rl). ';. FI11KND& Co., ;7. Wostorti Roml. I 1111. 1 .'lO, ("liurcli Kiiiiil. I ni>VK. Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN ! / THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ,!„.. / .^r€ ^^''"''f ^ r- BY THE SAME AUTHOB. THE FUEL OF THE SUN. By W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS, F.R.A.S., F.C.S. Svo, Cloth, price 7s. Gd. lleasoning upon the demonstrated properties of our atmosphere, the Author endeavours to show that it must be co-extensive with tlie universe, and that all the orbs of space are surrounded with atmospheric matter proportionate in quantity to their gravitation. Following out the necessary consequences of this, and the agitation of solar atmospheric accumulations due to the interference of plane- tary reaction and the translation of our solar system through space, an explanation of the origin and perjietual maintenance of solar and stellar light and heat is afforded, and also of the details of solar phenomena and planetary meteorology. London : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO. Preparing for Publication. THROUGH NORWAY WITH LADIES. A SUPPLEMENT TO ' Througli Norway with a Knapsack.' By W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS, F.R.A.S., F.C.S. This volume will present the smoother aspects of Norwegian travelling experience as obtainable by those who do not desire to " rough it " with a knapsack, but rather to see the best of Norway with as miich comfort and luxiu-y as the country affords. It will also include, in a popular and readable form, some special observations on tlie glaciation of Scandinavia, on general glacial phenomena, and on the modern theories concerning the extent and operation of ancient glaciers. London : EDWARD STANFORD, 55, Charing Cross, S.W. THROUGH NORWAY AVITH A KNAPSACK. THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. A NEW AND IMP MOVED EDITION. WITH NOTES ON RECENT CHANGES SUGGESTED BY A RECENT REVISIT, By W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS, F.R.A.S., F.C.S., AUTHOR OF ' THE FUEL OF THE SUN,' ETC. ETC. THK RING EDA LB F088. page 245. LONDON: EDWARD STANFORD, 55, CHARING CROSS, S.W. 1876. LONDON; PRINTED BY EDWARD STANFORD, 55, CHARING CROSS, S.W. vl ' *— PREFACE. I HA.VE been frequently urged by friends and Nor- wegian tourists to prepare a new edition of tliis book which has been out of print for some years, but have postponed doing so until I could revisit the country and supplement the account of my first journey with such information as is necessary to fairly represent the changes that have been wrought in Norway and Norwegian travelling since 1856. An excellent opportunity of doing this was lately afforded. Some young ladies to whom I had been lecturing on Physical Geography desired to extend their studies by taking — in company with their governess-r-a holiday object-lesson on Arctic and Scandinavian phenomena. Tliey invited me to con- tinue my teaching in tliis pleasant form by becoming their pilot through the country I had previously visited and described. I accepted this grave responsibility, and thus travelled again " through Norway," but tliis time with six ladies and more than one knapsack. My original intention was to incorporate in one 1G76SS7 Vlll PREFACE. book an account of both journeys, but acting upon the advice of the publishers and of several friends, I have now separated the two narratives and publish them as literary twins, each complete in itself, but presenting opposite sides of Norwegian travel, the rouo-h and the smooth. I may as well confess that I have had some com- mercial difficulty in the republication of this volume. Books of travel having lately become a sort of literary millinery, the latest, the newest, rather than the best, being the chief objects of demand, the booksellers naturally affirm that they must supply the market accordingly, with novelties for each season, and let the old books drop into oblivion. With all due deference to commercial experience, for which I have great respect, I believe that on this point it has been ratlier delusive. Admitting the existing demand for such literary frippery as mere " books for the season," and that they are quite good enough for the idle people who " look at " books merely that they may chatter about them, I maintain that there still exists, even in these galloping days, a respectable public of intelligent people who remain addicted to the old-fashioned practice of reading books attentively from beginning to end, and that some of these will thus read plain unpretending narratives of travelling experience that are carefully and honestly written for the purpose of supplying PREFACE. IX sound information, and not merely to satisfy the vanity of the writer. Many old and excellent works of tliis class that have been cruelly neglected by the trade — cast aside and replaced by inferior novelties, — might be profitably republished if suitably revised, annotated to present date, and " pushed " as vigorously as the new millinery. These convictions and a natural affection for my literary first-born have induced me to face the risk of being accused of unwarrantable presumption in re-offering ' Through Norway with a Knapsack,' as one of these endurable books, and doing this with the frankly avowed expectation that it will hold its ground as a standard, reliable, and readable account of that phase of Norwegian travel which it pro- fesses to describe. Belmont, Twickenham, June^ 1876. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The Scandinavian coast — Christiansand — Norwegian architecture — Night in the North — The Christiania Fjord — Absence of police and passport interference — Independence of Norwegian hotel-keepers — Christiania ; its streets, houses, and shops — The Kliukenberg, or Vauxhall of Christiania — Popular amuse- ments and indications of character — Interest in English affairs exhibited by the Norwegians — Norwegian Lutheran churches — Necessity of popular instruction in science and natural history — Absence of extreme poverty and squalor in Christiania — Politeness of the Norwegians — English physiognomy — Piccent development of Norwegian tourist traffic — Present hotel accom- modation in Christiania — Other modern provisions for English tourists and sportsmen in Christiania — General growth of the city, and increase of wealth and luxury Page 1 CHAPTER II. The Norwegian railway — Eidsvold — A Norwegian "station"— The Miosen lake — My friend the cook — Tho^ Scandinavian origin of Englishmen — Knapsacks in general and my own in particular — A pedestrian's outfit and laundry — Lillehammer — The Guldbrandsdal — The Norwegian carriole — Fladbrod — Attendance at a Norwegian farmhouse station — Eccentric Englishmen in Norway — First taste of Norwegian hardships — The peasants' supper and bedroom at Laurgaard station. 22 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. A misunderstanding, a reconciliation, a supper, a bed, and a break, fast, all for fivepence halfpenny — A sandy region and its probable origin — Bilious hospital ity — Cheating the hostess — The Dovre Fjeld — The naturalist and the sportsman — Science versus the Classics — The kitchen at Jerkin — Snehsetta — The ravine of the Driv — Norwegian beer — Some etymologies — Luxurious wild flowers — Porridge etiquette — English salmon- fishers — Eental of rivers — Norwegian notions of English sportsmen — The valley of the Gula — Wedding festivities — " Tak for mad " — Costume — Modern changes in the old Norwegian farmhouse stations — Old friends with older faces, and some departed — The future prospects of pedestrian tourists in Norway Page 45 CHAPTEE IV. The approach to Trondhjem — The universality of good-breeding in Norway — Influence of an aristocracy — The Cathedral of Trondhjem — Origin of Gothic architecture — Frost mummies — Start for Hammerfest — The Trondhjem and Namsen fjords — A marine omnibus — Torghatten, and its mysterious tunnel — The Seven Sisters — The Hestmand — A lovesome giant's mournful story — Grand scenery of the coast — Glaciers of the Fon- dalen 67 CHAPTER V. The great sea-serpent caught at last — The natural history of the veritable Kraken — The Lofoden Islands — The fish harvest — Cod-liver oil — Continuous and growing grandeur of the coast scenery — The Maelstrom a myth — Cowardice of the Ancient Greeks and Romans — The Arctic summer — Rapidity of vege- tation — Tromso — Her Majesty's representative — An enicamp- ment of Laplanders — Excessive heat — Physiognomy and general appearance of the Lapps — Construction and interior economy of a Lapp hut — Love of home and domestic snug- ness 80 CONTENTS, XUl CHAPTEE VI. The midnight sun — Lapps in their Sunday clothes — Moral and religious character of the Lapps — Drunkenness no longer pre- valent — A Lapp aristocrat — Adaptation of the eye to cold climates — Anomaly of climate — Alten — Fashion and gaiety in the Arctic regions — Tariff for refreshment, ou board the Ai-ctic passenger steampackets, and the kind of food, &c., pro- vided — The northernmost town in the world — Floating colony — Alfresco bedrooms — Live dolls — The Fjeld Lapp a con- siderable capitalist — The Thief Mountain — Wine in the far north — The great meridian liae from the Danube to the Arctic Ocean — Migi-atory movements of the Lapps, and their progress in civilization — Present condition of Hammerfest — Programme of the midnight sun Page 108 CHAPTER VII. A cruel defeat and humiliation — The return journey — Glaciers of the Lyngen Fjord — A public breakfast at Tromso — A second visit to the Lapp encampment — Moral and religious savages — Condition of the Laplanders a proof of the high character of the Norwegians — Snow and sunshine — The English language a dialect of the Scandinavian — Few, if any, English words derived from the German — When to see Arctic Norway at its best — Bodci — The Threnen islands — The ships of the old sea-kings — Curious change in the tone and colour of the light at midnight — Norwegian table etiquette — A new mission suggested .. 