, I found, spoke English very imperfectly. Still we could get along and make each other understood. The people of Hammerfest maintained the well-deserved reputation of the Norwegians for hospitality and kindness to strangers. If you ask a boy or a man in the streets the way to the tele- graph office that is a word you can make all understand instead of pointing you the way he will most likely turn round and lead the way for half a mile, if need be, to show you the place inquired for, nor will any remonstrance on your part dissuade him from the execution of his benevolent purpose. I cannot omit mentioning the courtesy of the chief clerk, or manager, as we would call him, of the telegraph office in Hammerfest, who had once visited America, where he had been kindly re- ceived. He insisted on devoting every moment 160 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. of time he could spare from his official duties to us. In order to see the midnight sun at Hammer- fest, it is necessary to row out a mile and a half opposite the mouth of the bay, where a clear view of the horizon at the surface of the water is obtained. This gentlema'n engaged a fisher- man with fishing tackle, and accompanied us out, explaining all objects of interest, and un- weariedly answered questions in reference to the country and the people, their mode of living and conducting business, their sports, their merry- makings and their pleasures ; how they spend their long winter nights, and a thousand other things which a traveler desires to learn when he visits foreign countries. From him and also from many others I learned that immediately upon the sea-shore the weather is not excessively or even uncomfortably cold ; nor is it dark during the winter night, but rather as it is with us when the snow is on the ground and the moon at her full ; still the light is of a different character and appearance. This arises from the boreal lights which, during the winter, are ever streaming up the northern sky, enabling one, even when there is no moon, to distinguish PERPETUAL DAY. 161 countenances at a short distance. The winter nights are made the occasions for joyous gather- ings and social meetings, which, with their music and dancing and frolics, are looked forward to rather with pleasing anticipations than an un- pleasant dread. In talking with the residents of Hammerfest I found them as much attached to their country and its peculiarities as are people of other coun- tries, and indeed they seemed to think it strange that everybody did not prefer Hammerfest as a place of residence. Their jolly good winters, their long, unbroken day of summer, their pure, invigorating atmosphere, their ever-open sea and bold, grand mountain scenery all had charms for them which, in their estimation, could no- where else be equaled. The love of home is a blessed thing, and so is it fortunate that the varying tastes of mankind serve to content peo- ple in every portion of the habitable globe. If all loved the tropics, or all sought the frigid zone, all mankind would swarm into a very lim- ited space and but a fraction of the present human family could find room in which to live. We left the wharf in our fishing-boat at 10:30 P. M., and when out about half-way, stopped at 162 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. what our fishermen considered a favorable place, that is, shoal water, not more than from forty to sixty feet deep, and the ladies took their first lessons in cod-fishing. One large hook is attached to the end of the line, with no bait but some bright object at- tached to it. Two yards above the hook is the sinker, of six or eight pounds of lead, attached to a short branch line. This is thrown over- board and let run out till the sinker strikes the bottom ; it is then drawn in a little more than the fathom, so that the hook will be just clear of the bottom. Then commences the fishing, which consists in raising the hand holding the line as high as possible and then lowering it to the gunwale of the boat, and the more vigorous this pumping operation the greater the success to be expected. I tell the truth when I say that the feather-edge of sport soon gets worn off when fishing becomes such work instead of play. However, every new bite stimulates the neophyte, and to haul in a slapping codfish, that makes the water fly over everything and every- body is a triumph which makes one quite forget the labor, or that wet clothes are not the most agreeable and healthy of all things. PERPETUAL DAY. 163 We took a few fish at the first stopping place ; but they were pronounced not to be biting well, and we pulled away to a more favorite shoal, which commanded a view of the mouth of the harbor, and was the desired posi- tion for the main object of our visit. The fish, we thought, were biting well as mid- night approached. The sun was still hanging in the heavens and very slowly descending to- ward the horizon, but passing to the north much more rapidly. I held my watch as the minute hand slowly passed the dots upon the dial and approached the point which should denote the close of the present day and mark the begin- ning of another. Slower and slower the sun seemed to move, until finally he looked as if hung in heaven at a stationary point, where he appeared to rest before commencing his ascend- ing course on a new day's journey. For two minutes or more he paused, and I was unable to detect any movement in his course. In that space the last minute of the day was passed, and was finally buried in the tomb of time and was mingled with the ages of the past. Slowly the sun began to ascend the heavens, and ap- parently with accelerated motion, giving his light 164 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. to cheer the new-born day. He shone just as brightly at his lowest point as before or after. He gave a sickly light at best, which lacked the fervor of the light he gives in lower latitudes. He stopped in his descending course when about one-sixth the distance from the zenith to the horizon remained to reach the water of the ocean. For a stranger to such scenes to watch that supreme moment was full of intense excitement, and I scarcely heard the shouts of triumph by the ladies, whose ambition was to catch a fish at the moment of midnight, and within a minute of that moment all three were hauling in their lines, and it became a struggle who should land the struggling victim first, all shouting in joyous exultation at the exciting sport. I was too ab- sorbed with the natural phenomenon to enter into the spirit of their contest. For the time at least the enthusiasm of the sportsman was lost, inspired by nature's wondrous works so strangely revealed before me. As the sun traveled on his journey he gradually lost his unwonted interest, and I again thought of the fishing which was actively going on around me. Soon all were pretty thoroughly wet, and the PERPETUAL DAY. 165 cool breeze coming in from the north began to make us all feel chilly, so the lines were taken in and we set our faces for home, which we reached before one o'clock. The score was twenty-one codfish, and the fisherman complained that the fish were obstinate and would not bite, and he felt he had not given us the worth of our money ; but as his charge was but one dollar, I confess I was quite satisfied with the investment. You may suppose it was now time to get to bed, and so should we have thought, no doubt, had it been dark ; but as it was full daylight all the time, and as the people in the hotel were still up and active, we ordered some of our fish cooked at once, and our friend stayed to dinner with us. The quicker a fish is cooked after it leaves the water the better it is, and as these were right fresh and well cooked, and the excursion in the cool bracing air upon the water had given us good appetites, we enjoyed this midnight dinner most charmingly. By three o'clock we got to bed, and with the aid of blankets to darken the room got a good sound sleep for s'everal hours. CHAPTER XII TRADE IN HAMMERFEST; THE LAPP QUARTER; AMERICAN CONSUL; LEAVE HAMMERFEST; OUR NORTHERN POSITION; ISLAND CHAN- NELS; BOSEKOP, THE LAPLAND EDEN; THE HOTEL; AN ARCTIC BOUQUET; RAPID GROWTH OF FLOWERS; PEAT BOGS; CHURCH ARCHITECTURE; THE FORESTS; VALLEY OF THE ALTEN RIVER; CODFISH TRADE; UNCONSCIOUSLY AID A TRUANT; AN HISTORICAL MONUMENT. THE time we spent in Hammerfest was very pleasant. But the midnight sun loses its novelty and its charm at last, and we even weary of perpetual day, and begin to long for night and darkness. It does not take long to see the sights of Hammerfest. None of us were equal to climbing the high mountain back of us, for I was still suffering from my hurt received at Bodo, and could accomplish none but gentle walks, where I could step cautiously and with little effort ; so we had to forego the grand view which is to be obtained from the top of this mountain, which overlooks the ocean at the north, so that from that high point you may count the thousand lower islands which dot the surface of the sea. (167) 168 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. The walk along the wharves was often re- peated. They swarmed with little boats, which seemed to be the homes of whole families of Lapps, with all their household goods, always some going and others arriving. Vessels from the Mediterranean, the Baltic and the White Sea, to the number of a score or more, were resting quietly at anchor, but scarcely any close to the docks. They were taking in fish or discharging cargo in a listless, lazy way, which showed they were in no hurry to get to sea again. The Lapp quarter occupies a very narrow street close to the water, and its filthy appear- ance and unpleasant odors not from the oil factories strongly reminded me of the Chinese quarter in San Francisco. I confess I was not strongly tempted to enter them, but as a matter of duty I did go into one, which answered for the whole, and satisfied my curiosity. It was small and filthy and not sweet smelling, and was full of Lapps of all ages and both sexes, all talk- ing and gesticulating or crying, which made one suspect he was in pandemonium. Trinkets were there for sale made of the antlers of the deer or their skins and sinews. I was not in a trading mood, and so carried away all my money. In such PERPETUAL DAY. 169 a place and scene in any other country I might have doubted the probability of this, but^with all their loud talking- and demonstrations one need have o no fear of violence among them. Their integrity is well established, and they are not given to violence. Crime is very rare among them. Prob- ably in no part of the world is less violence to be feared than in Finmark, where statistics show that crime is of rare occurrence. I paid my respects to the gentleman to whom I was referred as the American Consul, whose official duties are far from onerous indeed they may be said to be nominal who accepts the title for the honor rather than the profit, and is gratified to enjoy the distinction of representing our country in that part of Norway, and is delighted at an opportunity of being in any way serviceable to those he claims as his distant con- stituents, when they happen to wander within his jurisdiction. It was a source of deep regret that the severe colds with which the ladies suf- fered after the midnight fishing excursion pre- vented them from paying their respects to his good lady, of whose courtesy and kindness we heard the most favorable reports from all who met her. 170 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. Having completed our stay at Hammerfest, we bade it farewell, not without regret at parting with those who had treated the strangers with so much kindness, and soon after breakfast went on board the little steamer which, as before stated, serves as a tender to those of the regular line, by running along the coast far into the interior. We were soon on our way from this most north- ern point I ever expect to reach. Our course led us over the spot where we had seen the midnight sun a few evenings before, and where the ladies had so much enjoyed the fishing. Thence we turned a point to the left, which shut out the last view of the quiet little town, which is situated so far within the Arctic Circle as to give it one distinction at least above all the greatest cities of the world, and for this alone, if for no other reason, it must ever be a place of interest to the traveler. We could hardly comprehend how far north we were till we looked upon the map and traced the parallels from one continent to the other, and found we were several degrees north of Behring's Strait, and nearly on the line with Barrow's Point, the extreme point of the conti- nent on the northwest coast of America, which PERPETUAL DAY. 171 is so far thrust out into the frozen ocean. Here the ocean never freezes ; there it is always frozen, except for a short time in summer. Now we were in the same latitude with the western magnetic pole on Boothia Felix, near and but little north of which Sir John Franklin and his party were frozen in, and finally perished to the last man. When the map revealed these relative positions, we saw that in very truth we were a long way from home, and were well on our way to the pole itself. Our course soon changed to the southeast, and we quickly threaded our way among the maze of islands and through the crooked channels, where a stranger would have become inextricably con- fused and lost. The day was beautiful ; the sun shone brightly, the air was soft and sweet and bracing. The eider-ducks were constantly flying across our course, and small herds of reindeer were seen on the sides of the mountains, or in the intervales near the water's edge. Fishing huts were often passed, and the fishermen in their boats were frequently met with, and there only lacked the appearance of a bear or a stately elk to fill up the picture of animated nature. The scenery this day was finer than any we 172 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. had before met, and we spent the day upon the deck, enjoying it to the full, and the mind would involuntarily wander back to pre-historic times and wonder who, with human eyes, first saw these steep mountains and bold shores, who first climbed the craggy cliffs or attempted to pick his way along these fjords and among these fantastic islands, each so widely differing from the other, and yet many so rugged and so frowning? What were those people like and who are their descendants? Where are the rec- ords they have left, and in what condition did they live ? Ancient relics here are scarce, and the paleontologist finds scant record to tell him of the past. The islands, however, which we this day passed were not all mountains. The views were diversified with lower lands and tamer scenery. On quite a number the surface was compara- tively low and level and covered with trees and shrubbery, almost out of keeping with the usual scenery in arctic Norway. In the afternoon we reached the head of Alten Fjord and made our final landing at Bosekop. This has, by some, been called the Eden of Lapland, and is certainly the most beau- PERPETUAL DAY. 173 tifully located of any place we saw in Finmark. The shipping is accommodated at a small dock, adjoining which are two small warehouses. From this point the bluff rises about one foot in eight to the altitude of about one hundred feet, where occurs a narrow table and then another more gentle ascent, of less height to the .level country stretching away inland. Further south there is more space between the water and the bluff, along which runs a street or road, bordered by peasants' cottages or fishermen's cabins. The broad hill-side was covered with a rich carpet of green grass, which presented a cheer- ful prospect An evergreen forest crowned the heights beyond, and we seemed all at once to have entered upon a scene of rich vegetation, quite in contrast with the barrenness or stunted growth we had everywhere previously met. The hotel is a large two-story wooden house, built in the manner before described, and newly painted white, and standing as it does on that first high table, commands a view of the great bay in front for ten miles or more, and is a conspicuous object, which may be seen at a great distance from the southern part of the bay, but is hidden by a high promontory from 174 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. the northern approach. There was no carriage there to take us up the hill, so we had to make the ascent on foot. It was a hard task for the invalid and was a work of time. Frequent rests upon the soft grass lightened the labor much, and so we reached the house, where we found comfortable rooms comfortable for those who desire to be satisfied and pleased with what is clean, though very plain, and really provides for one's physical nature as well as if luxuries were thrown in ; for here, certainly, there was not the least appearance of luxury. But the people were obliging and desirous to please, and this is a seasoning which makes palatable very plain fare indeed. Those who are always quar- reling with their bread and butter are not likely to have a pleasant journey. After taking possession of our new quarters and seeing all things made comfortable, I sallied out to explore, and soon found myself at the top of the second table. It was a luxury to find myself walking on a carpet of rich, green grass, and what was still more pleasing, I found among the grass quite a variety of wild flowers, and during a short walk I gathered a pretty arctic bouquet. This was cheering news, and I hastened PERPETUAL DAY. 175 to the house to communicate it, and to present the evidence that if nature frowns upon these I bleak regions with stern rigor she smiles as well at times. Of course all must be enthusi- astic over arctic flowers, and a regular excursion in search of them was planned for the next day. A single day showed a wonderful develop- ment of flowers, and indeed all vegetation. Ten flowers were found now where one was met the day before, and many new varieties which were not then observed, so that we had no trouble in making a fine collection. On the top of the upper table an extensive peat bog was found, though apparently of lim- ited depth. Several excavations showed where peat, though of an inferior quality, had been taken for fuel, and drains were cut through it in various directions. Many cows were pasturing upon it, though the grass seemed coarser and less abundant than beyond it. The most abundant vegetation found on the peat bog was a low, shrubby vine, on which a yellow berry grows, about the size of a mulberry, which is called Multebar, and is extensively used in that country in the form of 176 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. sauce. It is also made into preserves when fresh, and thus kept, and it is even exported in bar- rels. I confess it was not agreeable to my palate. It lacked flavor, and had an insipid taste. t With longer use I might, no doubt, become fond of it. On our first arrival at Bosekop scarcely one of these vines was in bloom ; yet in two days after the ground was white with the flowers all over the peat bed. The deposit of peat I found very common on the rocky islands and in places where I should not have thought of looking for it. I found it often spread out in thin sheets, not more than one or two inches thick,, on the steep sides of the otherwise naked rock, hundreds of feet up the declivity, where one would suppose it would be washed off by the first heavy rain. Geolo- gists may, no doubt, readily explain how it got there and how it is retained, but I confess it is to me a profound mystery. Of course it was poor and unfit for fuel of any considerable value ; but still it was true peat, and would make a fire when nothing better could be found. Still back of the peat bog and on the highest elevation stood the Lutheran church, a good- sized, commodious structure, painted white, ex- PERPETUAL DAY. 177 cept the steeple, which was black. Nearly all the Lutheran churches in Norway are of one style of architecture. They have high, steep roofs, with tall, slender spires, and with a closed porch in front, and then an ante-room, the roof of which is still higher, which is attached to the main building under the spire. To the opposite or back end of the church is attached a small structure. This suggested to an unregenerate sinner the horrid conundrum, "Why is the Nor- wegian church like a rolling-pin ? " To which he coolly answered, " Because it tapers at both ends!" Around this church are quite a number of neat and comfortable dwellings. This suburb is full half a mile back from the town near the bay. The country back was covered with a pine forest. The trees were not large, but were abundant. Deciduous trees were met with fur- ther south and down the bluff, but they were scarcely more than shrubs. So far as I went in the interior the country was pretty level ; but the soil was light and not very productive. In several places the forest had been cleared away and snug farmsteads established ; but not suffi- 178 _ A SUMMER IN NORWAY. cient to show that, even in that favored spot, agriculture was prosperous. At the most thrifty looking place I saw, the farmer was a blacksmith as well, and it is quite probable that his thrift was owing as much to this as to that occupation. The old plows lying around outside his shop, and apparently abandoned for use, showed some curious designs, while others resembled our own very much. I did not extend my rambles into the valley, or rather the bottoms of the Alten river ; but obtained a pretty extensive view of the valley, which had the appearance of a prosperous agri- cultural country, with fine farms and houses, which was refreshing to look upon in the arctic regions. This rich valley extends far back into the country and relieves the general sterility of the land. The Alten river is a large stream, and famous for its salmon-fishing, and empties into the fjord a few miles east of the town. A mile or more below the town, upon an extensive shingle beach, were a great many little stacks of codfish, which had there been dried, and were now being taken away in small boats and loaded in bulk into a schooner lying at the PERPET.UAL DAY, 179 dock. Men and women, girls and boys, to the number of thirty or forty, were engaged in this service, and, except the children, they for their services received thirty skillings per day of about twelve hours work. The girls, especially, seemed very strong, and were the most efficient hands. There were no young men among them. These were, no doubt, all off fishing at night, or what should be night ; for the fishing-boats, I observed, went out about six o'clock in the even- ing, and were generally returned before I was up in the morning. I took a walk down the beach and inspected more closely the numerous stacks of codfish, and then turned away to the left and followed a blind road, which led me to the upper bluff, through a dense growth of shrubbery, and thence made my way along the top of the bluff, toward the town, passing several cabins on the way, surrounded by gardens, which were just being planted on the third of July. As I was passing one of these cabins a stout little lad, about three years old, joined me and trotted along in front till we came to a brook, across which a stick was laid to serve as a foot passage. The child made me understand he 180 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. wanted to cross, so I picked him up and set him down on the other side, as I supposed to join some men at work by the side of the path, among whom I assumed was his father. He led the way past them, however, without the least notice, and trotted on in a waddling gait, but with an independent air, which now became amusing. When I stopped to examine the pros- pect, or some interesting object, he would stop and wait for me, as if he were in my service as a guide. When we came to a set of bars across the main road, which we there joined, leading down to the hotel, he stopped and waited till I opened them, and then tumbled through and trotted down the hill. Presently I heard a fe- male voice calling out in a sharp, commanding tone which put the boy at once at the top of his speed, and he certainly made good time, for one of his form and years, down the hill ; but the mother as I presume came rushing by me in hot pursuit, with long and rapid strides, and soon overtook the runaway, and caught him up and made several impressions on him with her brawny hand, which must have left the cu- ticle of the young Norwegian in rather a glow- ing condition. She then shouldered the lad and PERPETUAL DAY. 181 packed him off up the hill and toward home, in a way which plainly said she was not pleased with the truant habits of her young hopeful. I did not suspect that the boy was running away till the irate mother thus suddenly burst in upon the scene, and when I did comprehend the situation I could not help admiring how ingeni- ously the little rascal had managed to get me to help him over the brook, which the good house- wife had, no doubt, depended upon as a sure bar- rier to his truant habits, and how the confident and quiet air he had all along assumed tended to allay any suspicion of the real truth. That lad, I have little doubt, will yet make his mark. CHAPTER XI II. HISTORICAL MONUMENT; HAROLD HAARFAGER, NORWAY'S FIRST AND GREAT KING; THE STORY OF HIS CONQUEST OF KINGDOM AND QUEEN; THE EXPELLED JARLS; THEIR SETTLEMENTS AND COLONIES; DISCOVERY OF ICELAND; ITS SETTLEMENT, REPUB- LICAN GOVERNMENT, CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY, HISTORIANS AND POETS; DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT OF GREENLAND; SCAN- DINAVIAN CLAIM OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA; THE SEVERAL EXPEDITIONS; THE FIRST WHITE MAN BURIED AND THE FIRST WHITE CHILD BORN IN AMERICA; CREDIT TO WHICH THESE CLAIMS OF DISCOVERY ARE ENTITLED. IN the course of this ramble I observed some distance from the path along which the way was leading me, in a lone and desolate looking place, a rough monument, consisting of a single thick granite slab, about twelve feet high, which I approached, and read high up on its face this inscription : HAROLD, 872. CARL, 1872. I had heard no mention of this monument, and hence was looking for nothing of the kind. When I found it I was at no loss to understand that the first line referred to the first great king of Norway, who reigned a thousand years ago, (183) 184 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. while the second explained itself. I could not doubt that the first was designed to commemo- rate some great event in the life or reign of Harold Haarfager connected with Norway, and probably with the very spot where the column is raised ; but what that particular event was no one could explain. The epoch referred to was, no doubt, the final conquest of the petty governments into which Norway was divided ; but if the closing scene was there enacted I did not know of it, nor what was the last act to complete the final conquest. Harold Haarfager was the son and heir of Halvdan the Black, who was king in southern Sweden and southeastern Norway, as the bound- aries now run. Edsvoldbakken, of which I shall have occasion to say more hereafter, was the seat of government, or the place where the people used to assemble en masse to make the laws. At that time Norway was divided into thirty- one principalities or earldoms, which were gov- erned by independent jarls or earls, not abso- lutely or despotically, but as the leaders of petty democracies where classes of the people, more or less select, participated directly in legislation. PERPETUAL DAY, 185 When Harold Haarfager was born is not known, and the computations which have been made to settle the date of his nativity do not agree, and none are quite satisfactory. If we accept 850 as the date of his birth, we make him a greater prodigy in love than he is proved to have been in war. We may accept the year 860 as a better authenticated date for the time when he com- menced the war against the neighboring jarls for the unification of the crown of Norway. It is said that he was stimulated to undertake that great enterprise by his love for Gyda, the daughter of the neighboring king of Hordoland, whose beauty and accomplishments had become famous. So he sent an embassy to offer her his heart if not his hand. The ambitious maiden rejected his proposal with a lofty and dignified scorn, and sent him word that she would not be- come the wife of any one less than a real king, governing in his own right the entire country. Let him first subdue the trifling- fellows who as- o sumed to rule as jarls the petty districts, which they called their own, and reign as supreme king of Norway, and then she might possibly think of him should she still be disengaged. 