119 CHAPTER VIII. On foot again — The pedestrian's advantages — Terraced valleys — Importance of eggs to the tourist — How to converse in a language you have not learned — The Orkedal — Probable centre of the great Scandinavian upheaval — Another explanation of the Torghatten tunnel — Fly-catchers — Tarift' of refreshment for man and beast — A battle-field — Physiognomy of the Nor- wegians — Mercenary tenderness of the Surreudal cows — Nor- wegian beds and sheep-skin coverlids — I succeed in living witliin my income at the Quamen station — The beard provo- cative of refinement — Female despotism — Trout and salmon in the Surrendal 1,39 SIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. The rich man's debt of courtesy to the poor man — Boating on the fjords — A storra — Luxurious quarters — Haymaking — An attempt at extortion — Outside piety and its usual accompani- ments — The farmers' carts — A startled nightingale — The Norwegian Ram de vaches — A corner of the earth unvisited by Englishmen — The Romsdals Fjord — Veblungsnaes — Preparations for royalty — The glories of the Romsdal — The • Mongefoss — Model glaciers and avalanches — The traces of ancient glaciers and avalanches probably confounded by geolo- gists — Gammel Ost — -Tiie Vermedals Foss— A recent deve- lopment of travelling facilities in this part of Norway — Projected and authorized railways Page 157 CHAPTEE X. " Gammel Ost," a new sensation for epicures — A royal cortege — Lost on the fjeld — False alarm — The "Cock of the Mountain" — Risks of solitary mountaineering — Out for the night — Hard ■work on an empty stomach — Difficulty, delusion, and disap- pointment — Semi-starvation and its effects — The pastor of Lorn — The social position and influence of the Norwegian clergy — • The '* pocket-pistol " a dangerous weapon — How to cross the Kjolen Fjeld 180 CHAPTER XI. A proud Norwegian beauty — Household charity a substitute for poor-rates in Norway — The good people at Mork — The family big box of the Norwegian farmer — The Lia Vaud — Former extent of the Nord Fjord's glacier — Saeter life — A damsel at bay — Collecting of the goats and cows — Cheese-making — The supremacy of -woman and the inferiority of the male sex at the saeter — The head of the valley and the snow fields — Diffi- culty in selecting the pass — Climbing powers of Norwegian horses — The Stiggevand and ice cascades of the Justedals Snee- fond — Grand and desolate scenery — Head of the Justedal — Paternal advice to young mountaineers 197 CONTENTS. XV CHAPTEE XII. Glacier cornices of the Justedal ice-field — The evils of dining — The Trangedal and Lodal glaciers — Advance and recession of the Justedal glaciers — The "Bear's Path" glacier — Fer- mented milk — A human candlestick — An interior — Scandi- navian ileas — Scenery of the Justedal — More starvation — The Nygaard and Krondal glaciers — Luxurious quarters and Englishmen — How to enjoy dissipation — Centre ornament for a dinner-table — An evening concert in Norway — The trail of the travelling snob — Drunkenness and extortion — A mutinous boat's crew — A walk in the dark — Startling the natives with portable lightning — Domestic revelations .. .. Page 212 CHAPTER XIII. The Naero Fjord — Gudvangen and the Naerodal — Out for the night again — Mountains safer than plains for out-of-door sleeping — Returning from church by water — Sunday costume — A jolly boatman — Night on the fjord — The Voring Foss — A project for Barnum — Sailing before the wind — The station at Utne — A wonderful cap — The origin of corrugated zinc and iron — Deference to Englishmen — The cost of boats in Norway — How to make an economical yachting tour in Norway — The Folgefond — The varying saltness of the fjords, and its possible effects on animal and vegetable life, a subject for investigation 228 CHAPTER XIV. The Tyssedal and Skjeggedal — Glacier ruins on a grand scale — An unvisitcd region and neglected waterfalls — A singular glacier and its mode of formation — Influence of the amount of rainfall in determining the lieight of tlie snow-line — Recent in- vasions of the Skjeggedal — Odde — Evidences of general honesty — A recently arrived pastor — Position of the Norwegian pastor — Inii)ortance of practical education to the clergy — A hunt for a lodging— The Ilaukclid Fjeld — A wet bed — How to pass a wet night on the fjeld — Norwegian mode of preparing coffee — A hint for English cottagers — A returned emigrant . . 244 XVI CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. The silver brooches, &c., of the peasantry of the Tellemark — A commercial suggestion — Painted chambers — The Tellemark as regarded by Norwegians — The Totak Vand — Horse-racing — The " houseman," or farm labourer of Norway, and his re- lations to the " bonder," or peasant proprietor — Social equality of farmer and labourer — The merry-makings of Yule time — The poor relations of our Norman aristocracy and the royal families of Europe — Carved cottages — A region of soft bogs — How to escape smothering in a bog — Presence of mind attain- able as an art — The "eng," or detached hayfarm — A mud poultice Page 261 CHAPTER XVI. A Tellemark interior — " Juno " and " Vesta " — Romance and dirt — Sleeping in the hay — Many bedfellows of the human species and many more of the lower animals — The irritating powers of ants — Characteristic scenery of the Tellemark — Facilities for extensive and profitable drainage — An old man and his old boat — The legend of the Marie Stige — Crossing the Marie Stige — The Rjukan Foss from the Marie Stige — The height of the Rjukan Foss — An imaginary rescue — The Dale station — Recent changes in the Tellemark and the vicinity of the Rjukan Foss 275 CHAPTER XVII. The Tin Sjoen — Tellemark costume — A sociable squirrel — Pine forests — Dirt, rags, and finery — A few facts indicating that tourists with weak stomachs should not visit the Tellemark — Solid chairs — Breakfast with the bonder — An investigation of the contents of my knapsack — Sudden change in the social aspect of the country — Wine-shops, commerce, and mining — Kongsberg — A i>ublic-house and Sunday amusement — The long town of Drammen — My reception by the hotel keepers of Drammen — Home-like scenery and its associations — Gaiety of Christiania — Family affinity between ourselves and the Nor- wegians and Danes — Back to Loudon 294 Appendix 310 fdvwd SiHuibp.1. /t5 Ouu^g Ci-oan . S/W. THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. CHAPTER I. The Scaudinavian coast — Christiansand — Norwegian architecture — Night in the North — The Christiania Fjord — Absence of police and passport interference — Independence of Norwegian hotel-keepers — Christiania ; its streets, houses, and shops — The Klinkenberg, or Vauxhall of Christiania — Popular amuse- ments and indications of character — Interest in English atiiiirs exhibited by the Norwegians — Norwegian Lutheran churches — Necessity of popular instruction in science and natural history — Absence of extreme poverty and squalor in Christiania — Politeness of the Norwegians — English physiognomy — Piecent development of Norwegian tourist traffic — Present hotel accom- modation in Christiania — Other modern provisions for Englisli tourists and sportsmen in Christiania — General growth of tiie city, and increase of wealth and luxury. June 2'^th, 1856. — After a stormy passage of about forty-eight hours from Hull, we come in sight of the Norwegian coast, presenting a wild broken shore of gray, rounded, rocky ridges, with smooth slippery- looking surfaces near the sea edge, where the waves run up the slopes and slide over the points of the low promontories as though they were greasy. There are no sands, no pebble beach ; the breaking waves make no roar and rattle, as they do among B 2 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. our clialk-flint pebbles ; tliey only slap and splash upon the hard uu wearing rocks, which are composed of a sort of mineralogical mongrel called gneiss, a cross between the fire-born granite and tlie water- laid stratified rocks. These promontories are evi- dently the points of spur ridges, the outermost extremities, the fingers and toes, of mountain giants farther inland. We have cargo to discharge at Christiansand, which occupies a few hours. The aristocracy and the proud democracy of our small community have now fraternized, and the saloon and fore-cabin pas- sengers, forming a united company of eight persons, go ashore for breakfast with strong anticipations of salmon. We are guided by my fellow-passenger of the fore-cabin, a Norwegian stonemason, to the prin- cipal hotel. Here, after some negotiation, the pro- prietor consents to supply us with breakfast, which, in the course of time, made its appearance. The Norwegians are a deliberate, phlegmatic people, and do nothing in a hurry. The breakfast consists of several plates distributed irregularly over a large table, each plate containing thin shavings of something. No. 1, thin shavings of raw dried salmon, of which there are repetition plates; No. 2, thin shavings of cold veal, also re- peated ; No. 3, tongue shavings ; and No. 4, ham ditto. I afterwards learned that thin slices are con- sidered genteel in Norway. In addition to these are cold boiled salmon and hot eggs, with bread, black and white. The coffee is strong enough for a Turk to sip with his chibouk, and well flavoured ; the NORWEGIAN ARCHITECTURE. cream, worthy of Devonshire, both in quality and quantity. The charge 2s. each, stated and paid in Eofflish monev. Two hours' strolling about the town enabled us to form some preliminary notions of Norwegian archi- tecture. Christiansand has a very colonial appear- ance ; it looks like a place where emigi-ants have newly settled. All the houses are built of logs, and are at some distance apart from each other, though in lines forming streets. This separation is probably a precaution against fire. Some houses were being built and in different stages of progress, affording us an opportunity of observing the mode of construction, which is the same here as throughout Norway. Four large stones, commonly rounded boulders or glacier moraine blocks, form the foundation. These are placed at the angles of the ground plan of the build- ing ; then the trunks of fir or pine trees, rudely squared, are laid with their ends resting on these stones, and thus the wall begins. At about one foot from the end of these logs broad notches are cut to a depth equal to one-fourth of the thickness of the log, and in width equal to its whole thickness. Other logs are similarly prepared ; these are laid with their ends crossing, the notch of one log sinking into the notch of the other, so that the lower face of the upper is level with the mid thickness of the lower. This is con- tinued all round, till a thick, firmly dovetailed wooden wall is built. The crevices between the logs are stuffed tightly with moss or lichen. The roof is a framework of heavy beams, covered with planks and overlaid with sheets of birch-bark, called " naver." B 2 4 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. IVIoss or peaty soil is spread upon these to a depth of several inches. A rich vegetation is common upon 3uch roofs, and occasionally a goat may be seen grazing luxuriously upon a house-top. A cow falling through the roof on which it was grazing, and dis- turbing the tender converse of two lovers, is one of the incidents of an old Scandinavian story. We sail again at about midday, and towards mid- night approach the mouth of the great estuary, which, broken up by hundreds of islands and inlets, finally closes at Christiania. It is midsummer eve, and many fires are lighted on the hills, rendering it diffi- cult to distinguish from them the " Faerder," or farther lighthouse, which marks the outer point of the Christiania Fjord. But lighthouses are little needed on such a night as this, when there is no darkness, though the day has gone. We are all on deck to-night, passengers and sailors, leaning on the bulwarks and looking towards the north. It is eleven o'clock, and the sun has but lately set. We can see exactly where he is below that line of distant hills upon the shore. They were dull gray two hours ago, but now they have a tint of deepest purple, and their outlines are wondrously sharp. There is a thin film — a mere transparent veil of cirro-stratus or halo-cloud out there — a sheet of what would be thin fog but that it is some two or three miles high. The colours of the sunset cling to this, and the sun below the horizon throws a clear and definite light upon it as upon a screen. It marks distinctly the position of the sun, and thus Ave are able to watch him gliding MIDNIGHT IN THE NORTH. on slowly from the west to north, sinking in the meanwhile a little more. Now it is midnight, and the subterranean sun due north. There is light enough to read a newspaper if it face the north. Just over the sun is a vanishing semicircle of buft' light ; westward it grows to orange, and from this orange zone broad bands of browning red stretch upwards and outwards. On the eastern side the buff tint melts and darkens into a fresh cool gray. Farther on, in a widening circle, extending upwards and east- wards and westwards to the south horizon, all these colours melt away gradually to neutral gloominess. There, at the southern meeting place of sea and sky, both are mingled in one heavy leaden semi-darkness. This is the region of night : still farther on over the bending sea men have been burning gas and candles for the last three hours or more. We have all learned book-wise that it is so, but here the southward dark- ness is visible. So are the sunny midnights of the opposite north. There is the sun, obvious though unseen: his body hidden by the earth's rotundity; but the lighted atmosphere, visible beyond the dis- tant mountain tops, shows both his presence and position in the region of continuous summer day. Thus visible all at once from the ship's deck are evening and morning, night and day ; sunrise and sunset seen together, though definitely separated by the north midnight glow, the character of each marked most distinctly and shown in curious contrast. Why there should be such difference I am not able to explain ; why the sun's rays in passing westwards should tint tlie sky with warm, languid, evening 6 THROUGH NORWAY -WITH A KNAPSACK. colours, while those spreading upwards at the same moment towards the east should look so cool and gray and wakeful, I cannot tell ; but here they are side by side, and unmistakably contrasted. We dwellers on a misty island all read and dream of the bright sky of the sunny south, of its clear blue zenith and golden-hazed horizon ; but when we live beneath it for awhile and gaze upon it daily, its fiery dazzling beauty overstrains the senses, and the eye soon tires of its glare ; but in this modest twi- light of the north, the gentle " gloamin'," there's a tempered fascination that never wearies us ; it grows continually in loveliness even unto midnight and its next day's reawakening. It bears the same relation to the gaudy southern sunlight that affection does to passion. There is no reaction, no craving for the shade. Painters have represented nearly all kinds of sky effects. Turner, like an eagle, has dared to face the sun in his full glare and to place him in the middle of his pictures, showing us how we see a landscape with sun-dazzled eyes, when everything is melted into a luminous chaos and all the details blotted out with misty brightness. Danby, and many others, have painted sunsets gloriously ; a few antique early- rising Dutchmen have accurately copied particular cases of sunrise. Such a midnight as this would be a glorious subject for a painter worthy of it, and to the artist himself a most valuable study of the characteristics of evening and morning light. We all linger on the deck long after midnight, then one by one descend, myself the last of the pas- sengers. I had scarcely reached the cabin door, THE CHRISTIANIA FJOrxD. / when I beard the mate call to the captain to look over the starboard bow at a ship on fire. Of course I hastened upon deck again, and looked over the starboard bow forthwith. We soon perceived that it was not a ship on fire, but the moon reddened by the veil of misty cloud, rising behind a ship on the horizon, and looking like a dull lurid flame over the deck and between the masts and sails. It was the half-moon, of huge apparent size, rising point upwards out of the eastern leaden-gray part of the sea. She had a dull, scowling visage, as though angry with the sun for cheating her of her nocturnal supremacy. The form of the moon was curiously distorted by the unequally refractive power of the strata of air through which her different parts were seen, the lower limb being unusually lifted and flat- tened upwards, as though it were soft, and had been dubbed aaainst the hard metallic horizon. June '"loth. — We awake in the Christiania Fjord, which hereabouts is studded with islands, and bounded by a gray rocky coast that grows more fer- tile and beautiful as we approach the city. In the immediate neighbourhood of Christiania the scenery of the fjord has a varied and bright summer aspect of much beauty, such as an Englishman is little pre- pared to find in latitude 60°. I am tempted to call it the Como of the North, but hesitate, as the sky may not always be as bright and blue as on this morning. Land at Christiania, and am positively emban-assed at finding myself so utterly uumolested in a foreign country. Nobody demands my jtassport, nobody seizes my knapsack, and no obsequious touter offers 8 THROUGH NORWAY -WITH A KNAPSACK. to conduct me to the very best hotel ; but I am left entirely to my own resources and devices. One of the saloon passengers, an Englisliman who has come to Norway to kill time and salmon, is standing near with his portmanteau on the ground and similarly desolate. " Where are you going ? " " Don't know. Where are tjou going ? " " Don't know." " Let's go somewhere." "Very well." At the conclusion of this dialogue the stonemason joins us and suggests Hotel du Nord, to which we blindly agree, and all proceed thereto. We ultimately discover the host, who receives us blandly in his little room. After some consideration he consents, in excellent Endish, to receive us, indicates the direction in which a room may be found, and casually refers to the fact that a bell may be connected with some part of its walls, suggesting at the same time the possibility of somebody coming to wait upon us if we should happen to ring it. This was evidently a little preliminary fencing of dignity : he had probably encountered some stray specimen of those wretched libels upon true English- men — the vulgar rich, who are distinguishable from English gentlemen by their rudeness to tradesmen and servants, and are sufficiently degraded to believe that lavish expenditure can justify insolence. Some of these, common enough "up the Ehine" and at Chamouni, may have found their way to Christiania; but be that as it may, our host gave us at once to understand that he was a gentleman and expected to be treated accordingly, and would on such conditions reciprocate. I was delighted to meet with such a CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF CHRISTIANIA. 9 landlord, and my companion, the salmon-fislier, equally so. We came to an understanding speedily, and then found him a most polite and attentive host. After a breakfast similar to that at Christiansand, we make exploration of the city in company with Andersen the stonemason, who kindly offers to act as guide : he is proud of his native city, even after New York and Liverpool, and he has fair reason to be proud of Christiania. I have never seen a town of its size so free from indications of squalor and vice. I seldom visit a city without paying special attention to the slums, more even than to the palaces, and as I cannot afford to hire cabs, am com- pelled, even in doing the guide-book, to see some of the realities. Christiania is a remarkably white city, with wide, clean, bright-looking streets : the house- holders polish their windows scrupulously, furnish them with lace curtains of snowy whiteness, and keep the frames well painted. Just as the greatness of a nation depends upon the virtues and energy of the individuals composing it, more than upon the wisdom of its monarch and statesmen, so is the em- bellishment of a town more effectually promoted by each citizen's cleaning his own windows and house-front, tlian upon the erection of half-a-dozen public buildings of great architectural pretensions. The houses generally have spacious comfortably furnished rooms. They are not luxurious nor pre- tentious, but on the contrary they appear like the residences of well-to-do, careful peo})le, who live within their means and pay their tailors' bills. Opposite to the Hotel du Nord is a baker's shop, 10 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. which may be taken as a type of some of the pecu- liarities of the shops in Christiania. It appears like a large jjrivate house. It has no shop-front, merely the common dwelling-house windows, which are decorated with growing flowers in pots ; but the flowers are not floury, nor does the sho})keeper look whiter than other Norwegians. I should never have guessed that bread was made or sold there, but that swinging over the door is a wooden effigy of a con- voluted loaf, the usual true-lovers' knot done in bread, common here and in North Germany. Most of the food vendors have shops of this kind. There are a few houses with shop-fronts, but these are chiefly devoted to the sale of fancy articles ; other shopkeepers place samples of their wares in plain parlour windows. On making some purchases of books, maps, and minor matters of clothing, I found in every shop some one who could speak English, and that generally it was well spoken. English articles prevail at the drapery and haberdashery establishments ; the latest devices in shirt-collars and similar articles are there, stamped with the names of the best-known London houses, and retailed at about the same prices as in London. The regular lions of Christiania, such as the Palace, the University, a picture-gallery, &c. (for which, see Murray's Handbook), contain little that is character- istic, beyond some of the landscapes and interiors of what is called the Diisseldorf school, and is commonly regarded in England as really German, although the leading artists are Norwegians. THE CItEMORNE OF CHRISTIANIA. 11 In the evening, we — that is, the salmon-fisher and myself — visit the Klinkenberg, which is the Vauxhall or Cremorne of Christiania. The chief entertain- ment is the merry-go-round, an extensive affair of the kind, elaborately constructed and placed under cover of a special building. The fee is one shilling (about a halfpenny) per ride; the apparatus accom- modates some sixty or eighty people. The merry- go-rouud evideutly holds a higher position in the social scale here tlian in Eugland : fathers and mothers, comfortable-looking middle-aged citizens, sit seriously on the wooden horses, and in the mock railway cars, enjoying their halfpenny ride with all the simple happiness of little children. There were also a camera obscura, several peep-shows, and a theatre of some magnitude ; in the latter a company of English acrobats, " Professor " Milner and his infant sons (all full grown), went through the usual performances ; the father playing at football with his sons, walking about with a quantity of them on his head, and standing in the attitude of Ajax de- fying the lightning, while they made trussed fowls and " spread-en gles " of themselves, in flat controver- sion of all that anatomists have written and demon- strated concerning the structure and functions of the hip-joint and its ligaments. These were followed by the performances of the Chinese knife-thrower and straw- balancer, who astonished the Londoners some few years before. He was now accompanied by a fire -eating brother. At the conclusion of the Chinese performances, two English dancers appeared. Their chief effort was the " Highland fling," which 12 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. evidently enjoys the same popularity here as at the Surrey theatre and Grecian saloon. The price of admission to the gardens was 6 shillings. The extra charge for the theatre was, front seat, 36 skillings ; second class, 24 skillings ; back standing place, 12 skillings ; the mysteries of the camera obscura and peep-shows — cosmoramic views, in politer English — like the delights of the merry-go-round, being purchasable by a special extra payment. There are convoluted walks about the garden, with seats and tables for refreshment after the manner of old English tea-gardens ; and among the trees and bushes are sprinkled a few coloured lamps, looking dull and sickly for want of darkness. All classes of people are here, excepting the class most numerous at our Cremorne. Servant-girls and their mistresses, workmen and their masters, mer- chants and their clerks, students and professors, meeting on common ground and enjoying the merry-go-round together. Among other caterers of refreshment is an old woman with a basket of oranges. I inquire the price in the best Norsk I can muster, and understand her to reply that they are 12 skillings each, about fivepence halfpenny. In order to be satisfied I take one, and on tendering a 24-skilling piece receive 12 skillings change. My companion protests that he shall return by the next steamer ; for his " governor " only allows him 800/, a year for pocket-money, and such an income is ab- surdly inadequate in a country where a penny orange sells for sixpence. We carefully watch the old woman's proceedings in order to ascertain what class LATE HOURS IX CHRISTIANIA. 