186 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. A spirit so congenial to his own ambitious aspirations captivated him still more than her matchless beauty, and he resolved to win her upon the conditions which she proposed. Now this Harold had a beautiful head of yellow hair, with a rich and flowing beard, which was the admiration of the whole world ; and to assure Gyda how much he was in earnest, he swore by all the gods, and especially Odin and Thor, that he would never cut his hair or trim his beard, and some of his greatest admirers, who wish to put it very strongly, say, nor comb them either I believe some say that he fore- swore the use of water till he should accom- plish the sanguinary task which was the condition on which depended his success in that important love affair. For twelve long years, and some say fifteen, and some even more, the unkempt lover fought his way through Norway, subduing one after another the petty jarls who had before held independent sway, until, finally, he found all prostrate at his feet, and obeying him as their lawful sovereign, or else they had fled to other lands, and sought new homes beyond the reach of his long arm. Not content with Norway alone, the tide of PERPETUAL DAY, 187 his triumph rolled westward across the boisterous North Sea, and overwhelmed the Orkneys and the Hebrides. He was a terrible man, and none could stand before him. It may be well imagined that in subduing all the jarls of Norway he subdued the obdurate heart of Gyda as well, and now that her condi- tion had been complied with, and he had clipped and combed his hair and beard, and washed, she fell into the arms of love, which were also the arms of valor, without further importunity, and with only the second asking, for now she won a glittering crown as well as a glowing heart. What though it was not a virgin heart and all her own, as it probably would have been had she said yes at first, the crown made up what was lost of heart. It may not be easy for those of this generation, when staid and monogamic habits have revolutionized the sense of the pro- prieties of life, to understand how the triumphant bride could feel no humiliation in the knowledge that she possessed but a fraction of her husband's love, and share the royal couch with half a dozen other wives, more or less. With how many he had consoled himself during his long 188 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. probation history does not certainly inform us, but hints that they were many. Thus was established one of the greatest dynasties of northern Europe, and to his mem- ory the monument was erected which I found in the lonely place on the high bluff beyond Bosekop, many degrees within the Arctic Circle. The particular event with which Charles XVI. was ambitious to associate his name with that of the great king could not be mistaken ; although the date of the final conquest of the reigning jarls and the complete unification of the crown of Norway is stated differently by different his- torians, we may now consider it as settled by authority that it was in 872. What event connected this particular place with that great epoch, to have designated it as the site of the monument, I dare not pretend to say. It tells the passer by that a thousand years have passed since Harold did some great deed there, or perhaps that some great naval battle upon the bay beneath the place was fought, whence its fluctuating fortunes and final triumph could be observed. Often unlocked for results follow violent events. So it was in this case. The triumph PERPETUAL DAY. 189 of the lance secured the triumph of learning. The establishment of monarchy gave birth to a new republic. The extension of conquest led the way to the extension of discoveries, far more startling than were ever known before, and led the vikings of the far north to a sight of longer winter days and more fertile lands than their ancestors had ever known. From the land of the Lapp they found the way to the home of the " Skraellinger," a wilder, a fiercer, a darker and a more savage race than they had ever before dreamed of, without a knowledge of the arts or agriculture, except of the rudest kind ; without domestic animals, without fixed abodes or institutions, in a country capable of the high- est culture, and fit for a home of refinement and knowledge. Such was the land and such the people discovered by the Northmen forced into distant seas by the heavy hand of Harold, and it may be interesting to the American reader at least to devote a few pages to an account of those great discoveries. During the twelve years' war which Harold Haarfager prosecuted against the small Norway democracies, and which finally terminated in their subjugation, in the latter part of the ninth 190 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. century, many distinguished Norwegians fled to other countries rather than submit to the sway of the conqueror. The vikings sailed away with their followers to the British Isles and the north- ern coast of France, and many distinguished Norwegians sought an asylum in the more northern groups of islands, the Faroes, Shetlands, Orkneys, and the Hebrides, although there too the sway of the conqueror was felt, though less rigorously. Although Iceland may have been visited from the Mediterranean centuries before the Christian era, and is claimed to have been seen by some wanderers much later, still the world was in fact ignorant of its existence till the very year in which Harold commenced his war of conquest of Norway, when it was visited by one of those Norse sea-rovers named Naddodd. Four years later Gardar, a Swedish navigator, fell in with the island and gave it his own name. Six years later two Norwegians, Ingolfr and Leif, while cruising in the northern seas, came upon this great island, and from its frigid surroundings and appearance gave it the name which it has ever since borne. From these various discoveries the existence PERPETUAL DAY. 191 of the island became generally known, and its quiet though inhospitable seclusion began to be canvassed as a fit asylum by those of scholastic taste in Norway, who were sick of turmoil and bloodshed and longed for that peace so indis- pensable to the rich indulgence of their culti- vation and refinement. The result was that in 874 a considerable number of the most learned Norwegians, who hated tyranny and loved the old freedom which was now greatly curtailed though not entirely crushed out in their native land, taking with them their families, friends and effects, and with many sighs and regrets, bid farewell to the rugged shores of Norway and sailed to Ice- land, where they made a settlement, which served as a nucleus for succeeding immigrations of the same people, who rapidly followed, till a very considerable state was formed. They instituted a government of their own, modeled after the independent forms which Harold had overthrown at home, which secured to every one the utmost freedom consistent with the public safety. This free republic continued with the utmost 192 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. quiet and good order till overthrown by Den- mark more than four hundred years later. The quiet of this far-off place, instead of causing them to relapse into barbarism, invited them to mental culture, and in the end the inhospitable island situated on the very borders of the Arctic Circle, became, in fact, an impor- tant seat of learning. There the old and the wise recounted to each other and carefully compared the traditions and stories which each had received from seniors to whom they had been handed down by preceding generations, and recited the poems which they had heard sung by their ancestors, or composed by them- selves to commemorate the events of their own times. Thus were the long arctic nights of winter profitably employed in learned discus- sions and dissertations, while the outside world was disturbed by drunken brawls and bloody wars, the approaching shadows of the dark ages hanging over and retarding the advancement of the human mind. Still paganism was the prevalent religion. Temples to Thor and Odin were still reared and consecrated, but without enslaving their votaries and bowing them beneath a yoke of PERPETUAL DAY. 193 insupportable bigotry and superstition. All the while the mental light grew stronger and stronger, till finally an hundred years after the first establishment of the republic, the effulgence of Christianity broke in upon them and ban- ished the heathen gods. About this time the learned men of Iceland began to record the important events of their own times, and also to reduce to writing the traditions and stories and poems of historical events, which had been hitherto preserved in memory alone. The history thus recorded was fragmentary no doubt, and not always consistent, but prob- ably did as little violence to truth as many histories of other countries written in the inter- ests of nations, dynasties or individuals, though of greater pretensions. The Norwegians have always been a mari- time people, and the intercourse was always active between Iceland and the mother country by means of trading vessels. The longest step between Norway and Amer- ica is the distance from Norway to Iceland. The next step is to Greenland, which, at the nearest point, is less than half the former distance, and 13 194 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. to Cape Farewell, the southern extremity of Greenland, the distance must be about the same, and thence to this continent the distance is in fact less than from Norway to Iceland, though to Newfoundland it would be greater. The vessels in use at that time in Norway were capable of riding very boisterous seas, although more under the influence of contrary winds than the improved rig of modern times. Very soon after the settlement of Iceland, manners who had been driven from their course by adverse winds reported land to the west of Iceland, and Erick the Red, near the close of the tenth century, sailed westward from Iceland in search of a new country, which he found and named Greenland, in order to attract settlers. Here an independent colony was established, still republican in form, which maintained its independence for more than three hundred years. The Icelandic records, which were simulta- neously reduced to writing and were not depend- ent upon the memory of man, as had been the previous history, tell us that in 986 Bjarn, the son of Herjulf, in prosecuting a voyage from Iceland to join his father in Greenland, whither he had gone in company with Erick the Red, PERPETUAL DAY. 195 was driven from his course by a violent north wind, which forced him a long way south into the Atlantic, during which he was much of the time enveloped in dense fogs. When the storm abated and the fog lifted, he saw to the west a level wooded coast, but not observing the snow-clad mountains characteristic of Greenland he refused to land, and bore away to the northeast. After a few days' sail he again discovered a similar coast, and again after a few days more similar land was seen on his left, which, for the same reason, he passed by, and, pressed forward by a strong southwest wind, sighted the snow mountains of Greenland, which told him it was the land of his destination. Now the direction of the wind which drove him from his course, and the dense fog which he encountered, strongly indicate that he must have passed near the Banks of Newfoundland ; and the course, and time occupied in making his way back before favorable winds, and the description of the land which he saw, have led those who have studied the subject to conclude that the first land Bjarn saw was the New Eng- land coast, probably even south of Boston, the 196 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. second Nova Scotia, and the third Newfound- land. When Bjarn returned to Iceland he told this story, and it was recorded at the time, and bears the marks of authentic history as much as the records of contemporaneous events in other countries which are accepted as authentic. Sub- sequent events proved their truth. This account of Bjarn produced a sensation, not only in Greenland and Iceland, but in Nor- way also, to which country he returned a few years later, producing in others a desire to know more of the land which he had seen at a distance. So Leif, son of Erick the Red, fitted out an expedition with the same ship which he pur- chased, and thirty-five resolute men, and sailed in the way whence Bjarn had returned, and in due time sighted Newfoundland, where he landed and explored the country, and then proceeded further and landed in Nova Scotia, and then prosecuted his voyage further south along the trend of the coast, and finally landed on the New England coast, where they finally took up their winter quarters and built a house for their protection. Here they found an abundance of wild grapes of an excellent quality > , and hence PERPETUAL DAY. 197 named it VINLAND. These winter quarters are supposed to have been located on the Massa- chusetts coast, somewhere in the neighborhood of Fall River. After the winter was passed, which much surprised the Norwegians by the length of the days, the sun being above the horizon for nine hours at the shortest, while in their northern home the night was scarcely broken by the sun at noonday, this first expedition which landed on American soil re-embarked, and returned to spread the marvelous news among their country- men. Thus in the very year in which Olaf Trygg- veson ended his brilliant career on the decks of the Long Serpent, where he lost his crown and his life together, his countrymen made the discovery of this great continent, where great nations have sprung up, and are still growing with marvelous rapidity ; where we boast of a freedom not known since the overthrow of their own democracies ; where science and art and civilization are marching in unison with the advance of the old world ; and where the bund and the scholars of Norway accept the invitation held out to all to come and share the fortunes, 198 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. and help build up and support the institutions of the country which their ancestors first dis- covered. In my judgment it is a well-established his- torical fact that in the year 1000 Leif Erikson, with his party of thirty-five men, actually landed upon the American soil and spent the winter here. In all probability he was the first white man who ever placed foot on American soil. The next year after Leif's return from Vin- land (1002), his brother Thorwald started with another expedition, which landed in the newly- discovered country, where he made a more per- manent settlement, for they remained three years, but in a battle with the natives the leader was killed by an arrow, and was the first of Euro- pean blood to find a burial-place beneath Amer- ican sod. In 1831 the remains of an European were exhumed on the Massachusetts coast, which were believed by many to be those of the Sea King there buried more than eight hundred years before. The armor found on the skeleton cor- responded both in pattern and composition with those worn by the Norsemen at that time. After the death of their leader the party left the country and returned to Greenland. PERPETUAL DAY. 199 The last expedition which I will mention, was undertaken by Thorfinn Karlsefne in 1007. It was more elaborate and complete than any of the preceding, and evidently designed for per- manent colonization. It was composed of one hundred and fifty-one men and seven women, one of whom was Gudrid, the wife of the dis- tinguished leader, and she appears to have been a woman of great enterprise and resolution, and had used all her influence to induce her husband to the enterprise. They took with them a con- siderable colonial outfit, including implements and domestic animals, and goods to trade with the natives. After a prosperous voyage they too landed on the Massachusetts coast, and there planted the new colony. In the year following, Gudrid gave birth to a son, whom she named Snorre. Many of his descendants became distinguished for their learn- ing and genius, and it is confidently asserted that the immortal Thorwaldsen was a lineal descendant of this first European born on Amer- ican soil. Indian hostilities, which they were too feeble to resist, compelled Thorfinn, at the end of three 200 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. years, to break up his colony, and with his enter- prising wife and new-born heir, return to Green- land. The inscription on the Tonulon rock, is inter- preted to give an account of this expedition, and to corroborate the explicit account of the Saga which preserves its history. I will not stop to particularize several other expeditions of the Northmen, of which accounts are given in cotemporary Sagas, extending down to the middle of the fourteenth century, the last one being about one hundred and fifty years before the discovery of the new world by Colum- bus. These enterprises extended the whole length of our Atlantic coast as far south at least as Fer- nandina in Florida. Let no one turn away with incredulity, because they are not as familiar with the accounts of these great discoveries by the ancient Norwe- gians as they are with the more recent discovery by the Genoese navigator. Let the reader not condemn them as fables, at least till he can find one man of learning who has carefully and impar- tially examined these ancient records, and ex- presses a doubt of their authenticity. So long as all those who have examined them, and who PERPETUAL DAY. 201 are capable of judging, accept them as authentic, it illy becomes us to reject them as mere fiction. For myself, I frankly say I believe in their verity, and have no doubt that we are indebted to the North and not to the South for the first discov- ery of this great land. CHAPTER XIV. GARDENS AND GRASS AT BOSEKOP; COPPER MINE AT KAAFJORD; LEAVE BOSEKOP; CHRISTENING AND CONFIRMATION PILGRIMS; FOURTH OF JULY ON THE STEAMER; MISS THE STARS AND STRIPES; MEET FRIENDS AT OXFJORD; THE VOYAGE SOUTH; CHANGED ASPECT PRODUCED BY SUMMER; TROMSO ; CONTESTED LODGINGS; LAPLANDER ENCAMPMENTS; HERDS OF REINDEER; ARRANGE FOR A VISIT; THE TRIP BY WATER; RATHER COM- ICAL LANDING. WHILE at Bosekop, the people were just making their gardens, and there, on the third of July, in a garden which had been planted to potatoes, I found one plant only which was just breaking ground, and yet they expected that crop to mature during the remnant of the short summer which remained. The only cereal which is there sown is barley, and the product of that grain is limited and confined to the most favored places, as the valley of the Alten. But even there grass is more to be depended upon and is more remunerative. I saw more cattle there than in all other places in arctic Norway com- bined. Bosekop is a famous starting point for a passage over the mountains to Tornea, at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia. (203) 204 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. At Bosekop we could see the smoke of the furnace at the copper mines of Kaafjord, which are situated on an arm of the bay before us ten miles away, and are hid by a promontory which intervenes. After we had finished our proposed stay at Bosekop we bade it farewell, and again went on board the little steamer which had brought us from Hammerfest. We steamed directly across the bay for the copper mines. Our stay here was short, but long enough to see that it is a very pretty place, situate on a pretty, broad declivity, covered with a rich carpet of green grass, broken with garden patches already planted, and some stunted trees which served for orna- mental purposes. We only tarried here long enough to land a few passengers, and to take on board almost the entire population of the place, including men, women and children, but excluding the dogs, which must have been left to guard the deserted homes. The little steamer was absolutely crammed full ; every available foot of standing room where steerage passengers were allowed was occupied, and the concert of infantile music was truly PERPETUAL DAY. 205 refreshing. All seemed in fine spirits, as if going to a fair, a show or a picnic. Their gaiety, however, was not increased by a smart shower of rain, which came pouring down upon us so soon as we had rounded to and resumed our course. The women with children were mostly got under cover, by turning out in the rain others not so blessed, who seemed not to admire the situation when they first met the falling shower. They, however, made the best of it, and appeared to be cracking jokes about it with their friends similarly situated. They were not dry jokes at least, but whether they were witty or not I could not understand. I inquired of the first officer what was the occasion of so great a turn out, and how far they were to go with us, and learned they were only going to the next hamlet to a christening and confir- mation, which was a satisfactory explanation of the multitude of babies and of youths we had on board. The latter were as jolly and frolic- some as the space would admit, the former were no matter; we were all children once, and no doubt gave our mothers and nurses a great deal of trouble, and certainly these did no more. We skirted along the westerly shore of the 206 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. bay, very near to the headlands which jutted out into the water, showing that the shores were bold, and giving us an opportunity to admire the snug little green nooks, all occupied with the inevitable red earth-covered cabin, and a snug garden spot around it, testifying to industry and contentment. Finally the whistle sounded, and we soon rounded a point which brought into view the little hamlet of Talvick, with its neat little white church, situated a short distance apart from the cluster of red houses it is a universal custom in Norway to set the church on one side while all around looked cheerful and refreshing. A large number of boats were pulling out from the dock, to take off the multitude we had brought from Kaafjord, while the pier was black with the inhabitants of the place, come down to welcome their friends ; so it was manifest they were expected, and everything testified that all considered the coming event an important one. We lay too far out to enable me to distin- guish the pastor among his expectant flock, but he was no doubt there, unless some custom rendered that unusual. The boats came not in the usual way for fares, but each one seemed to PERPETUAL DAY. 207 seek out friends and take them on board with a welcome greeting, and those who had not friends to come for them waited till the last, and then went on shore by the boats which returned for strangers. This landing occupied some time, but at last all were gone, and we resumed our voyage. This day was the fourth of July, 1874, and we shall never cease to lament that we had no American flag to place over our heads. Let no one ever travel into foreign lands without taking along the stars and stripes, for he will surely meet with times when the sight of it will warm his heart and do him good. I remember once when I had climbed the last rock on the top of a mountain which overlooked the port of Nice, when the first thing I saw on looking down was the Colorado, with our national flag floating over her. She was so far away that she looked no larger than a canoe, and the flag no larger than one's hand, but that sight filled me with a great joy, and I shouted huzzas so loud and so often repeated that my companions, who were slowly climbing after me, were alarmed, and hastened on ; but when they came they shouted too, and right then and there we had a right good jollification. 208 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. And now I had gone again without the flag, and deeply reproached myself for the neglect. I longed for one, though no larger than a glove, and we sympathized together that we had it not, and yet afterwards, when unpacking her trunk, one of the ladies found a flag which, though but a toy, would have then been held above all price. Well, for all that, we had a good time, and celebrated our nation's natal day with pa- triotic toasts and speeches which made the strangers look and wonder what could possess us four to make so much fuss, but our inter- preter explained the cause, when they seemed satisfied that, at least, the boat was not in danger. I do not know at what hour our celebration closed, but I do know that we went to our bunks and got a good sleep, and when we awakened in the morning we found we were at anchor in Oxfjord, where we lay till the Hakon-Jarl came from the north and dropped alongside, and we were transferred to the latter steamer, where we found our friends with whom we had parted when we left the steamer at Hammerfest, and who had gone on to visit the North Cape and beyond, an account of which as received from them I have already related. PERPETUAL DAY. 209 So soon as the transfer was completed, we waived an adieu to the officers of the little coaster and some traveling acquaintances who had gone north designing to make an overland journey to Bothney from the North Cape, but finding the route impracticable, were now bound to Bosekop with the design to make the pas- sage from there, but they afterwards overtook us at Dombaas, the first station after we crossed the Dover-fjeld, and reported that all the guides refused to undertake the journey, which they declared to be absolutely impracticable, because of the high waters from the melting snow on the mountains, which, in ordinary sea- sons, would have run down at least a month before ; so they reluctantly gave up the expe- dition, and turned south to console themselves with the fine scenery in southwestern Norway. When the last adieus were said, our whistle sounded, the steam was let on, and we gaily moved away on our return to the south. So soon as we got back on our former route, and found ourselves among scenes somewhat familiar, we were struck with the change which had taken place in the vegetable kingdom in .so short a time. Hills and mountain-sides, which, 210 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. when we passed up, appeared entirely barren and like naked rocks, seemed now covered with a rich verdure, grazed by flocks of goats and sheep, and sometimes by little ponies or stunted cows, where broken rocks and deep black boul- ders alone were seen before. The gardens, too, around the fisher-huts, seemed now completed, and the snow-banks which had rested against the inclosing walls, were now gone or much diminished. Nature seemed to have awakened from her long sleep, and to have aroused her- self to gigantic efforts to complete her work if possible in the short summer allotted there. The scenery was less dark and forbidding than it had seemed before. If then the scene seemed to wear a forbidding frown, it smiled a welcome now. Some streamlets down the mountain-sides, which came from the high snow-capped mount- ains away above the clouds, were now increased to- tumbling torrents, and in fleecy foam came leaping to the rocky beach, or plunged in head- long fury into the deep, still waters which laved the steep rocks that bound them ; while others, which had come from nearer sources and then looked like a chalk-line down the precipice, were PERPETUAL DAY. 211 now faded and gone, for their fountains had melted away and they were dried up. In the afternoon clouds gathered, and in the evening I mean the latter part of the day when in other lands it would be evening the rain began to fall, not violently, but gently, enough, however, to make out-door watching disagreeable and to send us to the cabin. We reached Tromso a little before midnight, and as usual were surrounded by boats seek- ing fares so soon as the anchor was let go. Although we had already engaged our rooms on shore, we would have gladly staid on board till morning, in the hope of better weather for the landing, but as all the cabin passengers were to land at Tromso, they had determined on the boat to take this opportunity to clean up a resolution I could not help commending ; so go on shore we must, and so we did. Our inter- preter soon selected a boat for our use and got the baggage on board, when we followed in the rain, and after a pull of half a mile we were landed at the steps of a dock and were shown the way to our hotel, which we had to reach on foot, encountering some muddy roads on the way. The front-door of the hotel we found 212 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. to be a back-door, entering through a narrow, muddy lane. Another person had hastened on before us, and claimed to have engaged the rooms on the way up, and so had been admitted on the strength of our previous engagement, and had gone back for the party and baggage ; but when the shal- low trick was explained, we were admitted to our rights and took possession and went to bed, and refused after to be dispossessed. It is the custom in this country to take formal possession of apartments at a hotel, or a state-room or berth on a steamer, by writing the name on a card or piece of paper and placing it in the room or berth ; and so the party had done in this case, but I found a more substantial possession an actual pedis possessio more effective and reliable, and I confess I felt as if it would have taken half of Norway to have put me out of that room. The good woman of the house, who had been innocently beguiled into the embarrassing situation, was sorely perplexed, and was greatly relieved when the false claimant finally darkened her door for the last time. The most notable event of our tarry at PERPETUAL DAY. 213 Tromso was our visit to a Lapp encampment, and an inspection of a band of reindeer. Sev- eral wealthy Lapps have their summer encamp- ments in the neighborhood of Tromso. One extraordinary habit of the domestic rein- deer is that they have an irresistible impulse to seek the coast in the summer season, which the owner does not attempt to oppose. They take up the line of march from the highlands to the coast voluntarily when the advancement of the season has made a certain progress usually in June, but in very backward seasons this is delayed till July. If the owner cannot resist this impulse, he can at least control it so as to direct them to such point on the coast as he may choose ; and this has led to the establish- ment of these permanent summer camps. As this impulse of the animal is contrary to what we should expect, and prompts them to avoid the high and colder regions and seek the warm- est in the warmest weather, several authors and travelers have been misled, probably by their inference as to what should be, and have stated that these deer seek the cool highlands in sum- mer and the coast in the winter, and that too when they actually saw large herds of the deer 214 A SUMMED IN NORWAY. on the coast in the summer. Sir John Richard- son states that substantially the same habit is observed in the woodland caribou of America, in his fauna Bariola Americana, page 250. He there informs us that this caribou emigrates north in fall and south in the spring. These two animals have the same specific indicia, with no more variation than may serve to separate them as varieties, having regard, however, to modifications consequent on domestication, and even this is almost entirely confined to color. That the domestic and the wild reindeer of Lapland are of the same species, no naturalist has ever suggested a doubt, and the wild rein- deer of Europe is as constant in color as the caribou of America I could not resist the temptation to remark this extraordinary habit in both the European and American varieties, which I am not aware is observed in any other animal. The same learned author tells us, at pages 242-3, that this habit is reversed in the little barren-ground car- ibou of North America, and that it emigrates to the north in the summer and to the south in the winter. The northern limits of the range of one and PERPETUAL DAY. 215 the southern limits of that of the other are in the neighborhood of York Factory, on the Hudson's Bay, and scarcely overlap each other by a single degree. These contrary habits must necessarily bring them together, near this dividing line, in the fall or winter time, and yet they never inter- mingle socially or interlineally. But I must not be betrayed into a discussion on the natural his- tory of these animals here, more than is befitting my present undertaking. One of these summer Lapp encampments is situate opposite to, and about four miles from, Tromso, and is much visited by travelers, and there the deer have their regular reception days, I understood, twice a week. This I expected to visit, and was sadly disappointed to learn that the deer had not yet reached the coast, owing to the lateness of the season. Fortunately for us, Mr. Hanson, a native of Tromso, but who had been a resident of Chicago for many years, had heard of our coming, and met us on the steamer on our arrival, and by his constant kindness and attentions, showed that during his long residence in America he had lost nothing of that courtesy and hospitality so characteristic of his countrymen at home. 216 A SUMMER IN NOR W 'AY. He knew or found a photographer in town who spoke the Lapp language and was an ora- cle among that people. He knew of a Lapp encampment, eight or ten miles up the bay, where the reindeer had already reached their summer range. A bargain was soon concluded with him, for five dollars, to go to the camp next day and make arrangements with the Lapp to drive down a band of the deer on the day following for our inspection, and to go with us to act as interpreter and assist us in any other way required. Early the next morning he re- ported the arrangement completed. About nine o'clock we found ourselves seated in a comfortable boat, with Mr. Hanson and our interpreter, bound for the show. As there was no wind on the start, we had to depend on the oars, .which were pulled by two lusty men, and we made good progress. A breeze sprung up, the sails were set, and we glided along over the dancing waters in a merry mood. We passed an island on the way which is a famous nesting- place for the eider-duck, where several were now sitting, near the hut, with as little apprehension as would be shown by the domestic fowl. We arranged to stop here on our return. When we PERPETUAL DAY. 217 reached the head of the bay the tide was down, so we could not enter the little creek which there puts in, and had to effect a landing on the shore outside. The water was very shallow, and the bottom and the shore were strewn with boulders which were wet and covered with moss and sea-weeds, and very slippery. The boat was run toward the shore till she grounded in a foot of water or more, with a width of fifty feet of water still before us. Our boatmen, with their long fishing-boots, de- liberately stepped into the water and announced that we must be packed the rest of the way. Doubtful looks were exchanged among us, but no time was to be lost, for already the reindeer were seen making their way through the bushes down the side of the hill. All conceded preced- ence to me, and even insisted that I was enti- tled to, it ; and well they might, even from other considerations than seniority, for if two hundred and forty pounds should be safely landed, the lighter weights might fear no harm. I must not hesitate, so I called for a man, and the most powerful of the two boatmen backed up and I got upon his back and clung about his neck, drawing my feet as well up as possible. At first 218 A SUMMED IN NORWAY. he staggered a little, and as the stones were very slippery, I confess to some fears that I might get a ducking, but he soon settled down to his work admirably, and with slow and sure steps safely reached dry ground. He heaved a sigh of relief when I alighted, and then returned for another. When all had left the boat except one of the young ladies, the youngest of the boatmen, a fine strapping lad, who was fresh, for he had lifted none yet, evidently disgusted at seeing all 'the ladies carried away by the seniors, stepped up with alacrity and took the last in his arms, with an evident determination to do or to die. He did do, and I suspect nearly died too. She was a solid lump of femininity and evi- dently heavier than he bargained for. He stag- gered the first step, and I called to M to be sure and keep the youth underside if they did go down. She felt the danger and was rest- less, which but embarrassed the lad the more. However, he held fast to his load and righted himself, then took a cautious step, and then" braced himself for another. His face looked like a piece of mica before a sea-coal fire, and so he struggled on till he reached a big stone near the edge of the water, when he could hold out PERPETUAL DAY. 219 no longer, and was staggering to fall. Frantic gestures with hands and feet were according to no fixed rules, but by a dexterous movement she got upon the rock, from which she got to dry land without wet feet or serious trouble. Of course we managed to get a hearty laugh from the incident, and as we thought we laughed in English we hoped the young Norwegian would not understand it, but he did, and I may here say that the first thing in English a foreigner can understand is a good hearty laugh, especially if it is supposed to be at his expense. WILD EUROPEAN REINDEER MALE. CHAPTER XV. THE ENCAMPMENT; THE REINDEER AND THE LAPLAND HERDERS; SPECIAL INVESTIGATION OF THE HABITS OF THE ANIMAL; THEIR KEEPING, AND USES; THEIR BREEDING AND NATURAL INSTINCTS; LONG CONVERSATION WITH THE HERDERS; COM- PARED WITH OTHER BRANCHES OF THE DEER FAMILY; DOMES- TICATION; THE VALUE OF THE MILK; LAPLAND CHEESE; THE NATURAL FOOD OF THE REINDEER; THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE MOSS WHERE THE REINDEER ARE FOUND. ALL being safely landed, we picked our way across the slimy stones which, at high tide, are covered by the water, and went through a piece of marshy ground partly covered with shrubs, to an elevated place commanding an ex- tended view, and watched the herd of deer which was coming down toward us. When they were collected together, to the number of about two hundred and fifty, upon some flat, naked rocks near the water, we were directed to proceed to the inspection. We had gone but a few steps directly toward them when the old Lapp, the owner, set up a great outcry and sent a boy up to us in a rush with a mes- sage, as explained by the interpreter, that if we (221) 222 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. approached them from that direction they would smell us before they would see us, when all would rush away to the mountains at once. It was not, I admit, considered compliment- ary, that our