13 of persons are her customers, and our astonishment is by no means diminished on finding them to be chiefly working men, who pay from 8 to 12 skillings for the exotic luxury, according to its size. In every case tliat we observed, the luxurious swain was accompanied by a damsel, with whom the orange was shared ; and from the expression of aristocratic suavity assumed by the features of the orange suckers, and maintained as long as the orange lasted, it was evident that half an orange is " the thing " in Chris- tiania. They would probably enjoy a similar social status in England if sold at half-a-crown each instead of two for a penny. There are no policemen, gens d'armes, or any other official order-keepers here. There are some six or seven hundred people in the gardens and theatre, and not one questionable woman or riotous man is visible. The Norwegians are sometimes spoken of in England as a drunken people, but there is no indication here of even the earliest pre- liminary stages of intoxication. After leaving the gardens we walk about the city in semi-daylight, between eleven and twelve o'clock. A few people are yet moving, but none of the " unfortunates," who have possession of our streets at this hour, are visible. In some parts of the city we walk for nearly half a mile and see no one; no police, no watchman; and we hear no sound. A city sleeping in the midst of so much light has a strange effect on the imagination ; the charmed palace of the Sleeping lieauty seems to be somewhere in the neighbourhood. 14 THKOUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. The honesty of the Norwegians is strikingly demonstrated by the condition of the shop-windows. Many of them, containing articles of hardware, books, and other portable goods of some value are without shutters, the wares exposed behind common crown glass panes ; and this in a capital city where we saw but one watchman in the course of a three- quarters of an hour's walk tlirough the streets. On our return from the gardens at about mid- night we find a large party just dispersing, and on inquiry were informed that a meeting had been held to listen to a reading of the English newspapers brought by the ship that carried us. Such meetings are held periodically here, when our host, who speaks English purely and fluently, reads the English papers, translating as he proceeds. English politics, and all the incidents of our social progress, are carefully and intelligently studied by the Nor- wegians, who seem to be quite as familiar with the names and proceedings of our leading statesmen, as they are with those of the members of their own Storthing, or parliament. Our eminent criminals are also well known in Norway. The Palmer poisoning case had been read with much interest this evening. June 26th.-'Ymt some more of the regular guide- book lions, which every conscientious tourist who knows his duty towards his Murray feels bound to do exhaustively; and besides this, I walk through most of the smaller streets of the town, and still find none of the low squalid slums that are so abun- dant in all our large towns and most of those on the Continent. The poorest streets are composed of NORWEGIAN POLITENESS. 15 clean, comfortable-looking, wooden houses ; and the poorest people have a well-conducted, respectable manner and appearance. There are no blackguards visible : no people that any reasonable person of any rank could object to sit amongst in a railway car- riage. The windows of the humblest houses are scrupulously clean, and filled with bright flowers in earthen pots carefully coloured with red ochre. Flowers in a poor man's dwelling are the outward symbols of most of the domestic virtues. I have had much experience in seeking lodgings in strange places, and always make first application at those houses which have well-tended flowers in the windows. I once believed in the theory that a soft southern climate, bright skies, and out-of-door existence, had much to do with a general diffusion of politeness and external refinement among the poorer classes ; and by this theory accounted for the superiority of con- tinental poor people over our own countrymen in this respect ; but what I have already seen in Cin-is- tiania has altered that opinion, for the Norwegians are remarkably polite, ceremoniously so in the matter of bowing ; and the best feature of this bow- ing is, that the gentleman bows to the poor man in just the same way as the poor man to the gentle- man. I saw to-day a man who appeared to be a rich merchant, alighting from his carriage; a ser- vant opened a broad gate that led to the house he was visiting ; the owner of the carriage took off his f1ve-2uinea Panama hat, and described with it a large semicircle terminating at the knee, as is the custom here; the servant did the like, neither more 16 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. nor less respectfully than did the gentleman — ergo, both were gentlemen. The physiognomy of the Norwegians is peculiarly English — more so than that of Englislimen ; the special characteristics of the " wooden-faced " Eng- lishmen are seen more strongly marked here than in London. The Norwegians mutilate their faces with razors, and the pallor of their light complexions is increased by this domestic surgery. The costume here presents very few peculiarities, being nearly the same as in London or a large Ger- man city ; but white Panama hats with broad black bands prevail among the men. The ornamentation of the Christiania churches is not very remarkable, but there is enough to show that the Northmen here have not rushed into that barbaric reaction which in Scotland led to the wanton destruction of glorious old cathedrals, the anathematizing of organs and stained glass, and the worship of whitewash. In the tower above the belfry of the " Dom," or cathedral, a fire guardian is constantly posted, whose station commands a splendid view of the city and the fjord. To prove his vigilance, he has to call every quarter-hour from each of the four sides of the toAver. In a city built so largely of wood, where a conflagration once started may become so disastrous, such a precaution is fully needed.* * A recent fire was curiously reported in our newspapers. It was stated that " nearly three-fourths " of the city were entirely destroyed. The fire, though most serious, was not so extensive as this. Nearly three quarters of the city were destroyed ; but three quarters, when applied to a city, do not necessarily mean three- 1856 AND 1876 CONTRASTED. 17 The hotel charges are rather high in Christiania, nearly the same as in English hotels, while the accommodation is far inferior. I paid for breakfast 2 marks, or about Is. 9^d. ; dinner, 4 marks, or 3s. Id. ; Christiania ale, 6 skillings, or 2^d., per pint bottle ; supper of bread and cheese and claret, 1 mark 20 skillings, about Is. 7d. ; lodging, per night, 2 marks, or Is. 9^d. ; attendance for two days, 15 skillings, or about 6d., which our host told us was quite sufficient? as he did not wish his servants to be spoiled by Eng- lish lavishness. My companion had some soda-water, which cost 1 mark, or lO^d., per bottle, though made in Christiania. Note, 1876. — During the twenty years that have elapsed since my first visit, the development of tourist traffic between England and Norway has been very remarkable. Instead of a vessel of noto- rious unfitness for passenger traffic, such as that in which I sailed from Hull in 1856, there are now some excellent vessels sailing from that port to the same destination. Instead of carrying six or seven saloon passengers and two in the fore-cabin, they are now all crowded at every trip during the summer. Tliis is especially the case with the Angela, a splendid passage ship of 1600 tons, 262 feet long, 33^ feet broad, with separate dining saloon, drawing room, reading room, state rooms, special promenade, and dormitories for seventy-four first-class passengers. fourths, for it may be diviiled into a dozen quarters, corrcspondiiig to our parishes. This is the case with CiirisLiauia, uud about two and a half of these quarters were destroyed. C 18 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. This or other vessels sail weekly between Hull and Christiania, and vice versa. Besides these, there are packets between Hull and Bergen, Hull and Trondhjem ; between London and Christiania, Leith and Christiania, Newcastle and Christiania and Bergen, and quite a multitude for indirect routes, such as via Gothenburg, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Kiel, &c. Tourists who are victims to sea-sickness may now cross to Calais and do the rest by railway. The still greater and really astonishing increase of steampacket communication on the coast, fjords, and lakes of Norway, will be described as I proceed. The hotel accommodation at Christiania has de- veloped proportionally. The " Victoria " now has almost a monopoly so far as English tourists are concerned, and the " Hotel du Nord " has become merely its " annexe." All the appliances of waiters, porters, chamber- maids, &c. &c., are now attached to the " Victoria," besides a black board in the vestibule on which the names and numbers of the guests are inscribed. In the spacious courtyard, formerly open, a summer marquee is erected, and serves as the dining room, in which a largely attended table dliote is daily held. The smoking and reading room is a luxurious summer kiosk or conservatory, tastefully stocked with exotic shrubs and flowers, with easy chairs and marble tables amid the foliage. It is lighted in the evening with coloured lamps and Chinese lanterns, suggesting reminiscences of Vaux- hall Gardens in the old days of Simpson M.C. and thin slices of ham. This hotel in its present ■ RECENT HOTEL DEVELOPMENTS. 