odor was more frightful than that of the Lapps, but then we consoled ourselves that tastes are quite artificial, and if man can learn to prefer tobacco to an orange, a reindeer should be excused for preferring the odor of a Lapp to that of well, our party. But it was no time to criticise tastes, so we submitted to be led a long way round to the leeward of the deer, when we turned directly toward them and in full view. Most of the band had lain down, no doubt being fatigued with the morning's drive. The owner, and his good lady Lapp, with some of the herdsmen, were right among them talking in a soft and soothing way which no doubt the beasts understood but we did not. Led by our young Lapp we approached very slowly and soon found ourselves in the midst of the flock with- out any alarm. About one half were females, most of which had fawns by their sides a month or two old. These were more shy than the males, no doubt PERPETUAL DAY. 223 from solicitude for their young, and most of them got up and moved off a little way as we approached, still without being frightened, though at first they looked at us quite earnestly. They were parti-colored, and indeed of all colors, though the dark brown, the color of the wild deer, predominated, or rather there were more of that color than any other. The departure from the native tended more to white than to darker colors ; though there were very few, if any, abso- lutely white, still quite a number were nearly so, the invading colors of brown, black or russet being generally observed on the hinder part of the back or rump. Some were fairly black, but these were few. Some were partly black and partly brown russet, or white, or perhaps all, and yet none were spotted, as we see our cattle spotted, with well defined margins to the different colors, but the colors were confluent, so that portions would be gray or roan. The fawns were like the adults, of various colors, so that it may be safely assumed that the first color is persistent through life, only varying in shade with the season of the year, the dark shades becoming lighter and duller toward 224 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. spring. Many of the does had two fawns by their sides, but not a majority. The antlers I should judge were nearly half grown, and so in the velvet, but those on the old animals were much more advanced than on the young, thus proving true to the universal law which governs the casting and the growth of the antlers of all the deer family. The oldest shed their antlers first, and on them they grow the fastest and first come to maturity. After taking a good, and even minute, survey of the herd as they lay or stood around me, some of the bucks not more than ten feet distant, I commenced through the interpreters an exam- ination of the Lapp, my questions being first interpreted into Norwegian and then into Lapp, his answers also requiring a double interpretation. This was slow work, no doubt, but the interpret- ers were intelligent and so was the Lapp, and there were few points inquired about of which I did not get a clear understanding, and upon these few points the Lapp had no clear under- standing himself, for in truth he had not ob- served, though the facts must have been open to his observation all his life. So it is with us all. It is a great thing to learn how to observe. WILD EUROPEAN REINDEER FEMALE. PERPETUAL DAY. 225 Some really important feature may be right before us for years, and not be seen at all till we are made aware of its importance ; then we see it and study it, but not before. A modern newspaper man would have de- lighted to have reported that interview with the Lapp, but as much of it related to points more important in a scientific point of view than to the general reader, I shall merely state the sub- stance of what I learned on a few points of more general interest. The domesticated reindeer constitutes the principal subsistence of the mountain Lapps, still they have many other resources, as, for instance, fishing in the streams, the sale of their fabrics, the pelts and meat of the deer, etc. ; but they have an aversion to agriculture, which they scarcely ever attempt, unless in the smallest way. That an almost exclusively animal diet is healthy for them, as well as agreeable, must be conceded. The only other domestic animal which they have is the dog, which is very useful in herding the deer. They use the reindeer not only as a beast of draught but also as a beast of burthen, though I could not learn that they ever even trust their children on their backs. They are '5 226 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. only used as draught animals in the winter on the snow, when they are attached singly to a light sledge resembling much in form the half of an Indian's canoe which had been cut in two in the middle, each end of which might make a good Lapp sledge. The only harness of the deer is a broad strap for a collar, passing around the neck of the animal where it joins the shoulders, and then a thong, fastened to the lower part of the collar and thence passing between the legs and under the belly, is attached to the front end of the sledge. This is of sufficient length to allow the deer to be several feet in front of the sledge. Another thong is attached to one of the deer's antlers, and is held in the hand of the driver, with which and by words he guides him. There are no means by which the deer can hold back the sledge on descending ground. This must be done by the driver alone, with his heels over the sides, or with some contrivance adapted to the purpose, whenever the ground is so steep that the deer cannot keep out of the way. The hind broad end of the sledge is closed by a vertical board sufficiently high to support the shoulders of the driver, who seats himself flat in the bottom, with his back to this board, well muffled up in PERPETUAL DAY. 227 his deerskin suit and robes. It is said that the reindeer will refuse to be driven by any but a Lapp, or one dressed in Lapp costume. However, as that is the only dress in which any one could comfortably live in Lapland in winter, this may be an inference rather than a proved fact, as it may rarely have been tried. Those sledges which I examined were not more than six feet in length, and were very light. I could learn of no instance where two deer were ever harnessed together, nor are they ever attached to wheeled vehicles. One of the deer was caught and a pack fast- ened on to illustrate that use of the animal. I should judge the pack would weigh perhaps seventy pounds or less. It is placed well for- ward, nearly on the shoulders. The weight did not seem to oppress him. He was held and led by a thong around his neck, and seemed docile and obedient, and was not frightened by stran- gers pressing around him. He allowed me to put my hand on him, but when I desired to pass it down his hind leg he remonstrated by stamp- ing quickly, but without kicking. In size, this deer is less than our woodland caribou, with which it is identical in species, but in eastern 228 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. Asia the domesticated reindeer is a much larger and finer animal than in Lapland, and closely resembles in form and development our wood- land caribou. There they are used for the sad- dle by the Tunguses, and highly prized for that purpose, as we are informed by Erman. If the Lapland reindeer is able to carry but a light pack, numbers make up the deficiency, so that when they move camp their impedimenta are transported without difficulty. Only the males are used as animals of ser- vice, nor are these used when in a perfect state. As with all the other species of this family, the adult male reindeer is apt to be vicious and dangerous at certain seasons, and so would be unmanageable and unsafe as a beast of labor. To overcome this a large majority of the males are emasculated when they are three years of age. This is not done in the complete manner, as observed with us in treating our domestic animals, which is by complete amputation. This the Lapps do not do. With them the opera- tion is performed by the teeth. Thus the glands are bruised or crushed without breaking the skin, and their capacity for reproduction destroyed. No other mode of performing this operation PERPETUAL DAY. 229 has ever been known among the Lapps. This imperfect operation is probably sufficient for their purposes, for it so subdues the natural ferocity of the animal as to subject him to con- trol, while it leaves enough of spirit to make his services highly efficient. Were it carried as far as with us it might so destroy his energy as to leave him practically useless. That the operation as performed by them is only partial, is shown by the limited influence it has upon the growth of the antlers. So far as experiments have been tried on the other members of this family, the complete removal of the glands causes the antlers carried at the time to drop off within a few weeks at most. The next summer new antlers grow, but these never mature so as to pass out of the velvet ; and these never drop off, although they may be, and usually are, broken off, more or less, by vio- lence, and each summer after, something is added by new growth to this persistent antler, which, however, is scarcely sufficient to make up for the loss of portions broken off. All the Lapp testimony serves to show that generally the organs are not so far destroyed as to prevent the antlers from growing to perfection, so far as 230 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. to be cast off' and renewed annually, though gen- erally the growth is retarded and the maturity is later than with the unmutilated animal, and sometimes they do not mature and drop off, but are broken off near the head and then grow out the next year, as is always the case with the Virginia deer under similar conditions in this latitude. The great trouble I had to encounter in the pursuit of facts, was the want of careful observa- tions by those who had such great facilities for observing. They never dreamed that this opera- tion had any effect upon the growth of the ant- lers, and so any peculiarity of growth would not be attributed to that cause, and as it was a matter of not the least earthly moment whether the antler dropped off or broke off near the head, they would take no notice of the fact whether its disappearance was produced one way or the other. It was only in such facts as affected their interests directly that their obser- vations became reliable and valuable. The reindeer is the only member of the deer family which has ever been domesticated to any considerable extent, and, as such, rendered sub- servient to the use of man ; although another PERPETUAL DAY. 231 member, the European elk, which specifically corresponds with the American moose, is much larger and more powerful, is equally adapted to deep snows, and can endure a lower latitude than the reindeer, and in domestication would have supplied the place of the ox or the horse better. And yet we have no evidence that any persistent attempt has ever been made to domes- ticate him. I say is equally adapted to domes- tication, because the experiments in this country show that such is the case. Indeed most of the attempts in this country to domesticate the rein- deer have been utter failures, while our moose have been frequently domesticated and success- fully used in drawing loads, though never beyond what may be called simple experiments. We are told that the Scandinavian elk was in fact at one time there domesticated and successfully broken to draw loads, but whether this was done by the Lapps or the Goths is not stated. Certain it is that for some cause the experiment was aban- doned. I cannot help believing that the same persistency which has characterized the efforts of the Lapps to domesticate the reindeer would have proved at least an equal success with the European elk. 232 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. We have no more means of determining when the reindeer was first subjected to the control of man than when the ox or the horse was first reclaimed. Both events are equally lost in an- tiquity. At all events, the domestication of the rein- deer in Europe has been the work of thousands of years, no doubt, and still he retains many of his wild instincts; and could we know the history of this work we should, I presume, find it was of very slow progress, and the result of patient effort, and probably he was selected instead of the elk because he was less in size and strength, and so more easily handled. We must not for- get one great advantage which he has over the elk, and that is, being lighter, the frozen snow will often sustain him while the elk would break through at every step, although he has less power to wade through it when he does sink in. I can learn of no attempt to domesticate and work the wild 4 reindeer of the present day in Lapland, and I think it probable it would be as difficult a task as it would be to domesticate the reindeer of our continent, although it is said the Lapps sometimes manage to mingle the blood of the wild with their tame deer. As we have no PERPETUAL DAY. 233 people absolutely dependent on it for support, we may hardly hope to see the attempt made with either species, unless our neighbors on the north shall undertake it as a government enter- prise, for they alone possess its natural habitat, if we except our newly acquired domain on the North Pacific coast. It is a work, no doubt, worth national attention. Of all the deer family the female reindeer alone is provided with antlers, which, like those of the males of all, are shed and renewed every year. This is true, not only of the European reindeer, but of both the American species as well. Indeed, the little barren-ground caribou, whose range is substantially within the Arctic Circle of America, has much the largest ant- lers of any of the reindeer, as well the female as the male. However, the antlers of the female in all the species and varieties of the reindeer are much smaller than on the male, and she carries them later in the season before she sheds them. Why it is that the female reindeer should be provided with antlers, to the exclusion of the females of all the other mem- bers of this great family of ruminants, which are represented in every quarter of the globe, 234 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. we will not now stop to inquire, merely remark- ing that they occupy a colder country than any of the others. The female reindeer is not only valuable to the Lapp for the flesh and pelt, but she fur- nishes milk as well. She has however a strong aversion to being milked, and never becomes kind and docile to the Lapp milkmaid like the cow, but, on the contrary, will never learn to submit except by actual force. When brought up to be milked they are driven into a yard, and even there they have to be lassoed and held fast while being milked. The quantity obtained varies in individuals, but one pint is rarely exceeded, and generally it is less. The milk is exceedingly rich, espe- cially in caseine. In color and consistence it resembles sweet cream from the cow's milk. It has an aromatic taste, but untutored stomachs can bear but a small portion at a time. It is rarely made into butter, which is of a white color and not a good quality, but it is said that six or eight times as much cheese may be made from it as from cow's milk. The Lapp cheeses are round and flat, about eight or ten inches in diameter, and scarcely over an inch thick, and PERPETUAL DAY. 235 so strong to the smell that I did not venture to taste them. Indeed I was told that the Lapps themselves do not habitually eat them, but use them principally as a remedy for chilblains and frost-bites. For this purpose the cheese is hung up before the fire, when the oil drops from it which is applied to the frosted part, and I have no doubt with excellent effect ; at least I would sooner see it used that way than to eat it. They are very oily to the touch ; indeed I found the transportation of one a serious mat- ter, and thought at one time that I had spoiled a whole trunk of clothes with one, but the odor proved not to be very permanent. In fact the cheese business is not extensively pursued among the Lapps, but the milk of the reindeer is prin- cipally used in its simple form. Thus we see the Laplanders use the reindeer as a beast of draught and a beast of burthen ; it supplies them with both milk and flesh for food ; its skin furnishes -them with clothes from head to foot, and also serves for bedding and wraps or robes. Of the bones and antlers they inge- niously make various implements, both for their own use and for sale. It constitutes not only the wealth but the very existence of the mount- 236 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. ain Lapps. Without them the interior of the country would forever have remained uninhab- ited, for no other domesticated animal could have supplied its place. It lives and thrives in a practically barren country, save only certain lichens, without which the reindeer cannot live, and which here grow very abundantly. I have said the reindeer cannot live without that peculiar lichen called reindeer moss, or some equivalent. This I learned at the zoolog- ical gardens at Berlin, Cologne and Paris, where I found them in confinement. Here I saw them daily fed with this same moss, brought from Norway for them. Even with this they are short-lived in those warmer latitudes. It must not be understood that this is their exclusive food. They eat most of the grasses and browse besides, which is probably better for them than to be confined exclusively to the moss ; but with these they must have the moss. Nowhere on the globe, in either hemisphere, is the reindeer found, except where nutritious mosses abound, although, as already stated, these by no means constitute their exclusive diet. Perhaps none is more abundant or more nutritious than the reindeer moss of Norway PERPETUAL DAY. 237 ranunculus glacialus but it scarcely surpasses the Cladonia rangiferina, which is as truly a reindeer moss as the other, and flourishes most luxuriantly in Labrador, although it is found wherever the woodland caribou ranges. These also relish many other mosses, which are, how- ever, less abundant. They are fond of the tree or parasitic mosses which grow within their range. The barren grounds of our polar regions afford a great abundance and variety of rich lichens upon which the small reindeer there found feed, as the cornicularin, the diver gens > the ochriluca, the cucullata, the istandica, and the cenomice rangiferina. We cannot but be impressed with the spe- cial adaptability of the reindeer to the peculiar food so abundant in the desolate regions which they inhabit, and of that peculiar food to them. Without them, all that vegetable wealth could contribute nothing to the sustenance of animal life, for no other ruminants, if we except the musk ox, which nowhere abounds, can there resist the rigors of the climate, and no other class of vegetation can there grow in sufficient abundance to sustain any considerable amount of animal life. If the time shall ever come when 238 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. the barren-ground caribou shall be extermi- nated and most of our wild animals are rap- idly disappearing from this country then those regions where he now appears in incredible numbers must remain uninhabited. When I had extracted all the information I could from the Lapp, he wrote his name, An- ders Nilsen Heika, in my note-book, and we broke up the interview. He was probably disgusted with my inquis- itiveness, though he showed no impatience, nor did the interpreters complain, but on the other hand affected quite an interest in the subject. During that examination, with the animal so close before me, and made still more critical by handling it, I became entirely convinced of the specific identity of the reindeer of Lapland and the woodland caribou of America, and in this opinion I was only confirmed by a subsequent examination of the wild reindeer of Norway ; but it would be foreign to my present purpose to enter upon a discussion of this question and assign the reasons for this conclusion, in which, however, I but agree with most of those who have compared them, though at another time I may be able to present, in another work I have PERPETUAL DAY. 239 in preparation " The American Antelope and Deer, and their Domestication " some analogies which others have not noticed, in which I shall also show that three of our American species have their analogues in Europe. CHAPTER XVI. A COMMERCIAL LEVEE; LAPLAND THREAD; NORWEGIAN LOG CABIN; DOMESTIC INDUSTRY; LUNCHEON; A CUTLER'S SHOP; THE UNIVERSAL SHEATH-KNIFE, ITS USE AND COST; LAPP ENCAMPMENT; A CHARMING SAIL TO TOWN; LOCATION OF TROM- so; DULL FISHING; SOCIAL LIFE IN TOWNS; GENERAL GRAVITY OF THE PEOPLE ; LEAVE TROMSO ; MONOTONY OF PERPETUAL DAY- LIGHT, AND DESIRE TO ESCAPE IT; THE STEAMER; SECOND VIEW OF THE GRAND COAST SCENERY; THE WORKS OF NATURE AND OF MAN; HUMAN INSIGNIFICANCE. I LOOKED around after I had concluded my interview with the Lapp, and found the oth- ers of the party attending the reception of the lady Lapp, who was seated at the foot of a bunch of alders a little way off. I joined the party, and discovered that, like other thrifty ladies, she had an eye to the main chance indeed she was driving a thriving trade in the manufacture and sale of a coarse thread from the sinews of the deer, such as they use in man- ufacturing the skins into shoes and garments. She first stripped the tendon, when in a moist condition, into fine fibers like flax, and then from these she drew out a thread of any size and length she pleased. This she twisted as 16 (241) 242 A SUMMED IN 'NORWAY, she drew it out, with great dexterity, by rolling it on her cheek with her hand. This she would make for you, single, double or quadruple ; but for the latter there was little demand, as no one seemed ready to hang himself, and it was abundantly strong for that purpose. As the value of the article was much enhanced by seeing it made, it had taken some time to sup- ply the demand. The price was half a mark, or say eleven cents of our money, for a thread two yards long a round price, no doubt, if sold in quantities, but for the small trade she was doing, cheap enough. She had other trinkets, such as the market required, and, on the whole, made a fair morning's work. At last we adjourned to the cabin of a Nor- wegian settler, as we would say in our western country. To reach this we had to go nearly half a mile, through boggy ground and alder- bushes, to the creek, which we had to cross in a boat, for the tide had come up and there was deep water where two hours before we could have stepped across on the stones. At the mouth of the creek the valley was broad, affording many acres of level ground, but it narrowed rapidly toward the mountains, PERPETUAL DAY. 243 whence the stream issued. The house was sit- uated on a bed of peat, of unknown depth, which occupied a considerable portion of the valley. Ditches had been cut near the house to render it sufficiently dry for a dwelling-place and a small garden. A nice crop of grass was growing beyond the peat-bog, and on it grasses peculiar to such locations. The house was a log-cabin, almost the exact counterpart of the log-cabins found on our west- ern frontier. It had two rooms, separated by a little hall, in each of which was a stove instead of a fireplace. One of these rooms had been cleaned up for our reception and looked quite inviting. In this were two chairs, some stools and a table, besides a loom at which a girl was weaving a piece of coarse cloth for domestic use. The loom was similar to that which I used to see in my boyhood in farmers' houses at the East, but which are now almost entirely banished from the land. Another girl was carding the wool into rolls and spinning it on a small wheel ; the cards were the same as those common many years ago in this country for carding tow and cotton, before machinery had rendered such excellent utensils unnecessary, and the wheel 244 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. was nearly the same as our mothers used for spinning flax. All these were tried by each one of the party in turn, but of course with universal failure ; but the native girls were expert, and evidently enjoyed the encomiums bestowed upon their skill. We had brought a good lunch with us, which was supplemented by some bowls of sour milk or bonny-clabber. This was a most acceptable relish to the Norwegians of the party, but ' it did not seem to suit our palates. It is all in use no doubt. This is a favorite and may be said to be a national dish in Norway. I have lost the name of this family, which I much regret. Close by was a small log blacksmith's shop, or rather cutlery, where the old gentleman of the establishment cunningly fabricated sheath-knives. Now, every male Norwegian and Lapp above six years old must be furnished with a sheath- knife, suspended from a belt and hanging over his left hip. This universal personal appendage they call tol-kniv. This at first impresses the stranger that he is in dangerous companionship, and that a bloody fray may occur every hour of the day. But nothing could be further from PERPETUAL DAY, 245 the truth. They are really a very peaceable and amiable people. During all my travels in Norway I saw scarcely an approach to a personal, much less a sanguinary, use of this formidable looking knife. It is carried in place of the pocket-knife with us, and is used only for the purposes to which the pocket-knife is applied. Besides, it is considered ornamental, and is worn for show as well. Indeed, without it the Nor- wegian of either high or low degree would con- sider himself only partly dressed. Hence these knives are made of various grades of finish and ornamentation, with corresponding prices A good serviceable knife, such as will satisfy the ambition of the fisherman, may be bought for two marks (say forty-five cents), while if one is disposed to be extravagant he can gratify his taste to almost any extent in the purchase of a knife. Now, it was the business of that old gentle- man to make these knives, and he had a good assortment on hand, and drove a thriving busi- ness that day. The one I got cost me two dollars, and was one of his best. The blade is five inches long and three-fourths of an inch broad, and is sharp pointed ; it is heavy and 246 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. strong, and probably is well tempered. The handle is of walrus ivory, with a silver band at each end elaborately chased. The sheath is of iron and very thin, well polished and richly enchased on the outside. The chasing is remark- able considering the pretensions of the workman, and surprised an expert who was one of our party. These sheath-knives are always kept in stock in all the trading establishments. Of course the Lapp encampment had to be visited. That was in a canon two miles back. We had brought three saddles with us, and had engaged some ponies. I gave up my pony and saddle to a lady of another party, so that but two of my party visited the camp. The road was represented as very wet and rugged, as the snows were now melting rapidly. I consoled myself exploring the country near by and cutting my thumb. In about two hours the party returned from the Lapp camp, and we at once prepared for our departure. But here we met with a serious difficulty. No one was disposed to state the amount of the reckoning. The girls referred it to the good mother, she referred it to the old gentleman in the cutlery, and he referred it back PERPETUAL DAY. 247 to the girls, and how many times those maidens rushed from the house to the shop and back I dare not try to state. At last, however, we got an intimation, which was ridiculously cheap, and by doubling it received many benedictions. Since the tide had come up, our boat had been brought around into the creek, so we did not have to be packed on board, but took the boat without great difficulty. So soon as we got out of the creek and fairly into the fjord, we found a nice little breeze, and fair, so our sails were set and we sped along at a dancing rate. What is more charming than a quick run in a sail-boat in still waters ? Here the fjord was so narrow that there was no room for the breeze to ruffle the water seriously. We had a delightful run home, where we arrived in good time for dinner, for which our excursion had given us excellent appetites. This was one of the pleasantest as well as most instructive ex- cursions I made during our stay at Tromso. I have already remarked that Tromso is the capital, or, I should rather say, the metropolis, of Finmark, which is but another term for Nor- wegian Lapland, and is the largest city both in 248 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. population and commerce within the Arctic Cir- cle. It is on the east side of an island the terminal letter (6) in the name of a place indi- cates in the Norwegian language an island, or on an island, and so conveniently saves much explanation. It is very pleasantly situated, the lower part upon undulating ground high above the water, while the back streets of the city are on the side-hill, or lead to steep emi- nences which afford some very beautiful pros- pects. There are uninclosed grass-plats about the city and in its vicinity, upon which sheep and other stock may be seen grazing. There are many nice gardens in cultivation which give it a cheering aspect, while, as in almost every place in Norway, a great profusion of pot flowers may be seen in the windows of the houses. They have several fine wharves extending from the street into the bay, but not far enough to allow sea-going vessels to reach them at low tide. I have before commented upon this strange inconvenience to commerce everywhere in Nor- way, and could get no explanation of it, than that it would cost money to extend them ; although when once done they would be perfectly secure PERPETUAL DAY. 249 from rough weather and would not be liable to fill up with shifting sands. Our fishing excursions were not generally very successful, as it was the dull season for fishing, although quite a number of fishermen's boats were constantly seen in the fjord. They must work whether it pays or not, for that is their daily business. The social relations here are excellent. With good facilities for ascertaining the facts, I learned that the towns and cities of Norway are not quite exempt from that tattling, gossiping, back- biting disposition which sometimes renders a residence in towns of the same size in other countries very unpleasant. People do sometimes take upon themselves the care of their neigh- bors' concerns, and so have less time to attend to their own affairs than they otherwise might ; still the social relations of the citizens are pleas- ant in town as well as in the country. The young people have their assemblies, the old ladies their tea-parties, and the burghers their meetings to discuss public affairs over their pipes and interchange views in general. On the whole, however, the Norwegians are rather a grave people, not given to practical 250 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. jokes, to story-telling, fun and laughter. Even the frolics of the young people, which they no doubt enjoy, have a certain air of gravity which their tastes and sense of decorum demand. A kindly feeling seems to pervade the whole com- munity, which a little propensity to what we call tattling does not seem to destroy. Truthful- ness and integrity in their ordinary intercourse seem to be ingrain. Four days sufficed to do Tromso and its envi- rons, and so we packed our trunks and bid fare- well, probably for the last time, to the arctic city, got into the little boat in the evening and pulled away to the steamer Trondhjem, which had arrived the morning before, bound south. I say in the evening, but it was so only in name, or rather hour, for the sun was still shining down upon us in full vigor all night long, so that so far as light can serve to make the day, it was all day there was neither evening nor morning, but day always. I confess that this unchanging light this continual brightness at all times the same, except dimmed by clouds, had already become monotonous. The midnight sun had lost its novelty, and with it its charm. The gorgeous colorings of the long streaky PERPETUAL DAY. 251 clouds, rich and beautiful beyond description, which more than at other times hung around him at midnight, and shaded the tints upon the mountains, and which would sometimes make the snow upon them look as if they were molten lava ready to burst upon and devastate the val- leys beneath, and then as if by magic assume another hue and then another, like a rapidly shifting scene, could never lose its quickening charm and its enchanting beauty ; but after all we longed for darkness and for night. Do what we could to darken the windows to keep out the light, still it was not night as nature makes it, and which the habit of a lifetime had rendered necessary to sound repose. Artificial darkness, especially when incomplete, is as far from night as artificial light is from day. What we now desired was, a good long, sound sleep in a natural night, and not the less perfect rest in the sombre shade of curtained windows. We therefore went on board the Trondhjem, which would take us below the Arctic Circle and beyond the confines of perpetual day, without regret. We thought that even an hour's dark- ness would be a great relief, and this we hoped soon to reach. I may say here, however, that 252 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. we never knew in fact when we did reach this, for it so happened that for the first ten days and more after we passed the Polar Circle we slept through the short time of darkness without seeing it. We went to sleep and awakened with the broad light of day still shining fiercely out- side, to all appearance the same as when in the far north. By ten o'clock our steamer weighed anchor, and quietly glided along the fjord among the little fleet of fishing-boats which dotted its surface. The Trondhjem was a much larger vessel than the Hakon-Jarl, and belonged to the Christiana line and to another company ; but as stated, I found that the return tickets which I had taken on the Hamburgh steamer were good here. The terminal point of this line is Tromso, so that north of this point there is but a weekly steamer, while south of it there are two each week. The ladies' state-room was below in the darkest part of the ship, and I doubt not they slept the better for it, while for the gentlemen, we had to take the narrow shelves or seats in the dining-saloon ; nevertheless we slept very well, and that was enough. PERPETUAL DAY. 253 In the morning when I went on deck I found we were passing along the same route we had pursued on our way north, but enjoyed a second view of the grand wild scenery almost as much as if it were entirely new. The American reader is apt to associate the term wild scenery or wild country with a new or lately peopled country, where the hand of man has not yet had time or opportunity to destroy the natural features or native beauties impressed upon it by its Maker's hand. Here these beauties and these features remain, not for the lack of time, but because man is too weak to deface them, and so they remain in their grand sublimity through the thousands of years during which man has been playing around them. He can never tear down or even deface these huge rocky monuments thrown up by con- vulsed nature in primeval time before man was. He can never melt away the eternal snows which have for untold ages mantled the far-off mount- ain tops, or dissolve the glistening glaciers, which with slow but resistless course creep down the great chasms in the mountain sides, and waste themselves in turbid torrents in the lower val- 254 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. leys.