19 state of development is one which even the most luxurious and fastidious of Englishmen must regard as a first-rate establishment. The charges are about the same as at the best hotels of Switzerland and Germany. The proprietary and attendance are not quite so high-handed as of old, nor so obsequious as in hotels generally. To my taste they have as nearly as possible reached the happy medium in this respect, but due allowance must be made for the fact that on such matters I still remain a social heretic, retaining my old contempt for people who love to be Hunkied, and who ima2:ine that thev increase their own dig- nity by adding to the number of their servants, and increasing the magnitude of their " establishments." On my last visit I went from Hull to Bergen. Experience of both routes decides me to recommend all tourists, who visit Norway for the first time, to enter it, if possible, by Christiania. Besides the excellence of its hotel accommodation, every kind of local information is there obtainable, especially from ^Ir. Bennett, to whom all English tourists apply, and whose untiring courtesy, conscientious advice and aid as to routes, hire or purchase of carrioles, shoot- ing, fishing, and every other kind of practical re- quirement, are invaluable. I have only one item of adverse criticism to offer relative to Mr, Jjonnett's proceedings with English tourists. It is that he gives too much valuable ad- vice ^ra^c-s. I have seen long and carefully prepared skeleton routes which he has drawn up to meet the special requirements of individual tourists, and for c 2 20 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. which he has refused to accept any fee. It is true that such tourists purchase his Handbook, and pos- sibly some of his large collection of photographs, models, &c. ; but there are cases where such purchase is inconvenient, and there are also, I fear, a few shabby people who give an immense deal of trouble when they know it costs themselves nothing ; while on the other hand those who are more scrupulous abstain from asking for what they really require, when they see how much work Mr. Bennett is doing without any direct remuneration. All this would be remedied by the charge of a consultation fee, gra- duated by the amount of trouble given. If lawyers, doctors, &c., may receive such fees, surely an expert like Mr. Bennett, whose advice may oftentimes save many pounds, is entitled to make a direct and de- finite charge for Ms advice, and could do so without any loss of true dignity. The general aspect of the streets, houses, and shops of Christiania has not visibly altered, except in general extension, plate-glass windows, and other indications of increased wealth. Its population has doubled since my last visit. It was then about 40,000, and now exceeds 80,000, with an annual estimated in- crease of about 2000. At the beginning of the present century it was but 10,000. I did not revisit the Klinkenberg, but am told that its primitive simplicity has to a great extent de- parted. Human nature appears to be but slightly affected by latitude ; increasing wealth and luxury are developing some degree of caste even in Norway. The leading citizens of Christiania are more exclusive GROWTH OF LUXURY IN NORWAY. 21 than of old, and instead of riding on the wooden horses of the merry-go-round at the Klinkenberg Gardens, they now drive through the streets in cushioned broughams, and even perpetrate carriages and pairs ; but they have not yet descended so low as to encase the legs of their domestics in mountebank breeches of scarlet plush, and powder their heads and shoulders with white dirt. AVages have risen considerably in Norway, and I am sorry to say that during my last visit I observed in the towns, on the steampackets and railways, in- dications of intemperance in drinking that were not visible in 1856. I do not mean to say that drunken- ness is prevalent in Norway, but simply that I saw more of drinking and its effects than during my former visit. Soda-water is no longer an exotic beverage at lO^d. per bottle. It is retailed at three halfpence, and abundantly used by all classes — a trivial but very significant indication of increasing luxury. -i2 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. CHAPTER II. The Norwegian railway — Eidsvold — A Norwegian '' station " — The Miosen lake — My friend the cook — The Scandinavian origin of Englishmen — Knapsacks iu general and my own in particular — A pedestrian's outfit and laundry — Lillehamraer — The Gnldbrandsdal — The Norwegian carriole — Fladbriid — Attendance at a Norwegian farmhouse station — Eccentric Englishmen in Norway — First taste of Norwegian hardships — The peasants' supper and bedroom at Laurgaard station. June 2iMh, 1856. — There is a railway from Chris- tiauia to the Miosen lake ; I ride by it to the terminal station of Eidsvold, a distance of about forty miles English ; fare by third class, 2 marks IS skillings, about 2s. 5d. There are some special peculiarities in this little line. It is, to a great extent, the property of a few English engineers and contractors ; and Englishmen are asto- nished at the amount of traffic that is done on a single line of rails, and at the total absence of engineering and architectural triumphs for the world to admire and the shareholders to pay for. I am told that it is a most profitable speculation, as may be expected ; for this is the great highway of Norway ; and w^here people can travel at a halfpenny per mile at con- venient hours, the whole population become habitual railway travellers. What might not the profits upon our railways become if a corresponding projDortion of our dense population made use of them ? NORWEGIAN COUNTRY QUARTERS. 23 This railway passes through a rich fertile valley and by the side of a pretty winding river ; it then plunges through some dense forests of tall pines, with stems so straight and uniformly taper that they appear like huge fishing-rods. Their bark has a tine red colour, which reflects the sunlight and fills the whole atmosphere between the labyrinth of bare poles with a warm tinge, similar to that produced bv stained glass windows in the aisles of a Gothic cathedral. Eidsvold, the northern terminal station, is beauti- fully situated on the river Yormen. After some inquirv, I found the inn, or station : it consists of a number of wooden houses, some containing hay, others adapted for the entertainment of cattle, and one a store well stocked with earthenware, hardware, drapery, and haberdashery. I was shown to a wooden room in one of the wooden houses, in which was a wooden box with a bed in it, and other wooden objects ; had a satisfactory supper of trout, with potatoes, ale, and good brown bread, and a com- fortable clean bed, without fleas, and with sheets of wholesome rough unbleached linen. In the morning I had breakfast of strong coffee, bread, cheese, butter, and fresh-water herrings from the Miosen, pickled with oil like sardines; paying 2^ marks, or 2«. Sd. for all : the bottle of ale cost 3d., the rest 2s. June 27th, — Steam up the Miosen lake in a boat belonging to the clever Englishmen, or rather Scotchmen, who made the railway. The Miosen is a long narrow lake not unlike our Windermere, but 24 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. on a larger scale ; being some seventy miles in length. The mountains that form its basin rise to a height of about 2000 feet at their visible summits ; their form is not remarkable, but their sides, sloping down to the lake, are covered with rich emerald verdure, rivalling, if not excelling, our own green fields and even those of Ireland. These slopes are backed by fine woods of birch and mountain ask, and dotted about them are the wooden farmhouses. Altogether the Miosen is a beautiful lake, but not exciting raptures. About half-way on the lake is the site of the ancient town of Stor Hammer — sfor signifying large, and hammer the same as our ham or hamlet. The ruins of its old cathedral remain, and near it, or I believe including it, is the farm of George Bidder, once the famous calculating boy, and now one of the great English lords of Norway, with a very eligible interest in that snug little railway and the Miosen navigation. The land hereabouts is the richest in Norway, and the general aspect of the country very different from what one might expect in the midst of the Scandi- navian mountains, lat. 61°, the same as the ice-bound coast of Greenland. I took a deck passage, and found among the natives there assembled many who spoke English very well. I had long gossips with several, but the most interesting of all was that with the cook, a healthy energetic maiden, who had quite captivated me during the day by her energetic and skilful operations in the little galley on deck. In the evening when her work was done, as we talked AN ETHNOLOGICAL COOK. 25 togetlier for a couple of hours or so, she was over- flowing with loving reminiscences of an English family whom she had formerly served ; especially of her kind mistress : the tears rolled down her round ruddy cheeks as she told me how her mistress tended her with motherly care during a long illness. Many ladies believe that servants are all ungrateful; these ladies would be wiser were they to reflect on the fact that the compact with a domestic involves obliga- tions on botli sides, that gratitude is due to a good servant as well as to a good mistress. My friend the cook was eloquent on the identity of English and Xorwegian customs, telling me how old-fashioned people in Norway burn the Yule log at Yule time, just as old-fashioned folks in England do, and how they have in Norway a rhyme precisely the same as ours : " A merry Christmas and a bappy New Year ; A pocket full of money and a cellar full of baer." She had instinctively come to the conclusion that the Eu"[lish and Norwegians are of the same stock, and listened most attentively to an exposition of my opinion that the aboriginal inhabitants of the greater part of Britain were the same as those of Norway, and that the same race inhabited both countries long before the Danish invasion of which we have histo- rical records, and centuries before Coesar set foot ou British ground ; though many historians have hastily and I believe fallaciouslv concluded that Jh-itain was peopled by a Celtic race, sim])ly from Ciesar's description of the inliabitauts of the Kentish coast, 26 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. where a local colony of Gauls might be expected to have settled by invasion from the neighbouring con- tinent. The descendants of the old Kentish families of the coast are still distinguishable by their dark eyes and hair, and Gallic physiognomy ; they are by no means of the characteristic English type. The prisoners in the Roman slave market, whom the punning Pope converted from Angles to Angels, could not have been dark-haired and dark-eyed beauties ; for Italian angels (unless they be portraits of the painter's mistress) all have blue eyes, and red, auburn, or flaxen hair. Italian girls are liable to fall desperately in love at first sight with flaming red-headed Scotchmen, or Englishmen with straw- coloured hair : the " bella barba bianca " is their ideal of manly beauty. The young Romans of our day, who risk their souls and do dreadful penances for visiting the English church outside the Porta del Popolo, go there to enjoy the felicity of breaking their hearts for the most flaxen-haired, gray-eyed Scandinavian specimens of English beauty : they scarcely look at the flashing dark-eyed beauties whom the light-haired Englishmen admire. This is no matter of mere habit, but of original human instinct, that was the same in ancient as in modern Rome : had the British captives been dark-haired, black-eyed Celts, the great Gregorian pun would never have been uttered. The first drunken man I have yet seen in Norway was on board the steamer to-day. I am told that great improvement is taking place in this respect ; LILLEHAMMER. 