* These scenes are wild because man can- not tame them. Could he, he would have defaced them long ago, and substituted the results of his own puny efforts, to which in vain pride he would have pointed, and said with feeble voice, " LOOK THERE!" Vain man! what art thou, ever dressed in swaddling clothes, to presume that thou canst rival the works of Him who made thee? Canst thou uplift mountains canst thou divide the seas canst thou make a vast firmament like the starry heavens ? Shrink away abashed in the presence of Him who made thee and these. Acknowledge thy littleness, and be content to know that thou canst only remotely imitate that which only an almighty hand can make, and ask none to admire thy abortive works who may gaze entranced upon the nobler works of God. * North of Bodo is a glacier said to be one hundred miles long, and of enormous width. There are numerous other smaller glaciers in arctic Norway. CHAPTER XVII. THE LOFODEN ISLANDS, THEIR NUMBER, SIZE AND LOCATION; THE MAELSTROM; ISLAND SCENERY; THE INHABITANTS, VIRTUE, TEM- PERANCE AND INDUSTRY; THE WOMEN, ABLE-BODIED AND GOOD- LOOKING; GENERAL CLEANLINESS; THE JOURNEY AMONG THE ISLANDS; DANGEROUS NAVIGATION; AUTHORITY OF CAPTAIN AND PILOT; PASS BODO; LEAVE THE ARCTIC CIRCLE; NORWEGIAN FJORDS AND LAKES; RECOLLECTIONS OF THE JOURNEY; REACH TRONDHJEM. AFTER we passed Lodengen we entered the Vest Fjorden, which is the great bay or fjord which separates the archipelago along the mainland from the Lofoden islands, and bore away to the west to visit that celebrated group. These islands lie entirely within the Arctic Circle, and constitute a feature of the Norwe- gian coast which reminds one of the Alueten islands on our Alaskan coast, although of course less in extent and more than ten degrees fur- ther north. They are even north of Behring's Strait, which is below the Arctic Circle. It was only by these comparisons that we could really appreciate how far north we were. These islands are projected from the coast about the sixty-ninth degree north latitude, and (255) 256 A SUMMED IN NOXWAY. gradually diverge from it in a direction south of west, jutting far out into the North Atlantic, the largest and the most easterly of which is Hindo, which is only separated from the conti- nent by a comparatively narrow strait at Sand- torv, a snug little hamlet situate on the island. This group of islands has the appearance of a great peninsula, broad at the base and grad- ually tapering to the point, traversed by innu- merable narrow channels, more abundant toward the west, so that the islands gradually diminish in size toward the extremity of the group. The apparent peninsula seems to terminate with Mos- kence, which is a long narrow island and ends in a bald cape, upon which the angry waves of the Atlantic have expended their fury for untold ages, and so they may do for as long a time in the future before they will beat it down and bury its fragments beneath their agitated sur- face. Separated from this by Lofododden Strait ten miles broad, is the isolated island of Vcero, upon which stands the fishing hamlet of Sor- land. Nearly midway in this strait a huge naked rock, which might be fairly called an island, lifts itself above the waters, breasting PERPETUAL DAY. 257 the conflicting currents caused by the winds and tides. Between this rock, and the cape on Moskenoe, is the famous MAELSTROM, which fer- tile imaginations have clothed with so many terrors. Its geographical position is such as to expose it to fierce tidal currents, and when these are assisted by high westerly winds they are, no doubt, terrific. The bottom of the strait is strewn with immense boulders, which are so arranged as to give the current a spiral motion directed toward this isolated rock from the northern side, which is much increased in times of high tides and storms, when it whirls quite around the island-rock. Then it is that it be- comes really difficult for boats and vessels, with- out steam power, to keep clear of the rocks against which the wayward currents would dash them. While there are at times vast and powerful eddies which give objects floating upon them a fearful spiral motion, there is nothing like a vortex produced by a subterranean discharge of the water, although the tumbling and boil- ing character of the spiral currents may sub- merge temporarily objects drifting on the surface. No doubt in the course of time the action 17 258 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. of the waters has tended to level down the bed rocks, some of which we may presume showed themselves above the surface. This may have made the Maelstrom much more terrific than it is now, and better justified the ancient fables. As it is in ordinary times, and in favorable weather, the fishermen do not hesitate to seek for fares throughout these waters, which, to strangers, are suggestive of the most terrific dangers. Still outside and twenty miles to the southwest of Vcero, is a nest of rocky islets, the principal of which is Rost, but mostly beyond the view of the ordinary routes of local travel. These are the farthest out to' sea of all the Norwegian islands, and are the last land left on the way from the Lofodens to Iceland, which is far away to the southwest. Around these out- lying rocks are said to be favorite fishing- grounds, which the hardy fishermen profitably visit even in the long night of winter, as well as in the perpetual day of summer. These are the last sad remnants of that great rocky barrier which, geologists tell us, once in a bold contin- uous and defiant line presented its hard face to the rough salute of the sea beyond, and which by the elements and time, and probably ter- PERPETUAL DAY. 259 restrial convulsions, has been broken into frag- ments which now constitute the islands as we see them. The general characteristics of the scenery of these islands correspond with that of much of the mainland coast, though in general it may be said to be bolder, and in a given distance more high and snow-clad peaks come into view. The highest and roughest appear at the northeastern end of the group, where from a distant view they seem to form a connection with the coast islands and the mainland. On looking back, when crossing the fjord, and twenty miles away, the long line of mountain peaks looks like the edge of a saw with many of the teeth broken out, growing less and less prominent toward the southwest end. The interior of the islands is practically uninhabitable. They are mountains altogether ; many, above the line of perpetual snow, and where the topography would admit of settlement, they lack the soil to invite it, and the cold bleak winds, if not the snow itself, forbid settlements in the interior. Along the coast there are some pretty little nooks with green grass plats, in which are always found as many fisher-huts as can well be accom- 260 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. modated. These, like others already described, are made of flattened logs or poles, painted red and roofed with earth on birch-bark sheeting. They always looked cozy and home-like, and suggested by their appearance secluded content- ment and domestic happiness far away from the strifes and turmoil of the outer world, where man is ever at war with man in the pursuit of glittering phantoms which ambition is ever pre- senting, or grasping for gold which never satis- fies. Who shall doubt that here is more real contentment, with fewer cares and anxieties, than in more favored lands, as we call them, where artificial wants swallow up the fruits of richer products and are still unsatisfied. The little garden by the hut and the birch-bark flower pots ranged by the door or standing in the window tell us, too, that there is a certain degree of refinement there, which contradicts the idea of that rough rudeness which we are apt to associate with the hardy fishermen whose daughters as well as sons are strong at the oar and skillful at the fishing-line. It was easy to understand the pictures drawn by those familiar with their inner social life, of the joyous hilarity of their neighborhood gather- PERPETUAL DAY. 261 ings, more usual in the winter season, when the young people congregate and pass the time in dancing and plays, diversified by the older peo- ple with stories drawn from the old legends and mythical traditions when giants peopled the mountains and mermaids and sea-serpents the waters. If the manners of the people are rude, as compared with the refinements of city life, they are no more so than that of the peasantry of other countries, and they are certainly not licen- tious, so far as I was enabled to collect evidence on the subject. All were well dressed according to their condition in life, and there was an air of high self-respect and independence in marked contrast to the bearing of the populations of many other countries of Europe in the same condition of life. Though always courteous in the extreme, there was not the least trace of sycophancy which is so plainly indicative of a people oppressed in some form or other by a superior class. Nor did I see the least evidence of that intemperance of which others have spoken so confidently. I did not see a drunken man in Norway, except a Lapp, and I cannot say that 262 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. of any other country in which I have traveled so far and made so many stops. If intemper- ance was formerly prevalent among this people, it is the most remarkable instance of a total reformation to be anywhere met with within my knowledge, and it would be well worth so long a journey for those who have a reformation in this direction so much at heart, to study the mode by which so great a change has been wrought. Even the light beer of the country is not used except to a limited extent. I fre- quently saw this peasant class in great crowds, upon the boat, and carefully studied them for hours together, and always found them quiet and orderly, courteous and kind to each other in their own unpolished way. The men are stout, robust fellows, evidently capable of great endurance, and laziness is cer- tainly not one of their attributes. Their features are rough and hardy but are not ill-formed, while they are not, as a general rule, handsome men. The women are rather stout bodies, full- chested, and well developed, and apparently about as strong as the men. I saw them pick up boxes and other packages and handle them in a way that showed they were quite inde- PERPETUAL DAY. 263 pendent of the men, who stood about with an indifference which showed a total absence of that sense of gallantry which, with us, arises from a supposed superior physical strength in the sterner sex ; and yet when either a woman or a man was seen tugging to get a package on board, which was too heavy a lift for one person, plenty of willing hands would rush up to render needed assistance, and yet this assist- ance would be just as likely to come from the woman as the man. Their whole intercourse seemed to recognize this physical capacity of the women, and probably anything which would suggest any lack in this regard would have been regarded, by one of those strapping girls, as an affront to her womanhood, and would have required an apology from the unlucky swain chargeable with the offense. These women are good-looking, but not hand- some according to our standard of beauty. Their hands are broad and strong, which must result from so much pulling at the oars, as I judge they practice from what I saw, and their coun- tenances are bronzed, in summer-time at least, from so much exposure ; but if vigorous health, a plump contour, well-developed muscles and 264 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. strong limbs are admitted as elements of beauty, then, indeed, this is a land of angelic loveliness. But I saw many handsome women, and hand- some men too, in Norway, according to the approved standard in any country. Those who spend their lives in-doors, and many are to be met with in the larger towns, have very fair com- plexions, with fine symmetrical features, which added to a glow of health make them pos- itively handsome, so that they will fairly rank above the average in more southern countries. I failed to find that degrading filth among this people by which some other travelers claim to have been so much disgusted, as well as the licentiousness which they found so prevalent. A fisherman or woman cannot be expected to go in broadcloth or silk, nor is the cleaning and curing fish a neat occupation, and we might expect that this would, to a certain extent, stamp itself upon the habits and tastes of the people engaged in it ; but those I came in contact with were not disgustingly filthy, nor were the fishing class scrupulously clean. Those huts which I entered I found about on a par with the cabins of the peasantry of other countries, which I have nowhere found universally swept and garnished. PERPETUAL DAY. 265 Those of other callings met in towns and cities I found habitually neat and clean. The children which I met in Bodo, as already stated, were clean and neatly clad, even more so than the average children of the high and low to be met with in the towns and cities in other countries. I went into a number of cabins where I saw children at the windows, to give them candy, and found the children with clean faces and decently clad, and in every instance, where the child was old enough to talk, it offered its right hand, which is their mode of expressing thanks. Some of these were fishermen's huts, and still it was all the same. I confess that our own children are not so well trained in what we may call manners, as I found those of all classes in Nor- way, nor can they claim anything on the score of cleanliness over those of the same walks of life there. The higher classes were always well and taste- fully dressed and scrupulously clean. In their houses, so far as we entered them, in their offices, their stores and their shops, there was nothing to complain of and nothing to desire on the score of cleanliness, and the same may be said of their streets. 266 A SUMMED IN NORWAY. We were more fortunate than some others seem to have been in the selection of our hotels, for nowhere in Norway did we find a dirty room, a dirty bed, a dirty tablecloth or napkin, or dirty dishes, or dirty waiters. This was a subject of constant observation among our party, and I thought that some of us were quite as fastidious as it is necessary to be to insure a pleasant journey. This is true not only in the towns and cities of Norway, but it is also true of the stations along the country roads where we traveled. There are wide differences, no doubt, in the quality of the entertainment to be had at these stopping places, but it is conspic- uous in other elements than cleanliness. We frequently compared notes with other travelers we met in Norway, on this subject, and found the observations of all to correspond with our own. As I did not travel back in the country, among the bonde or agricultural peasantry in Norway, of course I cannot speak of their habits as to cleanliness. Back from the public highways, to which my observations were con- fined, the people may be filthy, but if so, we did not find any evidence of it among the same PERPETUAL DAY. 267 class of people who keep the station-houses along these roads. For the Lapps I have nothing to say in this regard, but have already spoken in reprobation of their uncleanliness, and have sometimes sus- pected that some persons have confounded the Norwegians and Lapps, or thought they saw filthy Norwegians when they saw dirty Lapps. After skirting along the southeast coast of the islands and stopping to land or take on passengers and freight at each hamlet on the way, we finally turned our backs upon them and sang: Farewell to The Lofoden Isles', We have seen you in tears and in smiles, and bore away almost due south toward Bodo, heading directly for the west end of Landegod. We had been so long sailing in sheltered waters, that a prospect of a three hours' run across the fjord, which, with a southwest wind rushing from the Atlantic into its broad open mouth, has almost as bad a reputation as the North Sea itself, made us inquire of the captain, who was always as obliging and courteous as possible, as to the prospect of the weather. He looked about him wisely, and then declared it 268 SUMMER IN NORWAY. was all right. The sky had become overcast, it was true, and looked dark and even angry, but the frown was in the north, and from there we might expect some more wind, but we should be under the lee of the islands, and should not feel it. " But," said he, pointing in the direction of the Maelstrom, " let a gale come in from that direction once, and it would curtail the steward's bills for this night's afiensmad? The shower which had succeeded the bright sun of the fore- noon had expended itself mostly on the high- land, but a breeze had come up which was freshing. Our apprehensions, however, that it might blow so as to make our position uncom- fortable proved groundless, and we really had a very fine sail across the fjord. Indeed by the time we came within a few miles of the coast islands, the wind died out, the clouds dispersed, and we had as beautiful an evening sun as we had seen within the Arctic Circle. As we moved along, the high islands to the east of us seemed to be constantly changing position, and the reflections of the sun from^ their bald heads, or grassy or shrubby sides, were constantly varying ; sometimes one would throw a. shade upon another, leaving a dark sec- PERPETUAL DAY. 269 tion on either side, of which the most brilliant colors would be sent back. But the view was momentary, when it would be thrown out of sight and new vistas would open and new beau- ties were unfolded, and so were we treated to a moving panorama the most grand and beautiful it is possible to conceive. What with the lights and shades and shifting scenes, it was the most gorgeous display I saw in Norway, and, I may add, have ever seen. While admiring this grand view, I noticed that the course of the ship was changed more to the east, so as to take us on the east side of Landegod. The captain went immediately to the pilot, and I saw they were in an earnest conversation, which did not appear to me much like a conference. Soon the captain seemed to almost drag the pilot to his room on deck, where he unrolled the chart and pointed at parts of it quickly, and spoke sharply and rapidly. This continued for perhaps two minutes, when the pilot came out as quickly as his sluggish nature would permit he seemed incapable of any ex- citement and changed the course more westerly than before, but when we had reached within half a mile of the island, she was brought around 270 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. sharp to the east, and entered the inner channel east of the island. After we had got inside, I questioned the cap- tain as to the character of the navigation of the fjord. He informed me that in general the water is excellent, but there are some sunken reefs along near the islands, and it was to avoid one of these that he had insisted on the pilot's keep- ing further west than he had chosen. I then inquired whether the pilot had the right to con- trol the course of the vessel ? " Yes," said he, " theoretically he has, but no pilot shall run me on the rocks, if I know it, while I command the ship. I piloted here while he was catching cod- fish. There are many sunken rocks, some of which are not well marked on the chart, and my business is to keep clear of them, whether the pilot would avoid them or not. Suppose he is running me right on that island, am I to stand still and see him do it ? There may be exceptional cases of which owners do not think when they make their general rules, and this was one. Had he refused to follow my judg- ment, I would have deposed him and done it myself. He thought we had passed the rocks when he changed her course and headed her PERPETUAL DAY. 271 right to them," and he really became excited again. But we were now safe inside, and all was going on smoothly. The most remarkable feature connected with this really dangerous coast, which is navigated through the long night of winter, is the entire absence of light-houses, where any other mari- time power would have had hundreds. There are a very few low monuments, painted white, used for the purpose of light-houses, but I did not see more than four of these on the whole coast, and I was told that there is the same want on the outer side of the islands, where it is much more urgent, to enable vessels coming in from the sea, especially strangers, to make a safe entry. They may beat about for an indefi- nite time, on the dangerous coast, waiting for a pilot, or take the risk of being wrecked trying to feel their way in. Even a few at the principal entries would be a great help, but if there are any, I could not learn it. The want of them must vastly advance insurance.* * Since writing the above I have been told by a gentleman fa- miliar with the coast, that there are several light-houses along our route, but as they are built like other houses, and painted yellow, they escape the notice of the traveler. He also informs me that there are several of the first order on the outside coast. Our pilot did not mention this when questioned on the subject. 272 A SUMMED IN NORWAY. In the course of the evening we dropped anchor before Bodo ; but a twinge in the loin on the left side reminded me that I had no business on shore there, and admonished me especially to avoid Bodo boats and Bodo boys in charge of them ; so I turned in for as good a sleep as I might anticipate on the narrow settee, where I could not turn one way or the other without help, and in perpetual sunlight, which had now become more and more monot- onous. In the course of the following morning we passed the island of Hestmando, or Horseman's Island, which has already been mentioned on our way north. It has, perhaps, more interest to the traveler from the fact that the Arctic Circle passes over it, and so serves as an ever- enduring monument to mark that important geo- graphical point, than from the romantic legend connected with it. Of course all were on deck to study the sur- roundings, and the captain amused himself vastly by endeavoring to make the green ones see the imaginary line down the face of the mountain, or the Arctic Circle, as it wound around the highest peak. It was a great thing to tell, when PERPETUAL DAY. 273 they should get home, that they had seen the Arctic Circle, and so they did see it, as plainly as if one of the ancient giants had drawn a great charcoal line across the mountain, which had ever since remained distinct. It is wonderful how much travelers can see if they will but open their eyes wide enough. But we were running rapidly along, and soon the arctic world was left behind. We were below 66 30' 15", and yet we did not suffer from the heat so soon as we passed from the frigid zone ! The snow had greatly disappeared since our passage north, still it was abundant everywhere on the higher ground, but the most astonishing feature was the increase of vegeta- tion which was everywhere apparent. For some time longer we pursued our old course, and then turned sharply to the left and took a due-east course up a fjord which took us directly in among the mountains, whose pre- cipitous walls bounded the waters, each head- land passed presenting new scenery, only more grand and imposing than that which we had left behind. These Norwegian fjords are long, narrow bays, which seem to occupy great clefts in the mount- 18 274 A SUMMEJt IN NORWAY. ains, through which the tides set sometimes with fearful violence, where partial obstructions are met. The lakes in Norway present similar geo- graphical and topographical features. They are scattered through the mountains in long, nar- row crevices which seem to have been opened by internal forces, or great convulsions which burst the mountains asunder, leaving great chasms with nearly vertical walls. Into these the mountain streams discharge themselves, and being thus filled with water, constitute these long, narrow lakes, of great depth generally, and many of them high above the level of the sea. Many of these are connected by rivers, forming a chain of lakes reaching far back into the country. This is more conspicuously the case on the Swedish side of the mountains, where the distance to the sea gives a longer sweep for the drainage. All these lakes abound in fish, which enables the Lapps to enjoy a varied diet. Hemna^sbjerg, though not yet at the head of the fjord, was the extent of our eastern course. Thence we returned till we touched our old route, when almost immediately we left it again and skirted along on the east side of a large PERPETUAL DAY. 275 island, and then crossed it again and run out to the west of it. Indeed more than half the way on our return voyage was over new ground, pre- senting new views and new towns for our study. Were I to stop and describe every new im- pression and new scene in this wild country, it would become intolerably tedious ; it would seem but a repetition of what had gone before, and there is a lack of language to follow the ever- varying shades, and no description can present the object to the mind as it impresses when looked upon. Describe it as we may, in the reader's mind it is run together and becomes confused, and a sameness pervades the whole, while he who sees it so individualizes the feat- ures that each new scene has its peculiar beau- ties, and leaves its peculiar stamp upon the memory, which it is true may fade and become faint in time, at least in many of its peculiari- ties, still, going over them again, as I have now, is, in fact, enjoying the journey anew. He who would enjoy travel to the utmost and to the greatest profit, must not only see as far as possible all that comes within his view, but he must ruminate over it and digest it, so that it will stay by him and become a part of 276 A SUMMER IN NORWAY, memory itself. The oftener the mind runs back over the incidents of the day, the week or the month, the oftener will he enjoy the journey again, and the more it becomes fixed in the mind, and so may he often be delighted with the pleasing recollections. The quicker he for- gets the annoyances, the vexations and all the unpleasant features, no doubt the better, but in spite of himself these are sure to come up too often, but then he must stand it as he had to do at the first. On the fourth day from Tromso we reached Trondhjem in the afternoon, after an absence of over three weeks, which has left as many pleas- ing impressions on my mind as any journey I have ever made. I found no Yosemite Valley there, and nothing which can be justly compared with it, nor have I elsewhere, but for the great extent of varied, grand and beautiful scenery, I have nowhere met the equal. But it was not in the scenery alone that I was interested in arctic Norway. The people, their habits, their industries, their social relations, their mental endowments, their advancement, their religion, and their institutions, all have elements of interest worthy the study of the observant PERPETUAL DAY. 277 traveler ; and then the capabilities of the land and of the water must not be overlooked, for they are the great questions which determine the habitable qualities of a country. CHAPTER XVIII. ATTEMPTED IMPOSITION; I RESIST AND DEFEAT IT; AMERICAN WEAKNESS IN SUCH MATTERS; THE LANDLORD; CONTINUED RAIN, AND NO DARKNESS YET; ENVIRONS OF TRONDHJEM; COM- FORTABLE CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE; MODE OF CURING HAY; NORWEGIAN SCYTHE; WOMEN IN THE FIELDS; OVERLAND TRAV- EL; LEGAL REGULATIONS; THE CARRIOLE SYSTEM; THE VEHICLE AND HARNESS; ENGAGE A CARRIAGE FOR MY PARTY; THE CON- TRACT, AND ARRANGEMENTS; LEAVE TRONDHJEM; THE RAILWAY TO STOREN; NORWEGIAN STRAWBERRIES; STOREN. WE landed at Trondhjem, and went to the Hotel d'Angleterre, where I had rooms engaged. I had sent our baggage from the wharf to the hotel on one of those little carts, and was soon waited upon by the clerk, who spoke English imperfectly, who stated that the man with the cart wanted six marks for bring- ing up the trunks. As we had paid but a mark and a half for taking the same luggage to the steamer, I asked him if that was not too much. He said it was, but that was the man's price. I then told him to tell the landlord to pay him a reasonable price and no more. He paid him the six marks. The next day the drayman called with a claim of six marks for bringing (279) 280 A SUMMEX IN NORWAY. my baggage to the hotel on our first arrival from the Tasso. I now saw that the reputation of American travelers, which is to pay every claim for services, no matter how extortionate, without remonstrance, rather than to have a fuss, for fear they might be thought little, had even reached Norway, and I resolved to ' fight it out on that line, if it took me all summer', as a mat- ter of principle. Hattram, my interpreter, had stopped at Leuvik to visit his father, who lived at his native place far up the fjord. He had made the bargain with the boatman to bring us from the ship and our baggage to the hotel for six marks, which he had paid. Now as he was not here to prove the bargain, this claim was set up. I asked the cartman why he had not pre- sented the claim before I had left ; but I could get no satisfactory answer to this. I refused to pay it. He came the next day and insisted that the boatman had not paid him. We got up a nice little scene, and several gentlemen who could speak English better than the clerk, took an interest in the matter and acted at first as interpreters, and then as advocates, and then as advisers, and insisted that it was a clear case PERPETUAL DAY. 281 of imposition, which was a disgrace to their country, and that I should not pay a skilling. I requested him to find the boatman and bring him, and if he had not paid him I would make him do so. The next day he brought the boat- man, and in two minutes I saw it was a put up job between them. I asked him if he had paid that man for bringing up that baggage. After much hesita- tion he said he had not. I asked him if Hat- tram did not pay him six marks for me. He said he did. Then did he not agree, for the six marks, to bring us ashore and deliver the baggage to the hotel ? Hesitatingly he said no. Then what was the six marks paid for? Only for bringing us from the ship to the wharf, was the reply, which was obtained after much press- ing and much evasion. I then asked if that was the price he charged Hattram for that ser- vice. At last he said it was. I then asked him how much the law allowed him for bringing four passengers and four packages in the boat. He did not seem to know. I then asked if that was not the number he brought for me, and he admitted it was. I then asked him if the law did not fix his fare at four skillings for each 282 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. passenger and two skillings for each trunk, and he finally admitted that it was so. I then asked him if all that did not come to twenty-four skillings, or one mark, and he at last assented to this obvious fact. I then asked him why he had charged me six marks for a service for which the law only allowed him one, and from that time on not another word could be got out of his mouth. I put this interview into writing, and got the landlord, who had acted as interpreter, to put his name to it. I then told the fellow that un- less he paid the drayman to his full satisfaction, I would see that he was prosecuted. I then asked him if he would do so, and finally, with great reluctance, he promised he would. So ended this interview, which I supposed would be the last of it. The matter had become noised abroad, and several citizens, whose acquaintance I had made, expressed much regret and mortification that it had occurred, and declared that it was the first instance in which they had heard of that kind of extortion attempted upon travelers. One, in particular, in the book-store I wish I knew his name desired me to furnish him with the facts, PERPETUAL DAY. 283 and he would take it upon himself to see that the matter should be prosecuted to the bitter end, and the disgraceful practice nipped in the bud, for he felt the honor of the place and coun- try was involved. I promised to do so if I heard any more of it. The next day my drayman came back, and said the boatman would only give him a mark and a half, and wanted me to pay him more. Now, although the fee of the drayman is not fixed by law as is that of the boatman, yet I had already learned that a mark and a half was a fair price for the service, and he was only dis- satisfied that the boatman had not divided with him the extortion. I then told him to begone, as I should pay him no more. I added this to the former statement, and went and gave it to my friend at the book- store, thus furnishing him with the facts and the means of proving them after I should be gone. What he did with it I have never learned. Of course I had twenty times as much trouble and vexation in the matter as the small amount involved was worth, but I thought if it were true that I was the first traveler thus sought to be victimized by a class correspond- 284 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. ing to our hackmen, who are noted as swin- dlers throughout the civilized world, I resolved to give them as little encouragement as possible to complete their accomplishment in that branch of education in their business. English travelers are pertinacious of their rights, not from penuriousness, but from prin- ciple ; and there was comparatively little of that petty swindling of travelers till Americans over- ran Europe, when it was found that they rather enjoyed to be victimized, and, of course, they found plenty to accommodate them ; but it has introduced a sort of demoralization from which all travelers suffer to a great extent. Still, Americans are singled out as the softest sub- jects. How long it will be before this is under- stood in Norway as well as it now is in Paris, in Baden Baden, or in Rome, it is not easy to say. It will probably depend upon the circum- stance whether this shall become a popular route for American travel. If it was tried on me first, I have endeavored to do my duty as well to the people of the country, who would feel the prevalence of such practices their re- proach, as to those travelers who shall come after me. PERPETUAL DAY. 285 I take great pleasure in saying that it was the only instance I met in Norway when I thought there was a real attempt to impose upon me. I can't help thinking that the landlord of my hotel did very wrong to pay a bill for me which he knew to be extravagant, when it was his duty to see that I was not imposed upon ; but I have tried to excuse him in my own mind, by the assumption that charges there are so uniformly reasonable and just that they do not know how to dispute a bill when they know it is unjust. I advise him hereafter to see to it that his guests are not victimized, at least with his concurrence, for it leaves a recol- lection not so fragrant as one would wish. It is not a good advertisement for a hotel. I have probably said as much about this case as the good of those who shall follow me into this northern country may require, and so I leave it. The four days we spent in Trondhjem on our return we found less pleasant than we an- ticipated, on account of the rain, more of which we experienced during that time than we had seen during the whole time we had spent within the Arctic Circle. 