27 drunkenness, which was once rather prevalent, is now almost extinct in Norway. Another gorgeous northern sunset ; the combined eveninir and mornino- effects were not visible on account of the hills, but the lighting up of the hills themselves was most magnificent. I landed near Lillehammer, and walked up the hill to Hammer's hotel. Meeting the steward on the way, he introduced me to his friend Mr. Fk. Hammer, and we supped together. The hotel, built of wood, is a large one, of considerable pretensions as to stvle and ornament ; the handsome lace curtains at the windows, and a magnificent door-mat of fir and juniper branches, are its most striking features. This fir-branch door-mat is peculiarly effective, and its odour very agreeable when bruised by the feet; the fashion is worthy of adoption in English country mansions that have a spacious entrance- hall. There were many Swedes with leathern caps and aprons on board. They come here for work, and after a while return ; wages being higher in this part of Norway than in Sweden. After a supper of cold trout, cheese, butter, and ale, I retired to a good bed in a detached building, the window close to the road and level with it, but without shutters or anything more than the lace curtains. It was the same at Eidsvold. The fare by the steamer, second class, was 3 marks 20 skillings, or 3$. 5d. ; dinner on board, of macaroni soup and good roast beef, 18 skillings, or 8d. : this 28 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. was rather under the usual charge, as I dined in the cook's galley. June 28th. — Hook on my knapsack, and make a fair start. I pity the unhappy tourist who carries a portmanteau, or even a carpet bag, and can make no progress without a " conveyance " ; who is perpetually waiting or hurrying for post-horses, or the starting of trains and diligences ; who is dependent upon a laundress for the washing of his shirt ; and who goes about groaning for "comfort" while travelling. A man to whom comfort is necessary, and who cannot find enjoyment in discomfort, should avoid Norway. Before advancing on the journey I must describe my knapsack. I have had much experience in knap- sacks, and made many improvements and inventions in their construction ; my last invention, previous to the present one, was of zinc, suggested by a botanical vasculum, and somewhat resembling one. I walked through Wales and the Lake district with it, and found it had many advantages ; but that for which it was mainly constructed was not among them, viz. relief from the heat and perspiration at that part of the back upon which the knapsack rests. Besides this, the country people mistook my mission, and were continually inquiring the price of candles. My present knapsack is made of strong open wickerwork, curved, like an angler's basket, to the shape of the back, and lined on the inside with, water- proof cloth, so that the bare wicker rests upon the back. A free ventilation is thus secured, which effectually carries off the perspiration. The top is MY WICKER KNAPSACK. 29^ closed by a leathern flap with straps. The attach- ment of the shoulder-straps is the same as in the Swiss and German knapsacks, viz. from the middle of the upper part of the back of the knapsack, so that the straps cross the shoulders diagonally, and require no breast-straps : which last are abominable inventions, most uncomfortable and injurious to health by pressing upon the ribs and contracting the chest. This wicker knapsack combines lightness and coolness in the highest degree ; it is strong, keeps its shape firmly, and is altogether the best 1 have seen. It is a great mistake to make a knap- sack of waterproof cloth or other pliable material ; such a knapsack becomes a mere unmanageable dangling bag upon the back. As regards the contents of the knapsack, I find that almost every Englishman carries too much : I never met one who carried too little. The common idea at the outset is, that three or four shirts are necessary. This is altogether a mistake ; one on and one off only are required : both should be flannel, of large measurement, and of the best and softest quality obtainable ; such as are made for rowing and cricketing. But how about a night-shirt ? the reader will exclaim. The one- off is the answer. But, it may be objected, they will both be dirty. Nothing of the kind ! With proper management you may have a clean shirt every day, _ It must be managed thus : .Suppose the hour to be 10 a.m. You have walked some distance, are getting hot, and disposed ibr a halt. You make for the river, lake, or the first 80 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. brook or mountain torrent tliat crosses your path ; and such are always to be found in the sort ot country that pedestrians travel. Call the shirt on, A, and the shirt off, B. Unhook your knapsack at a cosy nook by the waterside, take out shirt B, and wash it in the stream. At first the washing of one's own shirt appears a great undertaking, but the difficulty soon vanishes. A flannel shirt that has only been worn one day and one night merely requires a little soap- ing under the armpits, at the neck, and wristbands ; a little scrubbing, beating, rinsing, and wringing in the pure water, is sufficient for the rest. When this is done, spread out the shirt on the grass and take your bath. If merely a shallow brook or torrent is available, lie down flat upon the pebbles or between the boulders, and let the water flow over you for a quarter of an hour or so. By the time you are dressed, your shirt will be half dry if you wrung it out skilfully. To complete the drying, tie it to your knapsack, and let it dangle and wave behind you for an hour or two as you walk on. Now let it be 5 p.m. of the same day. You are hot, and just sufficiently tired to enjoy the luxury of repose ; you retire to the adjoining field, or into the forest, to dress for dinner, by taking off shirt A and pulling on shirt B. You revel in its freshness, for it savours to the skin of the sweet clear water of the mountain stream; you spread out shirt A, to ventilate till the perspiration it has absorbed has passed away ; you make up your diary, lie flat upon your back, and look through the branches of tlie trees into the blue infinity above, build castles in INSTRUCTIONS IN SHIRT- WASHING. 31 that region for half an hour or so, then pack up shirt A, and do the last stage of your journey at a rattling pace in the cool evening. Shirt A is changed to do duty as a night-shirt, B is resumed in the morning, in order that A may go to the wash as B did the day before. Many suppose that an overcoat is necessary when travelling in a mountainous country : this is another popular fallacy. The shirt off is always at hand to do duty when extra warmth is required. Every article, and every part of every article, of clothing should be woollen ; coat, vest, and trowsers, of flannel- cloth, the linings of thin Welsh flannel. This may appear warm for summer costume, but is less so than it seems. In hot weather the waistcoat should not be worn, but kept in the knapsack as a reserve for the cool morning and evening, or the mountain heights ; the extra shirt is invaluable when benighted on a mountain, and compelled to sleep upon a rock. Three pairs of Shetland-wool socks are required under these circumstances ; two pairs on the feet for extra warmth, and one pair on the hands as mittens. One pair on and two pairs off is therefore the requisite supply of socks, which, of course, are to be washed at the same laundry as the shirts. I have tried the arrangement above recommended, and also that of carrying three or four shirts and depending upon laundresses; in every respect, in- cluding the saving of time, the one-on-and-one-off principle is the best. A whole day may often be wasted in waiting for the washing of shirts. A pedestrian should always carry a pair of force i»s 32 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. for the extraction of thorns, some lint and plaster, and a few yards of broad tape for bandage in case of mishap, such as a sprained ankle or the like. These are not the only surgical instruments required, for needles, thread, and buttons are necessary for healing; the wounds to which clothing is especially liable from rough climbing. A light thin oiled silk cape, to be worn over the knapsack, is very useful in wet weather; it protects the shoulders and the upper half of the arms, which are liable to chronic rheumatism if long exposed to the contact of wet clothes. These, with soap, towel, comb, tooth-brush, a strong knife, scissors, maps, guide-books, and a stout stick, with a long iron spike at the end, a note-book, and sketching materials, are nearly all that the pedestrian requires. In Norway his wall\ing-stick may be a fishing-rod, and he will do well to carry ;Some artificial flies for presents to the farmers : but pf this hereafter. Note, 1876. — My wicker knapsack is now ex- tensively used. Many modifications have been made and some patented ; most of these have erred in the direction of over-elaboration. Simplicity is a fundamental desideratum. I have found much dif- ficulty in getting the wicker part of the knapsack well made. It should be of the same kind of wicker- work as fishing baskets, and quite as strong. Those I have bad and seen have mostly been made of very open wicker, the makers supposing that such is necessary to permit the required ventilation ; but LILLEHAMMER. 