286 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. We had hoped to see some darkness here, as no artificial light had been lit either on a steamer or in a house where we had been, but even in this we were all disappointed. One great object of our stay was rest, and we were all blessed with good appetites for sleep we went to bed early and slept well in the morn- ings, so that if there was any night there we did not see it, nor for a week later. In fact, we had no artificial light and saw no darkness till we reached Lillehammer, and then it was more gloom than darkness more a deep shadow than night. We, notwithstanding, found sufficient pleasant weather during our stay at Trondhjem to visit the surrounding country, and to marvel at the wonderful growth of vegetation during our ab- sence of less than a month. Before, the country seemed barren and naked ; now it was verdant and beautiful. All the hills around were green to their summits. Up the valley of the Nid is as beautiful a farming country as one would wish to look at anywhere. Snug farm-houses and barns greet one at every turn. Thrift and industry are everywhere evident. Prosperity and contentment evidently reside in that valley. PERPETUAL DAY. 287 Where before the grass had not sufficiently started to relieve it from the appearance of a barren waste, we saw an American mowing ma- chine -behind three sturdy ponies slashing down a good crop of grass, and the cultivated crops seemed to have made an equally rapid progress. Already in the Arctic Circle I had been struck with the manner of curing their hay, and I found the same mode practiced without an exception till after we passed the Dovre Fjeld, and after that generally, though not universally, down the valley of the Laagan river. This is no doubt rendered necessary by reason of the frequent showers to which the grass is ex- posed, and the little heat received from the sun's rays by reason of their striking the earth so obliquely, which is not compensated by their perpetual action. The hay is not cured upon the ground where it is cut, but instead, is hung up to dry. Strong stakes are set into the ground about six feet high and perhaps fifteen feet apart; these are sup- ported by braces set in the ground and leaning against their tops. Into these posts pins are in- serted about a foot or fifteen inches apart, on which long, slender poles are laid. On these 288 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. poles the newly mown grass is spread, hanging down on either side, the lower pole being first covered and then the next, and so on up, till the whole is completed; that on a lower pole being always overlapped by that on the one next above it. In this position it readily sheds the rain and is exposed to the utmost action of the sun and wind, so that no matter how succulent the grass may be, it is rapidly dried to the condition of hay. These hay-racks, which at a little distance look like green hedges stuck about the meadows, were to me an interesting feature. With the simple exception before mentioned, all the hay I saw was cut with the scythe. This implement is shorter than with us but similarly shaped, and is attached to a straight handle in- stead of a crooked snath as in this country ; with us both handles are placed on the upper side of the crooked snath, inclining well forward. There, with the straight snath, the lower handle is placed like ours, but the upper handle is placed on the lower side, and inclined backwards. This con- strains the workman to keep his left arm always bent. In some places I saw them mowing grass which did not seem to be more than three inches NORWEGIAN CARRIOLE. PERPETUAL DAY. 289 high, but the tool seemed to be very sharp, and they shaved it to the very ground. Everywhere, I saw more women at work in the hay-fields than men ; in but a few instances only were they mowing, when they seemed to keep up their swathes with the men without trouble. (I wonder if they got the same wages.) They were generally engaged in raking up the hay and plac- ing it on the racks to dry, or hauling it away; generally with a single pony on a sort of cart. As our next journey was over the Dovre Fjeld to Lillehammer and thence to Christiana, prepara- tions for that had to be made. The usual mode of public land travel in Norway is by carriole, which is systematized and regulated by law. On all the principal routes through Norway, public stations are established from six to fifteen miles apart remember I speak of English miles. These are of two classes, fast and slow stations ; on the most traveled routes they are fast stations, while on the more unfrequented routes they are slow stations. At the fast stations the station- master is bound to keep a specified number of horses and carrioles for the use of travelers ; at the slow stations horses are not required to be kerjt ready for travelers, but the farmers in the 19 290 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. neighborhood are obliged to furnish horses for the use of travelers ; on these latter routes trav- elers are obliged to wait, after arriving at a sta- tion, till word can be sent to the farmer, perhaps five or six miles away, who, no matter how press- ing his own work, is obliged to stop his team at once and send it away to the station. To avoid this delay, the traveler may, for a fixed price, send ahead a forbud, or messenger, to order horses to be ready, and thus avoid delay. At every station is kept a dag-bog or day- book, in the front of which is a statement of the number of horses which are required to be kept at that station. This of course depends much on the length of the route over which they have to travel. In this book travelers may enter any complaints they may have to make against any one, and it is the duty of a public officer, who goes over the route and examines the books at times required by law, to adopt such meas- ures as will prevent a repetition of the evil. In this book travelers are expected to register their names, and are at liberty to make any remarks, not impertinent, which they see fit, as connected with their journey, the country, or the people. The first business of a traveler when he PERPETUAL DAY. 291 arrives at a station is to make an entry of the number of horses which he requires, and the station-master is obliged to furnish them in the order there entered. If the horses are all out, then you must wait till some come in, and then they must be allowed half an hour to rest before they are sent out again. By looking at the orders entered, and com- paring them with the number of horses required to be kept, you can readily verify the state- ment of the station-master who claims that all the horses are out. When there is a press of travel, and espe- cially in the latter part of the day, this system produces sometimes amusing scenes at the sta- tions, and sometimes along the road. Four or five carrioles may be traveling in company and may find themselves delayed by a party in front. They will select the best driver and horse and send him ahead if possible to get by the 'others and make the first entry in the book for all- his party. Both may arrive at the station at the same time, at break-neck speed, when there is a simultaneous rush for the book, and the nimblest wins the day, and then his party will be sent off 292 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. first, while the others may be delayed an hour or two for other horses to arrive and feed. While the traveler drives himself he is liable for all damages if he over-drives the horse and injures him, and so, as a general thing, they heed the suggestion of the skyds-gut or post-boy. The carriole is a vehicle with long shafts, two large wheels, and a little shell-shaped seat for one person, and a board seat behind for the post- boy. Those furnished at stations have no springs, but are placed directly on the shafts, which, however, from their length and elasticity relieve the jolts very much. The harnesses are gener- ally the poorest apologies imaginable, frequently with an attempt at ornamentation on the saddle. Clothes-lines invariably constitute the lines ; the hames are wooden collars without padding, and the whole tied together with innumerable strings, and you would suppose the thing would shake off the horse every minute. I have seen on our extreme frontier, harness similarly patched and tied, with which an old horse was attached to a plow ; except that in Norway they have no traces to their harness, and the draft is by the shafts alone. A hole is made through the shaft near PERPETUAL DAY. 293 the end ; through this a loop a few inches long, and attached to the hame, is passed, and through this loop a toggle is thrust, and then the hitch- ing up is done. Where more than one horse is used, an extra shaft is attached, and another still if three are worked abreast The rigidity of this attachment is very hard on the horses, but then they are tough little fellows and do not seem to mind it. The law fixes a separate charge for the horse and the carriole, so the traveler can take one or both as he likes. If he depends on the station for the carriole he must change at every station. A large proportion of travelers prefer to take their own carrioles and harness, which they can hire at Christiana or Trondhjem, or other start- ing point, generally at a reasonable price, and this arrangement should be sure to stipulate for leather or strap lines, as it is intolerably hard work to drive with rope lines. The most extraordinary feature of all this carriole system of travel, is, the horses must travel twice over the road to earn one fare. Each station must send away all comers, but must bring no one to the station, unless by the order of the station-master when the trav- 294 A SUMMER IN NOR W 'AY. eler is to start on the next route. If, how- ever, a station-master at a fast station chooses, he may detain horses which arrive at his station from another fast station, two hours, to take a traveler back, but in that event the horse may be allowed one hour's rest before he is sent back. When the post-boy has been detained by the station-master to take back a passenger, he is entitled to the first traveler that arrives wish- ing to proceed. Unless the station-master orders the returning horse to take back a passenger and I met with no instance where it was done, for it diminishes the revenue of the station no matter what the emergency, they must inevi- tably go back empty. On several occasions we had to wait for horses to come in and be fed, while others were starting without loads on the road we were to go. We frequently overtook gangs of half-a-dozen or more led horses on the road ; and at one time they bothered u's very much getting in front of our team, and kick- ing if pressed too hard. This unnecessary double work for single pay was altogether the most senseless thing I saw in Norway. Although constantly inquiring why this was so, and no doubt making myself ridic- PERPETUAL DAY. 295 ulous a thousand times by suggesting how we would do it in America, not a word of reason for it did I ever hear. I have met with some who have been forwarded by detained horses, but from what I saw I am sure it is not com- mon. This carriole system is peculiarly a Norsk institution, and is probably of considerable an- tiquity, and was no doubt so started in the be- ginning, perhaps under the notion that it was too bad to make a horse pull a load both ways. The charges fixed by law are not uniform for a given distance, and are sometimes more one way than the other, so that a specific charge is fixed for each route. They will aver- age for one Norwegian mile, or seven English miles, one and a half marks for the horse, four skillings for the post-boy, and six skillings for the carriole or say a little less than five cents per English mile of our money. As some of my party were unable to travel in a carriole, it was found necessary to provide some other conveyance. Fortunately, I found a man who had several carriages, and who makes it his business to convey passengers across the country, wherever they may wish to go, de- pending upon the station horses, and keeping 296 A SUMMED IN NORWAY. none of his own. He showed me his best car- riage, which was in town, and it was the best public conveyance I saw in Norway, seating four inside comfortably, and a seat outside with the driver. It had a top which could be let down or set up, as desired. Mr. Rose that was his name could not speak a word of English, but through an interpreter I closed an agreement with him to take my party of four across the Dovre Fjeld, from Storen to Lillehammer, and to pay all bills connected with the transportation, for seventy dollars, and to be allowed forty pounds of baggage for each passenger, and to have that particular carriage ; to start at such time as I should designate within five days, to go when I directed and stop where I chose, so as we should not be more than seven days on the road. This contract I reduced to writing, had it rendered into Norwegian and signed by Rose. We fixed on Thursday morning to leave Storen, and he agreed to send the carriage up Wednesday. On Wednesday morning we took our final leave of Trondhjem and took the cars for Sto- ren, which is the southern terminus of the only PERPETUAL DAY. 297 railway in northern Norway, and is about thirty miles in length. It is about four-feet gauge, is in but indifferent order, but runs slowly and safely. This road is designed, eventually, to be continued to Christiana, and considerable grading has already been done upon it south of Storen. We run up the Valley of the Nid to Heindal, when we turned to the west and passed over to the valley of another river which emp- ties into the bay south of Trondhjem. Thence our course was nearly due south up this val- ley to the end of the road. As we stopped at a station about half-way over, we saw a little girl on the platform with strawberries for sale. As they were the first we had seen this year, we took her entire stock in trade. They were wild, of a deep red color, of a long, conical shape, very sour and tasteless, and precisely like those I have seen wild on the shores of Lake Superior and other high lat- itudes. But they were strawberries, in the mid- dle of July, and so we ate them from principle if not from inclination. It was a treat, in ap- pearance at least, and with an effort we consid- ered it so in fact. We arrived at Storen about noon, and found 298 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. ourselves comfortable at the only hotel in the place, and were soon after called upon by the English gentlemen whose acquaintance we had made on the Tasso, and whose fishing lodge was but a little way off, the hospitalities of which were offered us. We promised to go over and help eat the only salmon they had taken the season, which Mr. Adams had captured that morning. I have already given an account of this in an earlier part of these recollections, when treating of salmon-fishing in Norway, and will not revive that subject again. When the freight train came in that evening, our carriage came, and so we considered our arrangements complete. During our wanderings about the salmon pools a place where salmon are accustomed to rise is called a pool, though there may be a strong current in a straight channel we found fields of wild flowers, which would have been the delight of a botanist, and among others a few lilies of the valley, which our friends who showed them to us said had been very abundant a few days before. These were all found in the thickets on the steep side hills, though other wild flowers were abundant in the open ground. CHAPTER XIX. THE OVERLAND TRIP; LOSE AND THEN RECOVER OUR CARRIAGE; LIGHT BAGGAGE; A COUNTRYMAN ACCOMPANIES us; WE START ON A GOOD ROAD; PASS PRCESTHUUS, GARLID, BJERKAGER AND AUSTBJERG; A LADY TRIES THE CARRIOLE; A GRAND PRECIPICE; STUEN AND ANNE OR OVNE; FII^ST NIGHT AT A STATION; PEAT; A CASE OF POVERTY; SUNNY NIGHTS; RISE, DRIVSTUEN AND KONGSVOLD; A NORWEGIAN KITCHEN; TRY MY HAND AT COOKING WITH ASTONISHING RESULTS; THE DOVRE FjELD; A BAD ROAD; THE SUMMIT; MOUNT SNEH^ETON; HJCERKIN; THE CARRIAGE UPSETS; THE MUSTANG HORSES OF THE COUNTRY. WE had intended to start the next morn- ing ; but, no doubt from a misunder- standing, Rose did not appear, and so we remained another day, which we did not much regret, as we were anxious to see Mr. Burrows fight a salmon, if one could be persuaded to rise to his fly. This, however, could not be, notwithstanding his most skillful efforts hour after hour. As we were returning to the hotel, about one o'clock, I saw persons hitching horses to our carriage, which still stood near the depot, as I supposed to draw it up to the house ; but while we were at the dinner-table I saw a party get- (299) 300 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. ting into the carnage, behind which a trunk was fastened. Rose had not yet arrived, and I comprehended that we were about to lose our carriage, which was the only one I had seen in the country in which the journey could be com- fortably made by my party. I rushed out fran- tically, bareheaded, and, with a loud voice and wild gestures, stated in English that it was my carriage which I had hired of Mr. Rose and that they must not take it away, and all that. They understood as little English as I did of Norwegian, but I have no doubt they understood that I was making a claim to the carriage ; but the ladies inside, some of whom at least were young and pretty, and the gentlemen outside, who had passed the meridian of life if not of usefulness, all smiled benignly upon me, which seemed to say : " poor fellow ! how bad he feels ; is it possible that he is mad ? " and with this compassionate look and smile, the whip cracked and away they went at a spanking pace, while the crowd that had gathered seemed to enjoy a quiet smile at my expense, and looked more amused than sympathetic. Now, I do not think this con- tributed to my amiability. Oh, how I longed for a horse, or a dog even, that could understand PERPETUAL DAY. 301 English, that I might free my mind of the bur- then which oppressed it. I believed I had been coolly sold out, and that Rose kept away on purpose. At this supreme moment, when I felt like wringing the necks of half of Norway, a happy thought occurred to me. If not a soul about could understand a word of English, at least they could read Norsk, so I whipped out my contract and thrust it into the jolly face of the landlord, who had been standing by with a look which implied a doubt of my sanity. After he had read it through, I placed my finger on the last line, which I knew was the one that pro- vided for that particular carriage, and he grunted out "So!" Now, this is a word that is interjected into Norwegian colloquy with a lavish profusion which speaks well for their good nature. It means a little more than the word means in English. It means assent or approval as we use the word yes. It is pronounced with a peculiar intonation which is soft and winning as well as approving, spiced with something of surprise ; and politeness seems to require that it should be used in response to every statement that is made in conversation. I have no doubt but this interjection is more fre- 302 A SUMMED IN NO IV AY. quently heard in the Storthing than " hear, hear ! " is in the British Parliament This em- phatic " so ! " seemed to produce a favorable effect on the crowd, and especially were they sympa- thetic when the landlord evidently explained to them that it was my carriage which had been thus run off before my face. I then went in and finished my dinner, possibly not in the best humor in the world. In the course of an hour or more Rose drove up in an old, heavy, lumbering carriage, and I pitched at him with more energy than intelligence no doubt, at least so far as he could see, for re- member he could not understand a word of Eng- lish. At last a Norwegian gentleman standing by and appreciating the difficulty, asked me if I could speak French ? This was a God-send ! I started in haste for Mr. Richards, who had gone up a canon in the mountain for ferns and flow- ers, and had him on the spot as soon as possible. Thank fortune, I now had the means of relieving my mind in words which could be understood. Rose recognized my right to the carriage, and said it had been taken by the gentleman without any authority. Now, this I did not believe, for he did not PERPETUAL DAY. 303 look to me like a carriage-thief, and in this be- lief I was confirmed when I saw Rose berating a young fellow who I have no doubt was in some way connected with him there, and who I was now satisfied had allowed the gentleman to take the carriage. I told Rose he must have that carriage back by seven o'clock in the morn- ing or he must be answerable for the damages. Seeing I was very much in earnest, he put the young fellow, who had no doubt been the cause of all the trouble, into a carriole, and started him up the road, at the best pace he could get out of a sorry - looking pony, to overtake and stop the carriage, and as soon as he could change horses he followed with his old carriage. About ten o'clock in the evening I had the satisfaction of seeing him drive up with my car- riage. He said the boy had overtaken the party at the second station, about fifteen miles out, where they had waited till he had come up and changed carriages with them. After all, I think justice requires me to say that I do not think there was any intentional wrong on the part of any one. The gentleman from Trondhjem wanted a carriage, and seeing one unemployed applied for it, and the boy, not 304 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. knowing it was engaged, had let him have it, and Rose was not there to stop it. So soon as I saw the carriage returned and directed our driver to be ready at eight o'clock in the morning, I went to bed and was sound asleep before the sun had set, for it must have set sometime during the night in that latitude, which was about 63 north. We were up in good time in the morning and had our packing finished when our coffee was announced. Indeed, there was not much to pack, for we had sent all our baggage to Christiana by water, except what we could stow in one small ship trunk; and when we got through we knew the wisdom of the advice we had received, to take with us as little obstruction as possible when crossing the mountains. Indeed, we did not take more than half the weight allowed by the contract. The law in its paternal care, prescribes the number of horses to be attached to each kind of carriage, and ours required three. At eight o'clock our three prancing steeds came up to the door with our carriage behind them and Rose on the box. He had tied the rope lines to the names, and had substituted a PERPETUAL DAY. 305 pair of strap lines in their place, otherwise the harness was as I have already described, without traces and tied together in sundry places with strings. Indeed, it may be truly said that the harness is not an article which station-keepers select for extravagant display ; in fact, they seem to take no pride in it whatever. It is by no means considered as an ornamental dress for the horse. Our trunk was soon lashed on behind and surmounted by the post-boy ; we bade farewell to our kind friends from the lodge, made our adieus to the landlord and the hangers-on, who seemed to have taken an interest in us more than ever since the affair of yesterday, took our seats and away we went. Mr. Richards, who had traveled with us most of the time since we left Hull, had occupied his time the day before, so far as necessary, in se- lecting a carriole to his fancy, had organized his establishment, and now sat whip in hand behind a very ordinary lot of horse-bones, held together by a limited amount of tissue. When all was pronounced ready, he led the way at a better pace than I supposed his turn-out could attain. Our road led up the valley, directly under the 306 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. over-hanging heights which bounded it on the west, while to the east of us it spread out into broad fields to the river, which ran close under the mountains on that side. Storen is really a delightful spot, situated in a sweet little nook in the midst of the mountains, which are covered with a dense growth of small evergreens mostly fir to their very tops, or so far as we could see. Sometimes the side of the mountain so covered seemed almost vertical, and the green mantle in places was torn asunder and exposed the bald face of the black, naked rock, so steep and unbroken that nothing could rest upon it. These green mountain sides, show- ing here and there the great black patches of rock, presented a beautiful picture when the de- clining sun was shining upon them with a soft radiance which was ever gratifying. I did not wonder that the denizens of the thronged, smoky, foggy metropolis of England should delight in such a quiet retreat where they could see so much of nature's wildness, even if the salmon proved obstinate and refused to rise though they exerted their utmost skill to persuade them. Twenty summers has Mr. Burrows spent in that same place, whipping those same pools, PERPETUAL DAY. 307 from which he has taken many tons of salmon, and my ardent hope is that he may live to enjoy them twenty summers more, and then some more yet. The road we found excellent ; equal to any mountain road I have found in Europe. It was macadamized all the way, and worked down smooth, with a grade varying from one in twenty to one in thirty feet, generally. It wound along up the valley of a large tributary which came tearing down its rocky bed, often in milk-white foam, and ever filled the valley with the sound of its falling waters. In about one and a half hours we brought up at Prsesthuus, where we found Mr. Richards waiting for his horse and also ours, for he had booked for us as well. Here we got out to taste the water and take a peep at the station-house. We had certainly made good time about eight miles in an hour and a half, all the way up-grade. The next station was Garlid, about six miles. The grade on this part of the road was heavier than before, but the horses trotted most of the way. The next stage was about eight miles to Bjer- kager. It was now time for luncheon, but it did 308 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. not look very inviting within, and as we had pro- vided ourselves well with crackers and cheese, and some relishes, we concluded to depend on our own resources. Travelers on carriole routes in Norway should always start with a good supply of provisions, for they are very liable to need them before they get through, and they should be well provided with water-proofs, for they may be frequently exposed to rains, though fortunately we escaped them entirely. The sun shone brightly all day, and it was quite warm enough for comfort. The next route was about seven miles, and brought us to Austbjerg. At Bjerkager one of the ladies changed places with Mr. Richards, in order to have some experience of carriole riding; she led us a merry dance over the road, and, I imagine, pretended not to understand the post- boy when he hinted that she would get through at last at a little slower pace. This route presented the grandest scenery on the whole road, and the slower we traveled the better it suited me, for I wanted to see it all. At one point, the valley is a sheer canon, where the road skirts the top of a precipice, with a ver- tical descent of seven hundred feet, at the bot- PERPETUAL DAY. 309 torn of which the river is forced through a crevice which appears not three feet wide. When the road was constructed, in 1858, a laborer fell over this precipice, and a cross is graven on the face of the rock by the side of the road, to mark the spot where he met his untimely fate, and beside it is the date. It is a more frightful chasm to look into than even Cape Horn, in the Sierras, on the Pacific road. At every exposed place along this road, rough stone pillars are placed at the outer edge of the way, more or less frequent, according to the dan- ger of the place ; and indeed these may be said to be continuous, except on the Dovre Fjeld, where the road is on more level ground. After Austbjerg, we reached Stuen, about eight miles distant, where we again changed horses, and then pushed on at a lively pace to Anne or Ovne, about six miles distant, the place selected for our night station, where we arrived about five o'clock in the evening, having made about fifty English miles in about nine hours, including stops and all the way climbing up the mountain. There is no village here, but a simple station- house which afforded us very comfortable quar- 310 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. ters, with good clean beds, in which I could nearly straighten myself out. At this point a road branches off to the west to Sundalsoren, which is at the head of a very deep fjord, which penetrates the mountains for nearly fifty miles, and where the traveler can take a steamer for Christiansund, and thus join the coast route. Anne is situated in a comparatively level tract of country, showing considerable signs of fer- tility. The house stands at the very edge of an extensive peat-bog which they were in the pro- cess of clearing of the stunted spruce trees with which it is covered. This is done with great la- bor, in which a sort of grubbing hoe is used to dig up the shrubbery and roots, and skin off the surface, all of which is burned on the ground. Deep ditches were run through in various direc- tions. The wonder to me was, that the peat itself did not take fire and become entirely con- sumed, for it seemed to be quite dry ; but prob- ably there was moisture enough left to protect it. A small garden had been planted on a part of the lately cleared bog, but its promise was very indifferent. After dinner we took a long walk up the PERPETUAL