33 this is not the case, the strong close wicker of a fishing basket is sufficiently free of the back for all practical purposes, and has the great advantage of being strong and unyielding. One of these baskets lined with indiarubber cloth, with a flap of the same material over the lid, and properly fitted with straps, would make an excellent knapsack. Walk through Lillehammer (or little ham), which is a large village or small town, with broad and re- markably clean streets, large wooden houses, bright windows, with white frames and lace curtains. There is scarcely a window in the main street that is not filled with flowers in bright red pots. Everybody appears to be industrious and well-to-do, and nobody rich enough to be useless. Bevond the town the road ascends, and commands some fine views of the lake and river; seats are placed on the most picturesque points. By the side of the road I passed a mass of charcoal and ashes, the remains of a log house, recently burned down, showing the risks to which this kind of building is too liable. The road is a new one ; the date of its construction, from 1851 to 1855, is inscribed upon it. There is a fine cascade here, the Hunefoss, with a gate leading to it, but nobody to pay for opening it. As civilization advances, this and other waterfalls will, I suppose, be capitalized as in England, and Gc?. charged to see the show. '■o'^ 'Note, 1876. — I leave this remark as it stood in the first edition, in order, after twenty years' interval, to D 34 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. have the pleasure of refuting my own prophecy. The waterfalls of Norway have not become thus appropriated, and there are no symptoms of move- ment in this direction. The landowners of Norway are simple peasants, and usually what we should call very poor, but they nevertheless appear to be quite incapable of the meanness that prevails in such a place as Matlock, where the highways to the hills around the Heights of Abraham, the " Romantic llocks," Sec, &c., are farmed to local Barnums, barred with gates, and guarded by authorised high- waymen who call upon the tourist to "stand and deliver " twopences, threepences, fonrpences, and sixpences each. The last time I was there I paid 3d. each for self and friends for the privilege of walking by a public-looking road up one side of an open barren hill, but instead of returning by the same path we descended on the other side. AVhen nearly down to the main road of the valley a flat- headed ruffian stopped the way, and demanded more threepences in the most insolent manner possible. I was compelled either to pay, knock the fellow down, or walk all the way back. Having two ladies with me, I did the first instead of the second. In other parts of this same valley old lead workings are shown for twopences, on the swindling pretence that they are natural stalactite caverns. There is no approach to anything of this kind to be found in Norway. In many cases paths are cut and bridges are made at considerable expense in order that tourists may obtain good points of view for waterfalls, &c. ; but there is no begging ; NO SCENERY-MONGERS IN NORWAY. 35 no enforcing of paltry fees ; no gates, except to prevent the straying of cattle. Usually a rude signpost bearing the name of the " foss," and with an arrow pointing the way, is placed prominently on the roadside. The tourist should never pass these, but follow the direction of the arrow and he will generally find that the river at the bottom of the valley, at a place quite invisible from the road, plunges over a precipice into the foaming cauldron it is carving out for itself, and then dashes forward in snowy fragments through a wild rocky gorge. He will rarely be disappointed, and usually well re- warded for his detour, as there are no catchpenny Matlock shams in Norway. Dine at Mosshuus station on brown bread, fish, and cheese, the charge for which was 12 shillings, or 5^d. Stop for the night at Holmen station; supper of eggs and cold raw ham. There appear to be no establishments in Norway corresponding to our publichouse, the French auberge, the German gasthaus, or the Italian osteria : everybody appears to live at home. These posting stations are farm- houses. The distance from Lillehammer to this place is rather less than twenty English miles, through the entrance of the Guldbrandsdal, whicli extends nearly up to the Dovre Fjeld. It is one of the richest valleys in Norway and the most frequented by tourists ; for whether they proceed northwards to Trondhjem and the midnight sun, or take the western country about Bergen and the 1 lardangor, this is the usual route from Christiania. D 2 36 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KlfAPSACK. June 29th. — My bedroom is without curtains, level with the road, and looking on to it as before. Break- fast of bread and cheese, with wonderfully strong coffee and rich cream, as usual. Supper, bed, and breakfast cost 1 mark 12 skilliugs, or Is. 4:d. Walk up the hill to Throtten, where the river spreads out again and forms a narrow lake, on which a steam- packet plies. Like that upon the Miosen, it is well filled ; the fares being low people contrive to find occasions for travelling. I was overtaken here by my friend the salmon-fisher, who drove up in com- pany with Mr. Gould the ornithologist, and Wolff the great bird-painter. Tlie two latter had com- menced their experience of Scandinavian hardships by a sojourn M'ith Mr. Bidder at his farm, before referred to ; and doubtless had suffered such priva- tions as Englishmen, especially naturalists, generally do when they meet together under such circum- stances. At Christiania I had been led to believe that the roads were so bad, that only the light carrioles made on purpose could travel on them ; but here was a four-wheeled contrivance, drawn by two horses, and carrying four people besides the driver and a quantity of luggage. An English stage- coach, with full complement of passengers, might travel all the way from Christiania to Troudhjem ; the road is very hilly, but not more so than some parts of North Devon where stage-coaches are still running. The chief advantage of the carriole is its lightness ; where there are many fjords to cross, it is the most convenient vehicle, as it can THE NORTVEGIAN CARRIOLE. 37 be easily put into a boat. It is simply a light car, the body shaped rather gracefully, like the bow of a boat with the keel planed off, or a college -cap with the square trencher cut off, then inverted and cut in half crosswise by the ears. There are two long, thin shafts, with two wheels at one end and a pony at the other. The prow-shaped car is placed upon the shafts (with its bow backwards, of course), between the wheels and the pony. One person can just sit in the half-bowl ; he disposes of his legs as he may, either arranging them horizontally on the shafts, or dangling them in the small space between his seat and the pony's tail, or otherwise, as his in- genuity may suggest. His centre of gravity is situated over a point about one-fourth the distance between the axle and the bearing of the harness ; and therefore the pony supports about one-f(jurth of his weight on horizontal ground, the elasticity of the shafts serving as a spring. His luggage is placed on a flat board nailed to the shafts over, or a little behind, the wheels. A small boy who has to take the horse back to the station usually stands upon this board, or on the luggage, and these to some ex- tent counterpoise the weight of the traveller and diminish the pressure on the pony's back. Enthusiastic Englishmen usually purchase a car- riole at Christiania, and add considerably to their travelling griefs thereby. Carrioles, or something of the sort, may be hired wherever there are roads for them to run upon, at the rate of one fartiiing per English mile, including harness. As there is so much water travelling either on lakes or fjords in all 38 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. parts of Norway, the cost of carrying one's own carriole on the water is considerable. The chief advantage of a private carriole is, that the trouble of strapping and unstrapping the luggage at every station is saved. The lake of Losna is very beautiful. It is an ex- pansion of the river Logen, and about the same width as the Rhine ; the scenery is not unlike the grandest part of the latter, where the hills are too steep to be disiigured by the ugly vine-sticks and terraces. The charge for a carriole to Elstadt by the steamer is 15 skillings ; for a passenger, 30 skillings. Having neither luggage, horses, nor carriage to look after, I started some time before the rest, and was not overtaken by the four-wheeler until about half-way to the next station, which is twelve or thir- teen miles on. I arrived there before they left, and dined on raw ham, ale, and "JladhrodJ' This fiadbrod is a remarkable substance, composed of bruised oats cemented together by some means and flattened out wonderfully. It differs considerably from Scotch oatcake, being very much thinner, darker coloured, and more chippy ; it is more like the material of which hat-boxes are made than anything else I am acquainted with : if you strip the paper off a hat-box you will find that it is not made of cardboard, as it appears to be, but of a thin veneer of wood : eat a small quantity of this veneer, and you will be able to form a very fair idea of the flavour of fladbrod ; only fladbrod is rather more crisp and a little less resinous. It is made into circular discs from 18 inches to 2 feet in diameter ; and a hungry man, FLADBROD. 39 who is foud of it, consumes a considerable acreage at a meal. The view from the upper windows of the Oden station is most magnificent. The station is a large and good one, but rather embarrassing to an Englishman who brings his hotel notions with him, for there are no bells, no waiters, no servants. Like such stations generally, it is composed of several wooden buildings : the dining room is one of these, and the kitchen is over the way ; there- fore if you want food or drink, you walk across the road and fetch it. You may hammer on the table if you please, but having the whole building to yourself, nobody hears you, or if any of the natives do they take no notice, for they suppose that you are playing a tune for your own amuse- ment. And yet they are not uncivil — no, nor in- attentive, but they appear to have a theory that people with arms and legs can help themselves, anfl they allow them to do so. Englishmen are objects of great wonderment to the Norwegians. The steward of the steamer told me of an English lady who has a farm hereabouts, who rides barebacked horses, and cuts her own timber in a silk gown ; and of a Sir Something Somebody, who hired a special steampacket in order to avoid meeting five people he had tiavelled with ; also of another Englishman, who for some years past has lived in a lonely hut with no other associate than an old woman, his housekeeper ; and who spends all his time in hunting wolves and bears, but has not yet seen any. 40 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. Arrive at Vik station rather late. The distance is about twenty-three miles from the landing place, and the scenery very fine all the way ; vast culti- vated slopes, of the same rich verdure as tlie banks of the Miosen, with wooded knolls and islands on the winding river. Near to Vik the hills form a mag- nificent amphitheatre, a fitting council chamber for a conclave of giants, the mountain opposite repre- senting the speaker's rostrum. I find the salmon-fisher and the rest of the party here, and am rather inclined to crow, having done as much on foot as they had with post-horses. June SOth. — Breakfast on fried slices of trout of extraordinary size, as large as our largest sized salmon, but of deeper colour, and remarkably full- flavoured. The trout are, I believe, caught in a neighbouring lake. Paid 1 mark 12 skillings, or Is. 4:d., for supper, bed, and breakfast. Walk on through the Guldbrandsdal, into which several lateral valleys open, each contributing a stream to the main river, which at one place, near the battle-ground of Kringeleu, forms a small lake. It was here that Colonel Sinclair and his band of Scotchmen were killed while marching on their way to Sweden in 1612. He was buried in the church of Quam close by, and a monument erected to his memory stands by the roadside : it is a small stone pillar, with a carved top, and no visible inscription. Near to Laurgaard, just before reaching the bridge, the road passes over the lower part of a huge heap of great masses of stone, some of them blasted for road-making. They are for the most part an- THE GULDBRANDSDAL. 