DAY. 311 branch road which leads to Sundalsoren, which was closed by a large gate which all travelers had to stop and open as they passed. Some distance up this road was a very pretty grove of ever- greens, and by the way we found some wild flowers. After we returned I walked up the Dovre Fjeld road, to where a small creek crosses it, and where a family of the poorest looking people I saw in Norway had stopped to lunch ; a young man and woman and their two children, one about three years old and the other perhaps one year. When they had finished their rye crust and drank from the creek, the father strapped the baby to his back and started along, while the mother tied up the bundle of rags which she threw over her shoulder and the little boy slung a bottle on his back, when they trudged slowly after. All were bare-foot, ragged and dusty, and perhaps I may add dirty, and do them no in- justice. Unless their looks did them great injus- tice, they frequently violated their temperance pledge, if they ever took one. I repeat this was the strongest case of evident indigence I saw in Norway. These sunny nights can hardly conduce to health, they steal away so much of sleep. One 312 A SUMMED IN NORWAY. does not readily get sleepy in the sunshine, and then we are so apt to forget to look at the watch to see if it is time to retire. The sun was so slow going down, that by half-past ten o'clock we kissed our hands to him and with a cheery good-night withdrew to our narrow cots and slept gloriously in the soft but bracing mountain air. There were the inevitable down bed-covers, but it was little trouble to re- move them. Rise was the first station reached in the morning, where we got fresh horses, and after that Drivstuen, where we again took fresh horses for Kongsvold, which we reached about one o'clock P. M., having made about twenty-five miles for the morning's drive. Here we con- cluded to take our dinners. The station is situated on the side of a de- clivity, with a rising piece of meadow-land be- hind it. As we drove up I observed an abun- dance of cowslips in the meadow, and so soon as we stopped I went over and picked a nice lot of the inside tender leaves, and explained to mine hostess, as well as I could, that they were good to eat, and I wanted them boiled, and PERPETUAL DAY. 313 saw them placed in a saucepan with water, and set upon the fire. As this part of a Norwegian kitchen is pecu- liar, I may describe it by stating that the fire- place occupies one of the angles of the room, and consists of a platform of brick about eight inches thick, resting on the floor, and circular in front, and brick-work extending up the walls, forming the back and sides of the fireplace. Over it a sort of hood is built which is con- tracted to the dimensions of a chimney above. On this the fire is made and the cooking is done. Now this was the cooking-place in all the kitchens which I was permitted to enter in Norway, which, I admit, were not very numer- ous, but I think it is the common style in the country, but I was told that in the dwellings of well-to-do families in cities, cooking-ranges and stoves have been introduced. As dinner was announced, I rushed to the kitchen to see how my greens were progressing, and found the water had nearly boiled away ; so I caught up the kettle standing by and re- plenished the saucepan with coffee ! That ended my benevolent efforts to teach the Nor- wegians the use of a new vegetable which 314 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. abounds in some parts of the country at least ; and I confess I left the country with a sad heart at the thought that so much food was lost, simply for the want of knowledge. I ate my dinner in silent disappointment, while the rest of the party, I really think, were more jolly than ever, and seemed to think it rather funny that I had made such a signal failure as a cook as well as an educator. This is the first station on the north side of the Dovre Fjeld. The broad table-land on the flattened top of a mountain is called trots- lette, while the mountain itself is called fjeld. So Dovre Fjeld means Dover Mountain, which comprehends also the troislette or table-land of the top. This table on top of the Dovre Fjeld is about twenty-five miles across by the road which we traveled. It is by no means a level plateau, but is, to say the least, hilly or heavily rolling. Although Kongsvold is, rightly considered, on the fjeld, we were by no means at the top or table. Immediately on leaving the station we entered upon a piece of the worst road I saw in Nor- way. We passed over a succession of rolls, PERPETUAL DAY. 315 each rising higher than the other ; we would go up a long hill where it was with the utmost difficulty the horses could drag the carriage with only the ladies in it, and two of them frequently got out and walked, out of compassion to the poor brutes ; and then we would tumble down a pitch as steep as the roof of a house, and the horses would have to run for dear life to keep out of the way of the carriage, for the harness shook about them like an old tattered cloak, and threatened to fly off with the wind every mo- ment, and was of little use in holding back. This was the worst engineering I met with on that road. These frightful grades may easily be avoided, and probably will be soon. We felt greatly relieved when we had attained a higher altitude on more level ground. Here we found the location of the road had been lately changed to go round an immense hill on an easy grade, which follows the valley of a creek which is the head of the waters we had been following up for two days, and presently we reached the summit on the Dovre Fjeld, and stopped for a few moments to survey the water shed on either side. It was by no means a verdant picture, but 316 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. rather one of untamed desolation. There was some grass and reindeer moss, but no trees or shrubbery to relieve the view. We were now at the greatest altitude we should attain in Nor- way, and the influence of the rarefied atmosphere was sensibly felt. We had, till now, been con- stantly climbing the mountain, generally by easy grades, it is true, still it was up, up, up, till it had really become monotonous. Thenceforth it would be down-hill work, and the rapid descent of the road which lay before us was suggestive of relief to the horses as well as ourselves. Away to the right, about twenty-five miles distant, the great Snehaeten, the highest mount- ain in the range, lifted his snow-capped head high in the clear atmosphere, from whose frozen surface the bright rays of the sun were bril- liantly reflected. It looked as if it were but just across the valley and might be reached in an hour's walk, still we could see nothing of it below the snow line. It looked like a great fool's-cap of washed wool, studded all around with lesser peaks, mostly covered with eternal snows. After a short pause and a short survey, the accommodating Rose gave the inevitable grunt, PERPETUAL DAY. 317 which the horses understand to be the Norske for go ahead, and away we went down the mountain, led by Richards in his carriole, who seemed to appreciate that it was his business to keep out of our way, or worse might come of it. The new road led us all the way to Hjcerkin, which is an old station on the old road, and is situated on a steep eminence. Richards had reached there before us, in time to climb the eminence and make the necessary entry in the day-book, and was seated at his ease on a bench outside the house. When we reached the foot of the declivity, our driver concluded not to drive up at all, but turn around there and bring the fresh horses down. The road was narrow and sideling. In turning short round, he brought the fore wheel quite under the carriage, which, without a load, would not have touched the body, but now, with the load in, the wheel came in contact with the bottom, and over we went down the hill. As I saw we were going over, I seized the lines as far forward as I could reach, and slipped from the box down on the rump of the near horse, and at the same time yanked the horses back, for a runaway at that time must be prevented. 318 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. Where Rose landed I never did know, but the first I saw of him he was crawling up the hill from below. I was in a tight place, for I had slid down behind the horse, and my energetic pull at the lines had jammed me close between the horse and the carriage, which now lay on its side. The horse, evidently not liking the position, made frantic efforts to kick me away, but I held him so firmly back, and was jammed so tightly against him, that, at best, he made but abortive efforts. The moment Richards saw the carriage was going over, he made the best leaps he could down the steep hill, and in a very few seconds had the horses by the bits, knowing that the greatest danger was a runaway. A dozen men quickly joined him, and others ran to the car- riage, taking off the roof and helping out the ladies. Let me here say a word to their credit, that not a scream was heard from one of the ladies, but they kept very quiet till they could be care- fully got out. I will say for the horses, that they were more manageable than we could expect most horses to have been under the circumstances, and this PERPETUAL DAY. 319 breed of mustangs are exceptionably gentle and well broken, and as safe to put in the hands of a lady as any I have ever seen. They are good travelers and are very hardy. They do all their work, almost entirely, on what food they can pick up on the mountain sides. At many, if not most, of the stations, we had to wait till they could be sent for and brought in from the mountains, which, however, usually, did not take long, for the bells they wore told where they were. They made an average of seven miles an hour on the down grades, and six miles on the moderate up-grades. The great delay in this traveling is the loss of time at the stations. The prevailing color of these horses is a yel- lowish cream shade with black skin, with dark mane and tail, and a darker list down the back. At last the horses were disentangled from the harness and I was relieved from my unpleasant position, for I confess that hugging the heels of a mustang is unpleasant, at the best ; and when I looked about I found the ladies all on the ground and without a scratch or a bruise. I had got a raking bruise from the foot to the knee, but the skin was only broken near the upper part, which was bleeding, but moderately. This 320 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. I gave a good cold - water bath from the little brook which came leaping down from the heights above, and I never suffered seriously from it afterwards, though I brought the marks home with me as a constant reminder of Hjcerkin on the Dovre Fjeld. CHAPTER XX. RESUME THE JOURNEY; BLEAK AND BARREN DISTRICT; DELAY AT FOGSTUEN; FLOWERS UNDER SNOW; SNOWBALLING IN JULY; ANOTHER ACCIDENT, AND HAZARDOUS TRAVEL; DOMBAAS ; WILD REINDEER; NO DARKNESS YET; PART WITH OUR TRAVELING COM- PANION; THE NORWEGIAN ELK; THOFTEMOEN; A ROYAL STATION- KEEPER, HIS PRIDE AND WEALTH; LAAGEN VALLEY; A PERILOUS BRIDGE AND ROAD; BRCENDHAUGEN, L/AURGAARD, MOEN, BEDE- VANJEN; KRINGLEN, AN HISTORICAL SITE; THE STORY OF THE ANNIHILATION OF A SCOTCH .ARMY UNDER SINCLAIR, AT KRIN- GLEN; THE COMMEMORATION MONUMENT; THE ROMANCE. WHEN the carriage was righted and in- spected, it was found to be so little injured as to render it safe to proceed, and so the fresh horses were hitched to and we pro- ceeded on our way, thankful that it was no worse. The next was one of the longest routes of the whole road, being about fourteen miles. The road is undulating along the top of the fjeld, but the general altitude is not much changed. The country is bleak, barren and desolate, with ponds or little lakes scattered along the way which are the sources of the streams which find their way down the eastern slope. Occasionally 21 ( 3 2I) 322 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. a pile of rock indicates a place where the mate- rial was more refractory than the rest, and so had resisted better the decomposing elements which had leveled down the top of the mountain chain. When we reached Fogstuen we found no horses in, and were told we must wait two hours before we could go on. It was now five o'clock, and as our plan em- braced but one more stage for the day, we had hoped to have got through in good season and have a long rest. We of course were not pleased at the prospect, and suspected a plan on the part of the station-keeper to keep us all night As we had found the musquitoes bad on the fjeld, and here infinitely worse than we had seen them before, we resolved not to humor his design, and so did not enter the house at all but sat in the carriage or wandered about the place. I went off a third of a mile, botanizing, to a great mass of snow which lay in a gorge above the road, and found some of the same flowering moss which I had seen at Bodo, and two other species of moss, and some flowering shrubs in full bloom, not more than four inches high ; some of these I picked out from under PERPETUAL DAY. 323 the snow it was more ice than snow where the underside had melted away and left an open space between it and the ground of a foot or more. On my return I took a quantity of the snow with me, and we had a good game at snow-ball in July. I thought we might never again have the opportunity for this sport in mid- summer. You must know travelers will often do something of the kind, if it is only to have some subject out of the usual way to talk and tell about when they get home. In an hour and a half from the time of our arrival, the horses were hitched, when one of the young ladies took Mr. Richards' seat in the car- riole and led the way to Dombaas, about six miles distant, and we followed at a good round pace. Soon the road began to descend very rap- idly, and I feared we should run into the carriole before us, as our holding-back arrangements were very imperfect. I shouted till I made her under- stand the emergency, when she proved equal to the occasion and fairly flew down the long steep hills, thus removing all fear of a collision. I rode on the box, and, I confess, with fear and trembling. Finally, as we were going down one of the long steep descents which had now 324 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. become bordered with stunted shrubbery at a rattling pace, the outer shaft of the off horse dropped to the ground, the end caught and it was doubled up and broken into several pieces in an instant, with a crack like the report of a pistol. This checked the speed of the carriage so that we stopped without serious accident. One piece of the shaft was found a hundred feet away, in the bush. The remnant of the shaft was speedily taken off, a piece of rope substituted, and we resumed our journey at the same break-neck pace, which was unavoidable on such a grade, and with such harness. The valley below opened before us, showing a cluster of houses at the station, and a long distance of the road to Molde, which branches off at Dombaas, which Mr. Richards was to take in the morning. When the last hill was descended and we found ourselves in the valley, I confess that I felt a great relief. For myself, I do not fancy rolling down a precipitous hill half a mile long, where you have to urge the horses to keep them out of the way of the carriage, and where an accident might hurl you into a deep ravine. I am content with less exciting travel. PERPETUAL DAY. 325 Half a mile brought us to an excellent station where there was good fare and abundance of accommodation. We found a man connected with the establishment who spoke good English, and from him we heard the first word of Eng- lish which had greeted our ears, except from our own party, since we had left Storen. Here, too, is a telegraph office. Although there is a tele- graph line along the road we had come, not a single office had we met till now. We were now in the neighborhood of the wild reindeer, the meat of which is a standing dish at this station in season, and I imagine, from what I saw, they are not always particular about the season. I here found a choice collection of the antlers of these deer, which I carefully stud- ied with great interest. The only difference I could detect between them and the antlers of our caribou, is that, in America they are more palmated than there, and the beams are less cylindrical. We had still seen no darkness, and promised ourselves that long lost luxury here, but the fa- tigues of the day were too much for us, and we gave over waiting and retired by sunlight. The young ladies, however, not to be entirely balked 326 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. in their hopes, darkened their windows as much as possible, and lit a candle to retire by, but the result was represented as showing a rather sickly effort. Indeed, it was a failure, and we must still wait longer for nature's darkness, or manage not to sleep so soundly as the atmosphere there prompted. Had we staid over night at Fogstuen, there can be no doubt that the musquitoes would have kept us awake till we could have seen stars as well as darkness, but those pests had left us when we descended from the high table - lands, and now our sleep was sound and undisturbed. We awaked in the morning later than usual, and we only got down-stairs in time to bid good-bye to Mr. Richards, who was already sit- ting in his carriole in front of the door. In a few minutes he dashed down the lane, and at the diverging point turned to the left and took the road to Molde and for the Felle Fjelds. Some weeks later, when our steamer neared the wharf at Copenhagen, we saw him standing in the crowd on the dock expecting us. He reported the route from Molde across the Felle Fjeld as still more interesting, and the scenery finer, than that across the Dovre Fjeld. From Copenhagen our routes were together till PERPETUAL DAY. 327 we reached Cologne, where we again separated till we met in Paris, where he again left us for Spain, to sail for South America, where he is spending the summer this winter, and proposes finally to go around the world a second time, by way of the South Sea islands and Australia. We are now in the vicinity of the great Scandinavian elk, which is specifically identical with the American moose, though it is a little less in size and not quite so dark in color, but in all essential particulars they are precisely alike, and if one from either side of the Atlan- tic were transferred to the other, no one would suspect that he was an emigrant. This is the largest and the ugliest of all the existing deer family, and to the naturalist pre- sents a study of the profoundest interest. In size he is simply enormous for a deer. In height he is fully equal to the horse, sometimes reaching seventeen or eighteen hands, but he is not proportionably long. In America he has been known to attain a weight of more than fourteen hundred pounds. His legs are very long and stout, the fore legs being the longest. His head, too, is of enormous length, being from two to two and a half feet, with a great pre- 328 A SUMMED IN NORWAY. hensile nose, or upper lip, which projects several inches beyond the lower jaw. His antlers are short and broadly palmated, with many sharp tines. His neck is very stout and short, being only about the length of the head. From this cause he is unable to graze on level ground without getting on his knees. However, he gath- ers his food mostly from the trees, for which his form is specially adapted, being fond also of aquatic plants, which he gathers by wading in the water. He gathers the reindeer moss on the sides of the mountains, and feasts on the parasitic lichens, which he readily strips from the trees. He inhabits only cold countries, in high lat- itudes, and confines his range to the forests. He never ascends the mountains above the timber line, but rather affects the low and marshy grounds, where he finds his favorite food most abundant. He inhabits a region of country in common with the reindeer, though he does not go as far north, but is found further south than the latter deer. Authors inform us that this elk was formerly kept in a domestic state in Norway, and was extensively used as a beast of draft and of bur- SCANDINAVIAN ELK. PERPETUAL DAY. 329 then, and it is difficult to conjecture why he was abandoned for that purpose, for his great strength and endurance admirably adapt him for domestic uses. Formerly the elk were very abundant in Norway, and its flesh was an important article of subsistence among the bonde or peasantry. In deep snows they were pursued on snow-shoes or skates, called skie, which are quite different from our snow-shoes. They are made of wood, of the width of the foot, and about ten feet long, and capable of sustaining a man on light snow. The skie-lober does not attempt to walk with them, using them only as runners, propelling himself by a pole. In this way they can proceed very rapidly, and so they make long journeys. Lately it has been found necessary to protect the elk by stringent laws, to prevent their exter- mination. The closed season is from the 3ist of October till the ist of August, leaving only three months, August, September and October, within which it is lawful to take them ; and even then the owner of an estate may shoot but a single elk during the season, or he may transfer this right to another. Under this protection they are said to be now increasing in numbers. 330 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. Even more stringent protection has lately been extended to them in the maritime prov- inces of the Dominion of Canada, where they were also becoming very scarce, an entire res- pite for three years being provided. In this country they are now found in the greatest abundance in Alaska, but they extend \ as far south as Montana, where they grow to a larger size than in any other part of the world. The elk of Europe, or the moose of America, is truly a noble animal, and the grandest rep- resentative of the deer, which is the largest family of ruminants found on the earth, and inhabiting every quarter of the globe abun- dant in the torrid as well as in the frigid zone. It well becomes legislators to look to the pro- tection of this great quadruped, and prevent his extinction. The illustration is of a Nor- wegian elk. A new shaft had to be provided in place of the broken one, and it was nearly nine o'clock before we got away. However, truth compels me to say that I think we were principally re- sponsible for the delay ourselves. We had en- joyed the luxury of sound sleep to a late hour, and the carriage was ready as soon as we were. PERPETUAL DAY. 331 As we were getting into the carriage, the two under-graduates, who had been disappointed in their efforts to cross the mountains through Lap- land to Tornea, on the gulf of Bothnia, and so had been compelled to return to Trondhjem and had followed on the same road as we had come, drove up. They had been compelled to stay all night at Fogstuen for the want of horses, and they described the battle with the mosqui- toes as absolutely terrific. This was the warmest morning we had felt this year, and so was the day, throughout. We early laid aside wraps and quasi-winter clothing. We reached Thoftemcen in one hour, a distance of a little over seven miles. We had looked for- ward to this station with great interest, for it is royal if not classic ground. The Tofte family, of which our station-keeper is one, are acknowledged by all to be lineal de- scendants of Harold Haarfager, or the Fair-haired, of whom I have already spoken, as the founder of the first Norwegian dynasty, and reigning in Norway and Sweden a thousand years ago. If he is a fast station-keeper on a post-road, he keeps a good house and makes moderate charges, and withal is very wealthy, as are the other 332 A SUMMER IN NOR W 'AY. members of his family. He is very proud of his royal descent, and exacts deference and respect in recognition of it. Unfortunately he was not at home, so we did not see the head of the house, but we were careful to speak every one fairly and received every civility in return. When Carl XV. was on his way, in 1860, to Trondhjem, with about fifty in his suite, to receive the Norwegian crown in the old cathedral, he stopped for dinner at Thoftemcen. When the royal plate was about to be brought in, Tofte proudly told the king that it was quite unnecessary, as he had enough plate in the house to accom- modate twice as many as he had with him, and that it had belonged to a real king of ancient and royal descent, and not to a mere pretender. The king recognized the pride and sensibility of his subject, and had the discretion to humor it, and professed to enjoy his dinner hugely from plate so honored, and treated Tofte with every possible consideration, and fairly won his heart before he left. These descendants of the ancient royal line never marry out of the family, so that the royal blood is kept pure from plebeian taint. At Dombaas we struck the valley of the Laa- PERPETUAL DAY. 333 river, which rises in the mountains to the west, and is, at this point, a stream of consider- able magnitude, rolling down its rocky bed in perpetual cascades. In general, the valley is nar- row, with a fertile strip of land alternately on either side, and is bounded by high and precip- itous mountains. Sometimes the sides of these mountains are capable of cultivation to a great height, where they will be seen dotted over with farmsteads like a checker-board. The road runs on the east side of the river to about four miles below Toftemcen, where it crosses to the west side. The bridge at this crossing had been carried away by a freshet some weeks before, so we had to cross the river on an old rickety bridge at this station from which a temporary road had been opened down the west side to join the regular road at the old crossing. As no one could speak a word of English, even in the royal household, it took a little time to make us understand the situation, and that it was safer that we should cross this bridge on foot. So soon as we did comprehend it we started for the bridge, and when we reached it we readily understood the prudence of the sug- 334 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. gestion. It swayed and trembled even by the passage on foot, and the foaming of the torrent far below admonished us that it would not be a pleasant place to be tumbled into with a car- riage. After we had crossed, we took seats on a sloping grass-plat beneath the shade of some bushes which protected us from the fierce rays of the sun which now poured down with great intensity. Presently we saw the carriage approach with only two horses. This was necessary because the bridge was not wide enough to admit of three abreast, and the same was true of the im- provised road beyond. The ascent of the bridge was very steep and rough, and it was all the horses could do to pull the carriage up ; and as they scrambled up the steep, the vibration of the bridge was fearful, and it looked as if the danger was great, that the usefulness of Rose would there terminate, and our journey be sus- pended for the time at least, and without any insurance on our baggage. He, however, landed safely, to our great relief, and was followed by an old horse and an old crazy carriole which did no credit to the royal establishment that PERPETUAL DAY. 335 furnished it. This was designed for my use, as the three ladies would make as much load as the two horses could draw in the carriage. That new road was most of the way through a dense brush, and full of small pine stumps and rocks ; it went up and down steep pitches, and was frequently sideling, and very uncomfort- able, and by no means re-assuring. We were two hours making the four miles, and were greatly relieved and truly rejoiced when we struck into the old road, which was smooth and of regular, easy grade, and soon run down to Brsndhaugen, which was our next sta- tion. Here we got some luncheon. Before we left, the under-graduates came up in their carrioles, full of execrations upon the new road, which they had come over at a more rapid pace than we chose to endure, and they declared they were fairly shaken to pieces. We made. good time to Laurgaard, which is the next station, where we again crossed the river. At this point a road turns off to the west which the young gentlemen were to take for an excursion into the mountains in that direction, and strike the coast through Nord Fjod. This station is off the road on a high piece 336 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. of ground, affording a fine view down the river valley, which showed more of smiling prosperous agriculture than we had seen since we left Trondhjem. The next route led us down through this beautiful valley to Moen, which is a little hamlet close under the foot of the mountain. The place is by no means as inviting as the country above it. From Moen to Bredevangen, the next station, is about six miles, and about half-wav between * them is Kringlen, where Col. George Sinclair and all his army were annihilated more than two hundred and fifty years ago, during the war between Denmark and Sweden. At that time Norway was attached to Den- mark, which was ruled over by Christian IV. while Gustavus Adolphus reigned in Sweden. Sinclair raised a force in Scotland to assist Gus- tavus Adolphus ; but as the entire coast was occupied by the Danes, from Calmer in the Bal- tic clear around to the North Cape, it was no easy matter for the Scotch to join the Swedes. The bold and desperate plan was finally adopted to land on the west coast of Norway and fight their way across the mountains into Sweden. PERPETUAL DAY. 337 Sinclair, with nine hundred men, passed up the Romsdel Fjord, and landed at Romsdalen and pursued the road to Dombaas, and thence down the valley of the Laagen to Romundgaard, which is close by Laurgaard, where they spent the night of the 25th of August, 1612. Their march through the country had been marked by those excesses of rapine and destruc- tion characteristic of warfare in those times, and the next day they swept down the beautiful valley before them, flushed with success and plunder, having met with no dangerous opposi- tion since they landed in Norway, nor did they ipprehend any, for most of the able-bodied men of the country had gone to the war, leaving only the old, the young and the women to care for their homes, which in the recesses of those mountains they supposed were far removed from danger. Thus the very audacity of this bold movement had so far insured its success. At Kringlen the mountain from a great height appears like a smooth naked rock, and slopes to the water's edge, like the roof of a house. At the foot of this rock and close to the edge of the water, ran the road along which the army must pass. I judge this peculiar formation con- 338 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. tinues for quite half a mile. The old men and boys, and probably the women, had here antici- pated the enemy by placing at the top of this sloping mountain immense quantities of logs and rock, all so held that they could be simultane- ously discharged. Sinclair had received no intimation of this preparation for his reception, and rendered con- fident by the absence of all opposition thus far, rushed gaily into the terrible dead-fall set for him. When all had passed within the fatal lines, the whole collection of missiles was discharged at the same moment, and crushed in an instant or swept into the river the greatest part of the army. The few that survived were dispatched upon the spot by their enemies who rushed upon them in the midst of the confusion, and before even the smoke and the dust of the avalanche had cleared away. Not a soul escaped. The history of human warfare shows no other instance where so large an army was utterly destroyed to the last man, in so short a time. So great an event as this, of course, could not take place without its romance, and this is the one related of this transaction. Lady Sin- clair accompanied the expedition, which was well PERPETUAL DAY. 339 known throughout the country. A young man who had remained from the wars was to be married that evening. His sweetheart, hearing there was a lady in the doomed army, enjoined it upon him to protect and save the lady at all hazards, a commission which he undertook and promised to faithfully execute. In the midst of the melee, he sought out Lady Sinclair, and rushed up to afford the promised protection, but she, mistaking his purpose, shot him dead, and then herself shared the sad fate of her com- panions. We may well imagine the wailing and woe of the promised bride, instead of the gladness and rejoicing which she had anticipated. The place of the tragedy is marked upon the face of the rock, and is pointed out to the traveler as referring to one of the great events in Norwegian history. Colonel Sinclair was buried further down the road, near Storklevstad, where a monument is erected, consisting of a large rough ashler, with an inscription in Norsk, of which this is given as a translation : Here was buried George Sinclair, the leader of the Scotch, after having fallen at Kringlen on the 26th August, 1612. 340 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. I admit it is a suspicious circumstance that no one can point out where his wife was buried, nor is known the final resting-place of the brave youth who gallantly lost his life in trying to protect her, and found a grave instead of a nuptial bed. Some authorities claim that two of the Scots escaped, and others that sixty prisoners were taken who were afterward slaughtered in cold blood. CHAPTER XXI. STORKLEVSLAD; SECURE A GOOD DINNER; OIEN; NORWEGIAN TIMBER; A RACE FOR HORSES; WE WIN; LISTAD; SKJ^EGG- STAD; THE BEGGARS IN NORWAY; LAST OF THE SNOW- MOUNTAINS; KERKESTUEN; THE ROAD ALONG THE RIVER; HOLMEN AND FoSSEGAARDEN ; VEXATIOUS DELAY WAITING FOR HORSES; NEED OF PATIENCE; LOWER VALLEY OF THE LAAGEN; LAKE MJOSEN; REACH LILLEHAMMER. THE distance from Bredevangen to Storklev- stad is about eleven miles. We reached here about six o'clock p. M. We had fixed upon Oien, scarcely six miles hence, as our resting- place for the night. We soon discovered there was trouble about horses. We did not speak Norske so anyone could understand it, and as for English, not a soul there could speak a word of it. At last, by the use of figures and pan- tomimes, we were made to comprehend that we could not get horses till eleven o'clock that night. We suspected it was a ruse to secure our patronage for the night, and so felt strongly inclined to stick it out. We had al- ready been hanging around the carriage for an hour without going into the house, and (341) 342 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. indeed were rather out of humor. However, I went in and looked at the rooms, which were comfortable enough ; so I returned soft- ened, and advised a halt for the night. Ac- cordingly we went in and ordered dinner. We ordered ham and eggs we knew the Norwegian for that but the great trouble was to make them understand that we wanted the ham fried without being first boiled, as we had universally found that the proper thing in Nor- way was to first boil the ham and then fry it. Our protracted efforts to make this understood evidently put the good landlady out of humor. Now this is the worst thing in the world a traveler can do, if he would study his own com- fort. So we all went to work to make ourselves agreeable and repair the mischief. Some kissed the children ; some admired the flowers, and oth- ers the photographs, and very soon we found everything around us smiling. The ham came on fried to a turn, and in the way we wanted, and the first portion doubled. White bread was produced, and the tea was well brewed. The landlady evidently concluded that fried ham was our weakness ; so every time she came into the room, the first question was, 'mere skinke f mere PERPETUAL DAY. 343 skinkef which she saw with delight we could understand, and I do believe the young ladies took a delight in giving an affirmative answer, even after they had really had enough. However, dinner was ended at last, in a most satisfactory manner, when I took a walk through the fields for half a mile, to the bank of the river, and there enjoyed half an hour or more watching some anglers who were having fine sport, for the fish seemed to be biting briskly, and the baskets were being rapidly filled. I could not tell what kind of fish they were, but probably trout. When I returned to the house we ordered breakfast for seven o'clock, and retired. We were anxious to reach Lilleham- mer the next day, and so must take an early start. Thanks to the high latitude, we could ride late at night and still have the light of the sun to make us forget that it was late. The next morning we were off in good season, and made the stage to Oien at a rapid speed. The river had now received many large trib- utaries, and was carrying an immense body of water over a very rocky bed and was almost a continued rapid. The day before we had noticed saw-logs drifting with the rapid current 344 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. which came in from the tributaries, mostly from the west side, having their rise in the lumber- regions, away in the mountains. We should call them saw-logs only by courtesy, for they looked more like telegraph poles than saw -logs. I should judge they ranged from six to eighteen inches in diameter at the butt, and were from ten to thirty feet in length ; indeed they were cut as long as the tree would admit. Still, small as they were, they were to be sawed into lumber. Although I did not visit any of the saw-mills, I learned that they are cut through and through, and then edged into boards, cut to several lengths as each board could be dealt with to the best advantage. While Norway is a great lumber country, I saw no large trees or large logs ; they work up sticks which no one in this country would ever think of taking to a saw-mill. I have seen in the Rocky Mountains and the Black Hills, exten- sive tracts, densely covered with the same kind of timber, which, in the same way, could be cut into good lumber, but which is now considered of no value for that purpose. We did not alight at Oien but changed horses as quickly as possible. Our driver was stimu- PERPETUAL DAY. 345 lated by a carriage which drove up to the last station just as we were leaving, that evidently had taken an early start in order to get the lead, and thus stand a better chance to get fresh horses. This we were not disposed to yield, for experience had shown us that the greatest delay for horses occurs in the after part of the day, when those in the lead may meet with no deten- tion while the next coming may have to wait for hours. At best, there must be several ahead of us who had taken the road at stations further on, and we could not afford to lose our advan- tage if we hoped to reach Lillehammer that night, which we had determined to do. Although we had a right to take a week to make the journey in, yet if we could make it in the more usual time of four days, all the better. All had stood the journey so well that there was a general desire to get through that night, although it would make a longer drive than we had yet had. We were off before the other carriage came in sight, and in fact we saw no more of them that day. The next was a short stage, the road was fine and all the way a down grade, and we made 346 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. encouraging progress and reached Listad and drove up to the station before we expected it. After that we had a drive of nine miles to Skjaeggestad, which we made at a rattling pace, which left the little beggars who beset the trav- eler along this part of the road, and who had been particularly numerous on the last route, little time to ask for alms. The only beggars I saw in Norway were along this part of this road. They consist of children who run along the side of the carriage soliciting chanty with wo-begone countenances, much as I have seen them in Italy. It seemed to have been adopted here, as we were informed, as a sort of a profession and not from want, so we did not allow our sympathies to be awakened to any very lively extent in their behalf, although it was really distressing to see how fast and how long they would run, with the hope of melting your obduracy. But I concluded that it was prob- ably a good exercise and would expand their lungs, harden up their muscles, and in the end make them great pedestrians. At least, I hope it did them good. Travelers are requested by the authorities not to give to these beggars, as the only means PERPETUAL DAY. 347 of suppressing a nuisance ; all that charity de- mands has been provided by government. This day we saw the last of the snow mount- ains. Since we sighted the Norwegian coast on the morning of the 2ist of June, we had every day been in sight of snow, and much of the time almost amongst it. We now viewed the last snow peak, as it was shut out by an intervening range, with interest, if not with regret. It told us that we were get- ting back into a more southern if not a more o hospitable country, although we knew we were a considerable way north of St. Petersburgh, which we had always been taught to consider as near the North Pole as Christians ought to live. We rushed on to Kerkestuen over the same smooth road we had had the whole day, with a gradual descent which just required the horses to keep out of the way of the carriage. The sun shone brightly and it was uncomfortably warm, but the atmosphere was pure, the drive exhilarating, the scenery beautiful rather than grand. The road is on the east side of the river all the way from Laurgaard, and most of the way 348 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. close to the bank. The rapids, cascades and falls, where the wild leaping waters rushed around large rocks and through deep and tortuous chan- nels, formed a perpetual study, and I amused myself by imagining an American Indian in his bark-canoe, skillfully and successfully shooting the rapids. We passed Holmen without detention, and rapidly ; and now, as we had but one more change of horses before reaching Lillehammer, we were congratulating ourselves that we would termi- nate our journey by six o'clock, which was ear- lier than we had hoped for, at the best. When we reached Fossegaarden we met with a vexatious disappointment. The station is some distance off the road, upon a steep bluff more than one hundred feet above it. We stopped in the road and Rose took off the horses and led them up the zigzag track to the station, and after awhile returned and said the horses would be sent down in half an hour. The sun was beating down upon us in great force under the bluff, and we got out of the car- riage and sought shelter under the fence and some shrubbery by the way-side. The delay, though vexatious, was not without PERPETUAL DAY. 349 an interest. The river was a little way off and perhaps thirty or forty feet below us. A swift rapid commenced a quarter of a mile above and rushed down with a constantly accelerated cur- rent, which was divided in several places by huge rocks, till it pitched over a fall probably fifteen or twenty feet high. The face of the fall was considerably indented, the deepest channel being higher up the stream than on either side. The rapid continued for a considerable distance below the fall, where the water surged and foamed in an angry way as the current was opposed by many large rocks which showed their heads above it. The saw-logs, or rather long poles, as already described, were drifting singly down the current, at the rate, probably, of ten or twelve in a min- ute, and it was quite interesting to watch them. Several would start together at the head of the rapid, and run a race down as if upon a wager. Of course those nearest the middle channel al- ways won, unless they touched some obstacle which would thrust them out into slower water. But the most interesting feature was to watch them plunge over the fall. Some passed over endways and others sideways at every imagina- 350 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. ble angle. All disappeared with the plunge, and many did not reappear for one or two hundred feet. Frequently, if one passed over endways, though forty feet long, it would disappear, for a second or more, and would then, from a point fifty feet or more below the fall, shoot up verti- cally its whole length, and then fall over, always down the stream, showing that it retained the momentum which had been given to the top end by the current, which exactly brought it to a vertical position when it left the water. This exhibition only occurred in one place, showing that at an immense depth there was a rock with a smooth surface, the face of which was set at the exact inclination to fairly receive the end of the log as it made the plunge, and from this it rebounded as described. We soon got so that we could anticipate with confidence when to expect this exhibition, from the position of the log or pole. This, however, became wearisome, and so did all the other objects with which we tried to amuse ourselves, constantly watching the angle of the road which should bring the horses into view. At last, out of patience, I went up to Rose, PERPETUAL DAY. 351 who was quietly dozing on the box, and hastily cried out, strax hestes, and pointed toward the top of the hill. He scrambled up the steep foot-path, but it was two hours from the time of our arrival before the horses appeared. Had I not been of a very amiable disposition, I fear I should have been out of patience, for cer- tainly the two hours were as hard to endure there in the broiling sun as if we had been trav- eling with new objects all the while to cheer us. The nine miles to Lillehammer were made in an hour and a quarter. As we approached the lake, the valley spread out to a width of per- haps two miles, and was charmingly cultivated, and dotted all over with nice cottages, always a beautiful feature in a country landscape. Lillehammer is a very pretty place, at the head of Lake Mjosen. This is the largest lake in Norway. It is nearly seventy miles long, and is from half a mile to several miles in width. Its course is nearly north and south. It con- tains several islands, the largest of which is near midway of the lake, where it is the widest ; at which point it throws off an arm to the north- east, several miles in extent. CHAPTER XXII. LILLEHAMMER; DOCKS AT THE LANDINGS; A GARDEN OF ROSES; HONEST HORSES; THE FALLS; LAKE MJOSEN; EFFECT OF THE LISBON EARTHQUAKE; HELGIO; HAMMER; VORMEN RIVER; ElDSVOLD, AN HISTORICAL CITY, CRADLE OF NORWEGIAN LIB- ERTY; TRANSFER OF NORWAY TO SWEDEN IN l8lO; THE SECRET TREATY; CONVENTION AT EIDSVOLD IN 1814; A KING ELECTED; THE CONSTITUTION OF NORWAY; KING ABDICATES, AND KlNG OF SWEDEN ELECTED KING OF NORWAY; INCORRUPTIBILITY OF THE STORTHING; NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE. LILLEHAMMER is situated on two em- inences overlooking the lake, with a view up the valley of the Laagan. In the estuary at the mouth of the river, the floating timber we had seen drifting down the river was collected to an immense amount, and is thence trans- ported to different points on the lake to be cut up into lumber. We drove on directly through that part of the town situated on the first eminence, across the valley, which is well built up, to the Ham- mer hotel, which is built on the southern em- inence. Here we found comfortable rooms, in which we were soon established and ordered dinner. 23 (353) 354 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. After dinner a walk through the town, in the neighborhood of the hotel, finally led to the edge of the high bluff, which rises rapidly from the shores of the lake to the height of at least two hundred feet. This point affords a magnif- icent view of the lake and the opposite shore, and up the valley of the river, which empties into the lake at its very head. There are two docks at which the steamboats stop for passengers to accommodate those from the upper and lower parts of the town. The lower-dock with a comfortable station-house upon it is directly under this bluff. The streets of the town are broad and clean. The houses are mostly of wood ; look neat and clean, and are generally surrounded with gardens and lawns, and present an air of comfort and contentment. On my return I was invited into the flower garden belonging to the hotel. It was of con- siderable size, with clean gravel walks, and a fine variety of flowers now in full bloom. The vari- ety of roses was very fine,, and altogether it presented a charming appearance ; especially as these were the first out-door flowers we had met with, of any considerable extent, since our PERPETUAL DAY. 355 first landing in Norway. A couple of summer- houses or arbors invited to a quiet seat, while the perfume of the flowers on the clear bracing atmosphere of the north enhanced the pleas- ures of rest after the fatiguing day's ride. Back of the garden was a dense collection of shrubbery, through which were rambling walks, and beyond this an open lawn, across which was a foot-path which seemed to lead from the town above, down to the shores of the lake. In this path some parties met, between whom an altercation took place, which at first I thought threatened violence, but . before they came to blows, some women rushed up and interposed and finally succeeded in separating them. There was not enough of this to be worthy of men- tion, except from the fact that it was the only thing approaching a personal altercation which I saw in Norway during my whole journey. I have no hesitation in saying that there is less crime and violence in Norway than in any other country in which I have traveled. Between ten and eleven o'clock the sun had gone down, and the shades of night actually began to gather around us. The approaching darkness produced an agreeable sensation, to 356 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. which we had been long strangers, and I lin- gered in the garden till the lights of the lamps shone in the house. That night we went to bed by the light of a lamp, and went to sleep in good honest darkness. Our sleep was sound and sweet and the sun was high up before we awakened. We had not time or strength to visit the celebrated falls on the Usen river, back of Lillehammer. Those who have seen them con- sider them, as a series, the finest in Norway. The river tumbles down a rocky chasm, from a great altitude, by forty or fifty distinct leaps or falls, varying from ten to one hundred feet, which are connected by rushing, foaming rapids and cascades. What a pity Chicago has not even one of these for hydraulic purposes ! A cotton mill and a few small flouring mills only use this immense power. To see these falls, in their extent and sublimity, the traveler must clamber up the rocky way on foot. In winter, no doubt, they present a grand spectacle. We took an early breakfast and got into a large, open ten-seated wagon, and behind two real horses the first I had been behind in PERPETUAL DAY. 357 Norway started for the steamboat landing, down a pretty steep hillside road. We were delighted to find the steamboat at the dock, so that we could step on board without the intervention of the waterman and his little boat, which constitutes one of the great annoyances of water travel in this coun- try. This was the first time in Norway we had been exempt from this inconvenience. On this lake the steamers always go up to the docks, at their regular landing-places, and their officers seem to handle them with the neces- sary skill to do it safely and expeditiously. Lake Mjosen is a beautiful sheet of limpid water, of great depth, and is well peopled with a good variety of fish. I have already given its course and dimensions, when speaking of the Norwegian lakes. It is not strictly a mountain lake, with bold, rocky shores, like those in the more mountainous regions, but lies between ridges, with sloping sides descend- ing from an altitude of several hundred feet to, the water's edge. These slopes are evidently very fertile, and are everywhere dotted over with farmsteads, in a high state of cultivation, with nice rural homes 358 A SUMMER IN NOR W 'AY. and good barns and out-houses, interspersed with many groves of rather dwarfed trees. In sailing through this lake, we saw by far the richest agricultural country we had seen in Norway, and it is rarely surpassed in beauty. The lake commences at what may be called the foot of the mountains, and it extends from the mountains to the plains. Its lower end is in the plains of Norway ; its upper end is in the foot- hills, which gradually subside as we advance to the south. It reminded me more of the Seneca Lake of New York, and its broad, rich uplands on either side, than any other place I have ever seen, and I know not how to say more for the beauty of the lake and its surroundings than to give it this comparison. This only applies to the upper portion of 'the lake. Besides the regular landing which the steamer makes, there are many pretty little hamlets along the shores of the lake, and fine rural residences close to the water, with their little boat-houses, probably occupied as summer residences, and they looked like quiet retreats from city life. As we approached these, frequently boats would put out and intercept the steamer which would PERPETUAL DAY. 359 change her course to meet them and bring on board or take off passengers. It is a most remarkable - circumstance related of this lake, that the great Lisbon earthquake of X 755 was f e lt by it to sucn an extent as to raise its waters, as if some monster beneath them was rising up from a long sleep, to the height of twenty feet or more, and then imme- diately subsided. This caused great destruction along its banks. The immense distance between these places seems to have been comparatively unaffected. From its receiving the drainage of an immense district of mountainous country, it is subject to sudden floods, which are sometimes very disastrous. After we had proceeded more than half the length of the lake, we reached the large island of Hilgio, which is situated in the broadest part of the lake, opposite which the largest arm of the lake is projected to the northeast. It is unnecessary to mention the various towns at which the steamer stopped ; the most impor- tant of which was Hammer, nearly in front of the large island. At Hammer are the ruins of an old church, claimed to be the oldest in Norway next to the 360 A SUMMED IN NORWAY. great cathedral at Trondhjem. The ruins are on the lake beach, and may be seen from the steamer. At the foot of the lake is the considerable town of Minde. There we entered the river Vormen, which is the outlet of the lake, and ran down it for eight miles to Eidsvold, or Eidsvoldbakken, which is the end of the steam- boat route, and where we had to take rail for Christiana. Eidsvold, although a small interior town of little commercial importance, is the most famous town in Norway, and is looked upon with abso- lute reverence as the very cradle of Norwegian liberty. More than a thousand years ago, during and even before the time of Halvdan the Black, who died in 860, and was the father of Harold Haarfager, Eidsvold was the capital of a rude democracy, which, however, acknowledged Halv- dan as its king. Here the people held their great assemblies, and by their direct votes passed their general laws, which were, no doubt, few and short and directly to the point. Whether they were written laws we do not know, but if PERPETUAL DAY. 361 they were I cannot learn that any vestiges of them have been handed down to posterity. Written laws are of comparatively modern date, and are evidence of a high advancement in civilization. The laws of the Great Lycurgus were never written, nor is there any evidence that Sparta was ever governed by a written code. The bloody laws of Draco, which were adopted for the government of Athens three hundred years after the time of Lycurgus, are the first, after the Mosaic laws, claimed to have been reduced to writing, and the probability is that all those little democracies which existed in Scandinavia in those rude and early times were governed by a few simple laws only preserved in the memories of men. Whether this ancient distinction claimed for Eidsvold had any influence in its selection as the seat for the vastly more important' legislative events which it subsequently witnessed, I do not know. Let us now, for a few moments, turn our attention to those great events. I n : 533 Norway favored Christian II. of Den- mark, who was finally defeated by Christian III., who revenged himself upon Norway and made it a dependence of Denmark, deprived it of its 362 A SUMMER IN NOR W 'AY. parliament and of its popular representation, and so as a Danish dependence it continued for nearly five hundred years, although, as time wore on, the fraternal feelings between the two peo- ples gradually increased till a decided feeling of loyalty for Denmark had grown up among the Norwegians, which was deeply lacerated when they were violently torn asunder. During this time much had been conceded to the independ- ence of Norway, including a parliament, with a show at least, and even much of the substance, of a representative government. In 1810, Bernadotte, one of Napoleon's gen- erals, the son of a notary of the Pyrenees, was elected Crown Prince of Sweden, and in the same year a secret treaty was made with Rus- sia, which was afterwards confirmed by the allied powers, guaranteeing "Norway to Sweden in con- sideration that Sweden should join the allies against Napoleon. In 1812, the Swedes actually joined the coali- tion in pursuance of the secret treaty, and Bernadotte led the Swedish army, which did effi- cient service toward the overthrow of the French Emperor. After this, Denmark was compelled by force PERPETUAL DAY. 363 of arms to submit to the terms of this treaty, and give up Norway. The Norwegians felt outraged at being thus transferred like slaves without their knowledge or consent. Prince Christian, the heir-apparent to the Danish throne, who then held his court in Christiana, as governor-general of Norway, naturally sympathized with the Norwegians and called a convention to meet at the town of Eids- vold to consider the situation. The members of that convention were elected by the people, and a more courageous or patriotic body of men were never assembled to deliberate upon the welfare of an imperiled country. They combined the patriotism of our own continental congress which proclaimed our declaration of independence, with the wisdom of the convention which formed our national constitution. The convention met at Eidsvold on the nth of April, 1814; declared the independence of Norway; elected Prince Christian their king; and framed and adopted the present constitution of Norway, which was accepted by the newly elected king. Although I have before spoken of the freedom secured by this constitution, I think a little ful- 364 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. ler statement of its provisions, now that we are upon the very ground which gave it birth, may not be uninteresting. It provides first for the assembling of the, great national congress, called the Storthing. The members of the Storthing are elected by the people, for the term of three years. Suffrage is not universal, but an elector must be a native of Norway, must be twenty-five years of age, and must have had a freehold or lease- hold interest of a farm in the country for five years and paying taxes thereon, or own real estate in town of the value of one hundred and fifty dollars. To be eligible to the Storthing, the candidate must be thirty years of age, and, if a foreigner, must have resided in Norway ten years. The Storthing is divided into an upper and a lower house. The former is called the Lagthing, and the lower the Odeltthing. The upper house is elected by the Storthing from its own mem- bers, and consists of one fourth of its number; the three fourths remaining constitute the lower house. All acts must originate in the lower house, but they may be rejected or amended in the PERPETUAL DAY. 365 upper house, when- they are sent back to the lower house as amended. After they have finally passed both houses, they are laid before the king, who may veto them. Yet this veto is not absolute, for if a bill passes three successive Storthings, it thereby becomes the law, notwith- standing the royal veto. In this way the law abolishing hereditary nobility in Norway was passed. The Storthing meets annually, formerly in October, but now in February. They convene by the mandate of the constitution, and without any call or proclamation of the king, who may, however, convene the congress on extraordinary emergencies, but at such extra sessions they can only pass laws to continue in force till the next regular session. The Storthing passes all laws for raising rev- enue, and for the public expenditures in every department of the government. At each session, through a committee of auditors, it examines all the government accounts and sees that no public moneys have been used except in strict pursu- ance of its appropriation ; except that ad interim the crown may make provisional grants, subject 366 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. to the revision and approval -of the Storthing at the next session. The Storthing has certain judicial functions, for it has power to impeach great officers of state, such as judges and ministers, and try them before a high court of impeachment, appointed from its own body. All public officers, from the king to the low- est, must take an oath to support this constitu- tion. The king must take the coronation oath in the presence of the Storthing, who receives it on behalf and in the name of the nation. This constitution was first t accepted by Chris- tian, the crown prince of Denmark, when he was elected king of Norway, on the i7th of May, 1814. But when Bernadotte, with a Swedish army, too powerful to be opposed by the new king, attacked Norway, and offered the Norwe- gians the most favorable terms, with an assurance that their rights should be respected, Christian, on the 1 4th of August following, abdicated a throne which he was unable to defend. The Storthing then elected the old king of Sweden, Charles XIII., to be king of Norway. On the 1 4th of November the king formally accepted the constitution, and swore to observe PERPETUAL DAY. 367 and maintain it. The very first clause of this constitution, so accepted by the king, which was then modified to meet the emergency, declares that " NORWAY SHALL BE A FREE STATE ; independ- ent, indivisible, and inalienable, united to Sweden under the same king" This most important provision has been ever since maintained in all its letter and spirit, as well as all the other provisions of this organic law. No attempt appears to have been made to change it during the time of Charles XIII., but after his death in 1818, when Bernadotte came to the throne as Charles John XIV., he desired to make some important changes, and exhausted every means in his power to induce the Stor- thing to consent to the changes, but it is said that not a single member could be found who would betray the high trust reposed in him by his constituents and barter away one jot or tittle of the liberties of his country ; and so has Nor- wegian patriotism vindicated itself, without a single taint or stain, and it ever seems to grow brighter and brighter, placing the love of coun- try high above individual or personal advantage. Surely this is a refreshing example, while it is a perpetual reproach to many public men of many 368 A SUMMED IN NOXWAY. other countries who affect to place themselves high above those sturdy northern fishermen ; but it is no less an example and a reproach to the people of other countries, for it is only when the people lower the standard of integrity and patri- otism that the public men will dare to do it. If a people cannot be corrupted, their representa- tives dare not be. Many have supposed that Norway was a mere appendage to and a dependence upon Sweden. This is no more true than that Sweden is ap- pended to and dependent upon Norway. The truth is, each is quite independent of the other so far as all internal affairs are concerned. In their foreign relations they are united, but upon equal terms. It is true that the principal resi- dence of the king is in Stockholm, simply because it is a more eligible place for the royal residence. It is a larger city and in a more southern latitude than Christiana. In case of the extinction of the present royal line, neither kingdom can elect a new sovereign without the concurrence of the other. In all public acts for Norway, the king is styled " King of Norway and Sweden," while in similar acts for Sweden he is styled " King of Sweden and Nor- PERPETUAL DAY. 369 way." Each kingdom has ITS SEPARATE NATIONAL FLAG. No legislative act in one kingdom can have the least force in the other, more than in Denmark or England. Those who have supposed that Norway was swallowed up by Sweden have simply jumped at the conclusion on the assump- tion that the original purpose of the treaty with Russia in 1810 had in fact been carried out, without tracing the acts of union to their final consummation. With a lower standard of public morality with a less self-sacrificing patriotism in Norway no doubt such would have been the case ; but a love of country, and unfaltering firmness, nowhere to be excelled, triumphed over the blandishments of royalty, the seductions of offered rewards and the threats of power, and secured everything for the weaker kingdom which she could desire or ask, and placed her upon a higher plane of independence and nationality than she had occupied within the last five hun- dred years ; so that the intrigues commenced against her in 1810, which were designed for her national ruin, in the end redounded to her greatest good, and secured to her what she might not otherwise in a long time have attained, na- tional independence and national distinction. 24. 370 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. The mansion-house in which the famous con- vention of 1 8 14 was held, and immortalized itself by so much wisdom and patriotism, has been since bought by the state, out of regard to the great events which took place beneath its roof, and is still held as a national fee. Who shall blame the Norwegian for taking off his hat when he enters its portals, or feeling a partiality for Eidsvoldbakken, where it is situate? CHAPTER XXIII. LEAVE EIDSVOLD BY RAIL FOR CHRISTIANA; THE HOTEL PORTER, HIS IMPORTANCE, HIS NUMEROUS FUNCTIONS, HIS QUALIFI- CATIONS, DRESS AND INCOME; HEAR OF THE SECOND CHICAGO FIRE; DIFFICULTY IN GETTING INFORMATION; CHRISTIANA FJORD AND CHRISTIANA; ANCIENT CITY OF OSLOE; ENVIRONS OF THE CAPITAL; PARKS AND PALACES; PARLIAMENT HOUSE; UNIVERSITY AND MUSEUM; OTHER INSTITUTIONS; AMERICAN CONSUL; MR. BENNETT, THE GENEROUS FRIEND OF TRAV- ELERS. WE have remained much longer at this celebrated town on the banks of the Vormen river, which is the outlet of Lake Mjosen, contemplating the results of the events which it witnessed sixty years ago, than I had intended when we landed. At Eidsvold we took rail for Christiana, in comfortable cars, and found the road in fair con- dition for the amount of business done upon it, though of course the track could not compare with that on the great leading lines in this coun- try or in Europe. We were now quite beyond the mountains, and were traveling through a fair agricultural country, where the crops of rye, barley, oats, (371) 372 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. potatoes and grass looked thrifty and promising, though, with rare exceptions, none were ready for the harvest, except the hay. We were yet too far north for wheat, or at least I had as yet seen no wheat-field in Norway. The houses - of course a large proportion of them were the cottages of the peasantry looked snug and cheerful, and bespoke contentment. All had their gardens, in which the vegetables looked thriving, and the flowers cheerful and beautiful, for still the Norwegians of all ranks seemed to have a passion for gay and brilliant flowers. Both men and women were still at work in the fields, and all looked strong and robust. The common people were comfortably clad, and I nowhere saw evidence of squalid poverty. We reached Christiana after six o'clock in the evening, and went to the Scandinavian hotel, where we found comfortable quarters. Its name, no doubt, had some influence in taking me there, for I had already learned to like the name, but I had also received good reports of the house from some of my countrymen who had stopped there before. We here first met with an institution, which we afterwards found universal at all the hotels PERPETUAL DAY. 373 we visited in Scandinavia and Germany. It is the porter. With us this name implies the boot- black and the baggage-lifter. Here the word is more properly used to denote the doorkeeper. He is the most learned and best-informed man about the hotel, and has the most profitable position. He is dressed in gorgeous livery, with brass or gilt buttons, yellow facings and scarlet bind- ings, and as much tinsel as can be well attached. He has a little den of an office near the front- door. He receives the newly-arrived guests at the carriage-door, and closes the door after them whenever they depart, with a profusion of cour- tesies. He must be a master of all the modern languages, so that he can answer every traveler in his own tongue. He must know everything about the city, and be able to answer every in- quiry. If you want a carnage, he will order it in an instant. If you want an errand done, he has a boy at hand to do it. If you want a valet de place, he can recommend one without a second thought. If you want an interpreter, he is at your service ; for all which services he expects a gratuity, the amount of which he leaves to your generosity, and in Scandinavia he is satisfied 374 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. with a very reasonable amount. Even small contributions from so many guests make a large income, and at some places I learned that the porters were the principal owners of the hotels. After we passed into Germany I found the amount expected by the porters was much in- creased, as well as the hotel charges. Indeed, money was becoming much cheaper, and so had less purchasing power. Probably these porters will find their way into northern Norway so soon as foreign travel shall have so increased as to require their services and make the position profitable. As yet, sim- pler habits prevail and suffice for the compara- tively few who go there. There were several others about our hotel who spoke English very well. My first inquiry was for a London Times of the 1 7th July. On the steamer on Lake Mjosen, soon after we left Lillehammer, a German, who had come up from Christiana the day before, had introduced himself to me by inquiring, in very imperfect English, if I was from America ; and when he learned I was from Chicago, his wife said at once, " Oh, Chicago is burning up again ! " This of course startled me, but they PERPETUAL DAY. 375 could give me no further information than that they had seen in a German paper the statement taken from the London Times of the i7th of July, that Chicago was again in flames, and had been burning for a day or so. It may be imagined, then, that I was anxious for more particulars, and, if possible, to learn the extent of the disaster. My German friend stopped at the same hotel, and spared no effort to find the desired paper, but without success, although one was found of a later date, in which there was no mention of the subject. At last, however, he succeeded in finding a German paper, with a paragraph about an inch long referring to the subject. This the clerk of the hotel translated for me with some difficulty, for although he spoke English intelligibly in conver- sation, he found difficulty in finding English ex- pression for the ideas which he received from the paper, and but for the suggestions I could make from my familiarity with names and places, I think we should have failed at last. When the paragraph was mastered, we found it stated that on the i4th of July all that part of Chicago between Harrison and Twelfth streets, and be- 376 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. tween the river and the lake, was consumed, but that now the fire was subdued. Even this, exaggerated as to the extent of the fire as it proved to be, was a great relief, for it showed that Chicago was not again left a complete desolation, although I had many friends with whom I must sympathize for their losses. With this information we had to be content till we arrived at Copenhagen, some two weeks later, where I found a Chicago daily of the i5th July, which gave us the correct information as to the extent of the fire, which proved to be much less than the first statement indicated. Till we arrived in Christiana, we had not seen a newspaper in our own language since we left England, nearly two months before, and it is difficult, without this experience, to understand with what avidity we seized upon the English papers, and it mattered little whether they were old or new. Christiana, the modern capital of Norway, is situated at the head of one arm of the great Chris- tiana fjord which extends into the country nearly due north for about sixty miles from the German Ocean. This fjord is in many places very broad, but is sometimes contracted to a very narrow PERPETUAL DAY. 377 channel. In many places it has bold and rocky shores with fine scenery, affording an excursion of great interest to the traveler whose tastes in- cline him to admire the beauties of nature. Although in the south part of Norway, Chris- tiana is still north of Stockholm and St. Peters- burg, and is the largest city in the world in so high a latitude. It has now a population of nearly eighty thousand souls, with a thriving commerce. The people are industrious and energetic, and exhibit none of those torpid characteristics which are met with in old and worn-out nationalities. Those you meet in the streets step with an alac- rity and energy which suggest that they have something to do that they have a definite ob- ject in view which they resolve to accomplish while they yet have time. The ancient city of Osloe was founded in the eleventh century, and became a city of note in southern Norway. After the union of the kingdom with Denmark, in 1380, or at any rate, after the execution of the act of union between Denmark, Norway and Sweden, called the union of Kalmar, under the management of the great Margaret, in 1397, Osloe became the capital of 378 A SUMMED IN NORWAY. Norway. In this capital James VI. of Scotland, afterwards James I. of England, was married to Anne, of Denmark. In 1624, during the time of Christian IV., king of the united kingdoms, this ancient city was destroyed by fire, and near its ruins the king founded the present city, and named it for him- self. Christiana is therefore only about two hun- dred and fifty years old, a young city, indeed, to have out-stripped all its rivals in so ,old a country, though to one who had seen a city in the new world in the course of forty years grow from a little hamlet of two hundred people to a city of four hundred thousand, it did not appear quite so juvenile or marvelous. The location of the city is very fine, on roll- ing ground on the shores of the beautiful fjord, which is dotted over with beautiful and fertile islands. The country back of it may be called hilly rather than mountainous, and, at the time of my visit, was burthened with crops ready for the harvest. Then, of all other times, a country is most beautiful ; and then it is, no doubt, that one is inclined to form a partial opinion. Drop- ping down as it were from the sterile north, it seemed to me almost like the Garden of Eden PERPETUAL DAY. 379 especially when now, for the first time, I saw on every hand a variety of fruits already ripen- ing, as well as flowers. In the environs of the city are many beauti- ful villas and mansions which bespeak refinement, affluence and luxury. Particularly may be noticed Ladegarsoen, a very fine royal park in which is Oscar Hall, a royal palace or villa presenting a charming rural aspect. The only military academy in Norway is here situated. Also the fort Akershus, where state prisoners are confined ; as well as the principal arsenal of the kingdom. The new royal palace is a plain, substantial structure, composed of perfect ashlers, and its very solidity gives it an imposing appearance. Opposite the palace is the new parliament house, which is also a stone structure, without ostentatious adornment, but of substantial pro- portions, and has an air of solid business rather than fanciful display, as is fitting for the meet- ing-place of a legislature composed mostly of country gentlemen and well-to-do farmers, whose liberal and enlightened views are vouched not only by the general laws which they pass for the government of the kingdom, but by the lib- 380 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. eral appropriations which they make for the advancement of science and of learning. To the right, and between the royal palace and the parliament, is situated the only state university in Norway, which is in a flourishing condition, whose professors rank high in the sci- entific world, and among men of letters. Of all things, I was most interested in our visit to the Royal University Museum, so ably directed by Professor Esmark, who, although at a time when the museum was not open to the public, admit- ted us, and gave us half a day of his valuable time, personally explaining the various objects of interest. This museum is not only rich in Norwegian objects, but its collections from other parts of the world^ are of great value ; especially the birds of America, collected here by the professor him- self, and beautifully mounted and arranged, are of especial value. He soon discovered that I took most interest in the zoological department, and he was un- wearied in his explanation of the peculiar char- acteristics and habits of the various Norwegian specimens. I fear I shall never have an oppor- tunity to repay his kindness. PERPETUAL DAY. 381 In Christiana is also situated the Bodsfangsel, the prison of penitence, where the prisoner is in the strictest solitude. During his imprisonment he never sees nor speaks to a human being, nor hears a human voice, except the voice of the chaplain, whose sermon he can hear on Sunday, but without seeing him. His cell is well lighted from above, and he is supplied with the means of working and reading. This prison is selected for the prisoners from the higher ranks of society, and prisoners of re- finement often choose this to avoid the associa- tions of prison-life and the gaze of visitors. I may mention here that capital punishment is executed by decapitation. , I must not omit to mention the attention shown us by the American consul, Mr. Gerhard Gabe, while we remained in Christiana. He seemed to anticipate everything that could oblige us, even in the smallest as well as in more im- portant matters. If he attends to his official business and I have no doubt he does with as much assiduity as he does to the social rela- tions which may affect Americans, surely no better representative could have been found. He took the trouble to inform Professor Esmark of 382 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. my presence in the city, and made all necessary arrangements for our meeting at the museum ; and when I inquired where I could find some articles I wished to purchase, he insisted upon going in person with me to find them. May his shadow never grow less ! A notice of Christiana would be quite incom- plete without a mention of T. Bennett, who is an Englishman, and for more than twenty years a resident of Christiana, where he has established himself as an aid to travelers. He personifies the " Christiana Carriole Company," but the fur- nishing of carrioles, either for hire or purchase, by no means constitutes the only aid which he can furnish the traveler. He publishes an annual guide to Norway, containing much valuable infor- mation (and some mistakes I find), to the trav- eler, although I must say that its appearance this year, at least, was so late that it was of little use to me, as I could only get a copy dur- ing the last hour of my stay in Christiana, when I was just on the eve of starting for Sweden, and even this was an advance copy. To issue a guide-book for the year, after the traveling sea- son is practically over, is a little tardy, to say the least ; but when he described the painful PERPETUAL DAY. 383 labor and wrestling he had had almost day and night with his printer, I forgave him with all my heart. I could not find a copy of the last year's edition, either in London or Trondhjem, and so I must conclude that he does not push the sale of his book with great energy. The information which it contains of Norwegian travel, if gener- ally disseminated, would tend to increase the number of visitors to that country very much. But he serves the traveler in other ways besides. He keeps an assortment of photographs and specimens and curiosities and trinkets of the country, for sale, and allows you to have letters sent to his care, which he will forward as di- rected, and appears really anxious to accommo- date you in every way in his power. I would recommend travelers to call on T. Bennett, al- though only those who commence their journey- ings in the country at the capital can receive the most assistance from him. As it was, we had little opportunity to benefit each other. CHAPTER XXIV. LEAVE CHRISTIANA BY RAIL; KONGSVINGER; INDIFFERENT AC- COMMODATIONS; ABSENCE OF CARPETS IN NORWAY HOTELS; CROSS THE SWEDISH LINE; AVIKA; A WHEAT-FIELD; LAXA; A LONG AND WEARISOME DELAY; GROSS MISMANAGEMENT OF RAIL- WAYS; THE GERMAN SYSTEM; STOCKHOLM; THE GRAND HO- TEL; THE NORTHERN VENICE; WATER TRANSIT; ABANDON THE TRIP TO RUSSIA; THE GOTHA SLACK-WATER CANAL; WENER LAKE; TROLHCETTA FALLS; SOUTHERN SWEDEN; GOTHENBURG TO COPENHAGEN, HAMBURG, BERLIN, COLOGNE; UP THE RHINE; HEIDELBURG; BADEN-BADEN; ZURICH AND LUCERNE; UP THE RIGA; RHONE GLACIER; GENEVA; PARIS; LONDON; LIVER- POOL; NEW YORK. TO one familiar with the language, I judge the time-tables for the railways are not easily understood, for Mr. Bennett, who kindly volunteered to assist me, had to go to the sta- tion-agent to get the necessary information, and to me they were as unintelligible as the hiero- glyphics on the old Egyptian columns. By his aid I learned I could leave in the af- ternoon and run out to Kongsvinger, and there lay over night, and take the train in the morn- ing, or start at five o'clock in the morning on the same train. Of course we adopted the former plan. 25 (385) 386 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. Having finished our proposed stay at the capital of Norway, about three o'clock in the afternoon we took the cars on our way to Stock- holm. We went over the same road we had come, toward Eidsvold, as far as Lillestrom junction, where we branched off to the right, still holding a northerly direction till we reached Korsmo. Here the road turns to the* southeast to Kpngs- vinger, our night station. With this change in our course, we fairly set our faces to the south, and every hour's travel thereafter took us into more southern latitudes and into a warmer cli- mate. We were on a slow train, and did not reach Kongsvinger till nine o'clock in the evening, but as the sun was yet well up in the heavens, it did not seem so late as the same hour would in November at the same place. As I had tele- graphed for rooms, we found them ready, and took possession and ordered supper. Well, I must admit that we found better accommoda- tions at some other places in Norway than at Kongsvinger, and a better table too ; still, a dis- position to make the best of it took us through nicely ; but the short, narrow bed tried my pa- PERPETUAL DAY. 387 tience as well as my person, and I was strongly inclined to demolish the nuisance and sleep on the floor, but better counsels prevailed, and the furniture remained uninjured. I have not, I believe, mentioned that their extravagance does not run to carpets in bed- rooms. That was a luxury with which I never had occasion to reproach the Norwegian hotels. In our effeminacy, we found the cold floor to the bare feet not always a delight ; but then we man- aged to get along very well by taking our own blankets, or some of our garments, and spreading them in front of the beds. Some times, if I had occasion to cross the room, I remember I had to step nimbly, and, I fear, frequently an un- kind word would escape me. Indeed, on such occasions I think I was rarely complimentary in my remarks upon the habits of the country, and at Kongsvinger I believe I was even less so than usual, for I well remember that I took no pleasure in undoing the bundle of blankets for the sole purpose of remedying this defect in Norwegian furnishing, and I could not forget how much trouble it had cost me to do them up so nicely, and that the same work would have to be done over again in the morning. 388 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. No matter ; we got to sleep as the shades of evening closed around us, and then of course all the troubles of travel were forgotten, for the time at least. This afternoon we had passed through a much tamer country than we had been so long accus- tomed to in northern Norway, but it was in a fair state of cultivation, though the crops were not heavy, indicating a light soil. The houses of the peasants looked comfortable, and the gar- dens showed that the taste for flowers still pre- vailed, while some fruit trees were observed, but they were not very abundant. By eight o'clock the next morning we were at breakfast, which gave us a little time to walk through the town before the arrival of the train, which was due at nine o'clock. In former times, when war was the business or the pastime of the peoples of Sweden and Nor- way, this was a town of note in a military point of view, being favorably situated for defensive purposes, but now the old citadel which over- looked the river Glommen, which winds itself around the promontory on which the fortress stands, and the town below, is now gone to ruin, and, like the town itself, has lost its dignity and PERPETUAL DAY. 389 ceased to be important. Really if there was anything in the town worth describing it escaped my observation, and so we will pass it by and go on our way. The train arrived on time, and we got on board and pursued our way through a country, agricultural all the way, but not particularly inter- esting. Sometimes a ragged, rocky bluff would relieve the monotony of the scene, and sometimes a beautiful view would be obtained through an evergreen grove, but that was all. The harvest of the fields of rye was in progress, but the crop was rather light, at least so they seemed to one accustomed to the luxuriant crops grown on the western prairies of America. Our route was down the valley of the Vrangs Elv, a consider- able river leading into Sweden, and emptying into Lake Wener. Toward noon we passed the Swedish frontier, which is marked with monuments of loose stone, and soon after arrived at Avika, the frontier town, where we had to change cars and have our bag- gage examined. By some accident our trunks had not been taken off at Kongsvinger the night before, but this gave me little trouble, as I knew they would 390 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. be stopped at the frontier, which was one of the consolations (and be assured they are very few) derived from the necessity of having your trunks overhauled whenever you enter one country from another. There is but one way for the traveler to get along with this obstruction pleasantly, and that is to have nothing dutiable along, or else to declare it at once, and to open all or so many of the trunks as required, without the least show of reluctance or displeasure, and without ostentation. Here I found the trunks as I expected, and when I inquired, as best I could, which I should open, the Swedish inspector looked pleasantly at me for a moment and then turned away with a gesture which told me that I need not open any of them. Although we were detained here for nearly an hour I had no opportunity of viewing the town, which I should have done with satisfaction had time permitted, as it is a manufacturing point of some importance of about one thousand inhab- itants. Especially should I have been pleased to examine the glass and iron works, and compared them with similar establishments in our own country. PERPETUAL DAY, 391 At last we started off on the Swedish railway, and looked about us for something new in a country not before visited. This afternoon I saw the first wheat field since I left England. About ten o'clock at night we arrived at Laxa, having skirted around the north end of the great lake Wener. At Laxa, we struck the main line of road from Gothenburg to Stockholm, and found our- selves suddenly brought to a standstill, and were told we must wait till two o'clock in the morning, when the train from Gothenburg would arrive, on which we could proceed to Stockholm. I at once sallied out to find a place to sleep, but was informed at the station-house that to find a bed was impossible ; that if I had been in time I might have got chairs to sit in, but they were now all occupied, and this I could plainly see was the case. The moment the train had stopped there had been a rush by those who understood the matter, who threw themselves into all the vacant chairs, and there they sat, without ven- turing to leave them for fear their squatter's claim would be jumped. A gentleman on the train, who spoke English very well, had kindly volunteered to interpret for 392 A SUMMED IN NO J? WAY. me, and now went with me to find the conductor or guard who had brought us down, who readily consented that we might remain in the compart- ment of the car, where the ladies still were, till the other train should come up, but we must take the responsibility of being awake when the train should arrive. This, of course, we were quite willing to do, for the prospect of sleeping was but very indifferent at best. I fixed up as comfortable a place as possible on the seat for the invalid, and then seated myself in one corner to ruminate on the situation. I con- fess I was not happy ; indeed I chewed the cud of bitterness, but could gather little consolation from the process. For myself I could do any way, but for the ladies, and especially the invalid, it was quite different. Here upon a great line of travel between the capitals of -Norway and Sweden, four hundred miles apart, which should have been run through directly in fifteen hours at most, we must be nearly two days, and trotted around from one train to another ; and now to be stopped in the night, without the least provision for the com- fort of the passengers during this unnecessary delay, which in no other country would have been thought of for a moment, was beneath the PERPETUAL DAY. 393 management of a tribe of nomadic Lapps. It is an abuse of travelers which should be remedied at once. I understood that last year the train did run directly through, but there was disagree- ment as to the time it took. When I got into Germany I could not help drawing a contrast between the manner in which the railways are managed and run there and here. There, for instance, we left Berlin at twelve M. and reached Cologne, four hundred and three miles, at nine P. M., which is the regular schedule time. I noted the stops on the way, which aggregated nearly an hour and a quarter, making the actual running time less than eight hours. Here, in Norway and Sweden, we were three or four times as long making the same distance and with great discomfort. I advise all travelers to avoid railroads in these countries till their disreputable manage- ment is improved. I do believe I am not hard to please, and am disposed to make the best of whatever betides me when traveling, but I cannot go so far as to make everything lovely when I can see no dis- position or desire to accommodate the public by 394 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. those who are entirely dependent on public pat- ronage. Well, now I have had my growl at the most disreputable thing I saw during the entire jour- ney, so I will dismiss those railroad managers, I hope for ever. We have now got through with our Recol- lections of Norway, which was the extent of my undertaking when I commenced these jottings ; but as I do not like to end with a growl an account of a journey filled with so many pleas- ing memories, we will take a rapid flight over the rest of the trip, just enough to indicate the route, and to get us as far away as possible from Laxa, the very name of which I dislike above all things. We arrived in Stockholm before noon, and found quarters in the new Grand Hotel, which was first opened to travelers that day. All things considered, this we found the best hotel I have ever patronized in Europe. Rooms, fur- niture, table and service, were unexceptionable, and in a magnificent structure. This northern Venice, as it has been some- times called, is a fine city, many quarters of which PERPETUAL DAY. 395 are much modernized. Its fine streets, its exten- sive and well-kept parks and public grounds, its well-docked waterways which separate the sev- eral islands on which it stands, have left a very pleasing remembrance of our week's visit to the capital of Sweden. I should judge three fourths of the local trav- eling is done by water. Little screw steamers of ten or fifteen tons dart about like swallows, and take you from one place to another with wonderful celerity. I took passage on two different Russian steam- ers for St. Petersburg, but sickness of one of the party compelled us to give up Russia altogether. We then took passage on the steamer for Goth- enburg, which would give the invalid about three days' quiet on inland navigation. All travelers in Sweden should take this canal in their route if they can spare the time. This is truly a great national work, of which the Swedes may well be proud. It connects the Baltic with the German Ocean at Gothenburg. It is not a continuous canal, but consists of ten different sections of canal, connecting seas, bays, rivers and lakes, so as to make a continu- ous ship navigation over an elevated district of 396 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. country, the summit being nearly four- hundred feet above the level of the sea. The lakes con- nected are seven in number, some very small and others almost inland seas. The two largest lakes o are Wettern and Wener, the last the western of the series and the largest lake in Sweden. It shows great engineering skill, and the work is well executed. The locks are all of well- dressed stone, and as well constructed as any I have ever met with. It passes through a fine country in a high state of cultivation, and many flourishing manufacturing towns, where some of the finest Swedish iron is made. After passing out of the Wener lake through a canal into the Gotha river, which is the outlet of the great lake, we had a fine opportunity of viewing the celebrated Trolhcetta falls while the steamer was passing through the locks, the captain acting as guide. One system of business on this steamer is worthy of note, as on all the other steamers in Scandinavia, the passage paid does not include the board, which is paid for by the card, and yet the steward keeps no account against the passengers, but each one is obliged to keep his own account. PERPETUAL DAY. 397 A small book hangs by the door of the dining saloon, with a pencil attached by a string, each passenger as he passes out takes down this book and makes an entry against himself of what he or his party has had, and from these entries alone his account is made up at the end of the voyage. I venture to say that there is less lost by this mode than as if the steward should keep the accounts himself, and then there are no disputes when the accounts are settled. When the steward keeps the account he is con- stantly making mistakes, charging one with what another has had. The day before we reached Gothenburg a gale of wind set in from the southwest. We waited three days for this to subside, designing to go to Copenhagen by water, but as it still raged we concluded to take the circuitous route by rail, which after all had its advantages, for it enabled us to see the country, which we should have missed had we gone by water. The south- ern part of Sweden we found an interesting and fertile country. We stopped over night on the way, arriving at Malmo on the coast opposite Copenhagen about noon. Two hours on the steamer brought 398 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. us to Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, where we spent a few days very pleasantly and profitably. We then took rail to Hamburg. Although the through route by rail is longer, it is a day route, and avoids the uncomfortable changes from cars to steamer and then again to cars in the night ; and especially it gave us a fine view of that level prairie-like country, rich and highly cultivated, where are pastured those great herds of cattle which, to a very large ex- tent, supply the London market. We arrived at Hamburg late in the evening, and, after spending a few days in that ancient city, proceeded to Berlin by rail. On this road we had the finest and most comfortable apart- ment I have ever seen in a railway car in Europe. This afternoon's ride, was an interest- ing one, through a fine country and highly culti- vated. It does not comport with my present purpose to give an account of the many interesting objects worthy the attention of the foreign traveler in the capital of the German Empire, and the rich art treasures at Potsdam, surpassing almost any to be found elsewhere. PERPETUAL DAY. 399 The echo chamber, in the palace of the Prince Imperial, is undoubtedly the finest thing of the kind in the world ; a sharp sound, as the clap- ping of the hands, returned eight, distinct echoes. From Berlin we proceeded to Cologne by way of Hanover. The rapid afternoon's ride of over fifty miles an hour I have already spoken of. From Cologne we passed up the Rhine and to Heidelburg, and from thence to Baden-Baden, once the celebrated gambling center of the world. Since the change of government to the Germans the gambling-tables are removed from the saloons, which are now appropriated to less exciting amusements. From Baden-Baden we went to Zurich in Swit- zerland, and thence to Lucerne by rail, spending a few days in each of these places. From Lucerne we went up the lake to Fluel- len, stopping on the way to ascend the Rega on the railway with a grade of one foot in four, after Marsh's invention, and by him applied to the ascent of Mt. Washington. At Fluellen we took a carriage and passed over the Furka pass, stopping by the way to visit the Rhone glacier, which of itself is worthy of a full description ; thence down the Rhone valley to 400 A SUMMER IN NORWAY. Sierra, where we struck the railroad to the head of the Geneva lake, and down the lake by steamer. After a good rest at Geneva, and seeing the sights, we proceeded to Paris by way of Dijon. After three weeks in Paris without much rest, observing the changes which had taken place in the last nine years, and revisiting objects pre- viously examined, we were off to London by way of Calais. In the depot at Paris, some light- fingered gentleman, perhaps thinking he could make better use of my notes of the journey than I could myself, managed to relieve me of my note-book, so that I have had to depend princi- pally upon memory in giving the incidents and observations above. Perhaps the reader should not regret this loss, for probably it has shortened the account, and so lightened his labors in the perusal. We had an exceptionally quiet passage across the channel but had to climb high stone steps, covered with marine mosses saturated with wa- ter, when we landed at Dover, which was very unfortunate for some of the party. We reached London about eight o'clock in the evening, and went to the Westminster Pal- PERPETUAL DAY. 401 ace Hotel, which was a great mistake, for we were nearly eaten alive by mosquitoes, which were almost as pertinacious as gallinippers, and bid defiance to mosquito-bars. This is said to be the only place in London where these pests are found. Here they have maintained themselves for years, in spite of fu- migation and all other means to expel them. Why they do not colonize is an interesting question for the naturalist. We spent a week in London, and then pro- ceeded to Liverpool, and took the Baltic, which proved her sea-worthiness in a severe gale, which lasted but two days. After a voyage of ten days we safely landed in New York, having been absent little more than six months, which were as full of interest- ing travel as I have ever enjoyed ; the pleasure of which has been repeated by this retrospect. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. SMY15 3 1158 01173 1170