41 gular and present every appearance of a terminal moraine. This is especially the case to the left of the spot where the road passes over it ; the heap comes abruptly upon the greensward, with a rounded swelling outline, just as though pushed forward by some force from behind. Had the stones fallen from above there must have been an abundance of stray boulders of the same kind beyond it. Farther up the western branch of the valley there are long heaps high on the hillside, forming a ridge ; these heaps, like that by the roadside, are too abrupt at the sides to have fallen from above, for had they come down with a falling impetus they could not possibly have rested there. Professor Forbes does not appear to have observed them. Rich, verdant, sunny, and highly-cultivated slopes are the leading characteristics of this broad valley, the Guldbraudsdal. Its verdure is sustained by very careful irrigation, which is one of the most remark- able features of the farming operations hereabouts. Long troughs are made by scooping a hollow in the stem of a pine-tree ; one of those troughs is laid with its thicker end close to a mountain stream, and the water directed into it ; its thinner end rests in the hollow at the thick-end of the next lower trough, so that the water flows over from the first into the second. This arrangement is continued, and a little aqueduct formed : one of these aqueducts runs along the upper part of every field or range of fields. To use it, the farmer, or one of his housemen, brings a wooden trough, not channeled through as the aqueduct logs are, but with a ledge all round, so that it can form 42 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. a little pool of water. He places this just above the part he is about to irrigate, breaks the aqueduct by lifting the clianneled log nearest to his pool trough, and directing the stream into it. Usually he has to shift several logs in order to bend the aqueduct down to the required spot, but he does this very speedily by lifting each log at one end and giving it the required inclination. The water now fills his wooden pool, and with a long wooden scoop he flings a refreshing shower far and wide upon the rye, oats, barley, pasture grass, or potatoes. Every foot of the field is scrupulously watered thus, and when a number of the waterers are at work, the bright semi- circles of sparkling drops flying through the air in every direction make a cheerful and pleasing sight for the pedestrian in hot sunny weather such as I have enjoyed until this evening. Halt at Laurgaard station, and am shown into a rough sort of kitchen, with tables, benches, a hand- loom, and a great fireplace, under a canopy of brick and plaster. An old woman is sitting coiled up by the fireplace, hybernating apparently. On one of the benches are some young women and a dirty man eating a plastic composition, like Eoman cement, out of a wooden bowl by dipping their wooden spoons into it by turns. The bowl is oblong like a butcher's tray, and contains about an ordinary shovelful. On my entrance they all stop feeding and stare ; the old woman uncoils and discontinues hybernation. After consulting together they bring me fladbrod and rusty raw bacon. The dirty man having now peasants' fare. 43 finished his meal carefully sucks his knife and hands it to me, making a bow as he presents it. The girl sucks another knife and puts it away nice and clean ready for tlie next comer. I eat a few square feet of the fladbrod and leave the bacon. A Scandinavian antiquity is next handed to me ; it is a wooden tankard, or rather bucket, capable of holding about three quarts, having a carved cover, the sides plain and about three-quarters of an inch thick. It con- tains beer, but as the dirty man has just been drink- ing out of it, and sucking the thick wooden edge as he did the blade of the knife, I refuse the antiquity and ask for water. This is brought in a basin, the same sort as usually supplied in these parts for washing. After supper I am shown into a dirty double- bedded room, the dirty man lying on his back smoking in the best bed of the two. The bed left for me is a kind of stout coffin, or egg-chest, with some straw covered with canvas for the mattress, and a dirty rug for the covering. The bed is close by a window, and exactly over the head of the bed and about 18 inches above it is a broken pane of glass ; a piece of paper is pasted over the hole, but it only adheres by the upper part, the rest forming a flap which accurately directs a jet of air upon the place to be occupied by the head of the sleeper. The window faces due north, and the wind is blowing from the north with occasional showers. I lie down with my clothes on, to avoid direct contact with the earth-coloured canvas and dirty rug. I try to move the bed, but fail ; try to stop up the window, and 44 THROUGH NORWAY "WITH A KNAPSACK. fail also. The prospect of earache, stiff neck, and rheumatism in the shoulder being imminent I re- luctantly give it up, and determine to sleep out of doors on the roadside. With this secret intent I return to the kitchen, inquire how much to pay, and ask the distance to the next station. The equa- nimity of the whole establishment is seriously dis- turbed by this. The old woman uncoils again and enters into a state of complete consciousness ; the dirty man gets out of bed, pipe and all, to see what is the matter ; the girl disappears and presently returns with a comparatively clean male, evidently the master of the house, who appears seriously con- cerned at my discontent, scolds the old woman, and shows me to a state bedroom where all is clean and comfortable enough, and where I sleep soundly. ( 45 ) CHAPTEK III. A misunderstanding, a reconciliation, a supper, a bed, and a break- fast, all for fivepence halfpenny — A sandy region and its probable origin — Bilious hospitality — Cheating the hostess — The Dovre Fjeld — The naturalist and the sportsman — Science versus the Classics — The kitchen at Jerkin — Snehcetta — The ravine of the Driv — Norwegian beer — Some etymologies — Luxurious wild flowers — Porridge etiquette — English salmon- fishers — Rental of rivers — Norwegian notions of English sportsmen — The valley of the Gula — Wedding festivities — " Tak for mad " — Costume — Modern changes in the old Nor- wegian farmhouse stations — Old friends with older faces, and some departed — The future prospects of pedestrian tourists in Norway. Juhj 1st, 1856. — At about 6 a.m. tlie old woman, now completely and normally roused from her last night's state of hybernation, enters my room and kindly suggests coffee, which the young woman brings im- mediately. At every place where I have sle])t since leaving Christiania a small table stood by the bed- side, and early in the morning a young woman entered without any of the preliminaries of knocking, and placed upon the table a bowl or cup of strong coffee, and a bowl of cream ; both of which 1 dutifully consumed before getting up, though I dislike break- fasting in bed. This, however, is not considered breakfast, but merely an awakener ; breakfast, or frokost, being provided afterwards. 1 am doubtful whether to reL^rd this as a Nor- 46 THROUGH NORWAY "WITH A KNAPSACK. wegian custom, or to suppose that tlie first English tourist who visited Norway was a luxurious animal and insisted upon coffee in bed, and that the natives have concluded thereafter that such is the common high-life habit of Englishmen, and indulge every Englishman accordingly. With the exception of myself, all Englishmen who travel in Norway are regarded either as lords or members of Parliament, and it was evidently because I was not supposed to be either of these, but rather a travelling tinker, that 1 was located in the peasants' lodging room last night. The regular tariff for that sort of lodging is 2 skillings — rather less than one penny per night. I had fladbroi after the coffee, and received very anxious attention from all parties : being evidently considered an M.P., this morning the people of the house were most desirous to conciliate, supposing me to have been much offended the night before. This, of course, was not the case ; for, in spite of the dirt, the knife-licking, and the rheumatic window, kindness and good-will were evident throughout. If a traveller enters an inn with muddy hobnailed boots, incomprehensible rough flannel clothes, and a pack on his back, he must expect to be taken for a pedlar ; and if he is treated with kindness under those cir- cumstances, he has stronger reason to be grateful than if he had been preceded by a courier with a bag of money. There was much true politeness in the act of the dirty man when he licked the knife so carefully and presented it with a bow to the poor tramp ; he knew that I should pay him nothing for licking the knife, but in doing so he did his bestj PRIMITIVE POLITENESS. 47 according to his notions, to make it luxuriously clean and agreeable to me. I paid for supper, bed, and breakfast 12 skillings, or about 5^d.; then walked on through a wild alpine gorge with a roar- ing torrent far in the depth below. After passing this gorge, which terminates at the next station, the valley widens again and the scenery changes entirely. Curious sandbanks extend to considerable distances on both sides of the river ; these are cut through by the lateral streams, and have the appearance of the earthworks of a huge fortification. The river must formerly have spread over this valley, depositing the sand on the bed of the lake thus formed by its reposing waters. At the same time, it was cutting its way down the gorge above the Laurgaard till it drained the lake its widened waters formed, and reduced itself to its present channel. I examined the sand, but found no shells in it. It is very fine and uniform, in all respects resembling the sand that is commonly seen to whiten the streams issuing from the foot of glaciers, and is deposited as soon the torrent meets with a quiet spreading place below. Shells are not likely to occur in such a deposit, the waters being so newly thawed and cold. On reaching the new station of Dombaas I find an English lady and gentleman with their " tolk " or interpreter (whose functions correspond to those of a courier in other countries) engaged in a very interesting struggle. The English lady was in deli- cate health, and had but a small appetite. This was desolation to the soul of tlie good hostess, who liad 48 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. exhausted nearly all the resources of Norwegian cookery, and was almost broken-hearted at finding that her fair guest did not consume every dish. She evidently supposed that the lady was dissatisfied with the delicacies she had prepared, and that the plea of illness was only an excuse. We were all amused and concerned at the good woman's anxiety ; but the most amused of all was the tolk, for he de- voured all the nice things the lady and her husband were unable to grapple with. At last came the crowning effort of the kitchen ; some porridge made of fine meal boiled in milk, served up with a layer of sugar on its surface, a pool of oily butter over that, and all boiling hot. This was brought forth triumphantly, and I foresaw plainly that if it failed the hostess of Dombaas would have no sleep that night. The fair patient, with the amiability of a woman, and the self-denial of a martyr, ate two or three little spoonfuls; but human nature could no further go. What was to be done ? for the hostess, thus encouraged, had now evidently determined that her guest should eat the whole, though there was a good-sized Stafibrdshire-ware willow-pattern piedish full. Suddenly we hit upon an expedient which our unknown tongue enabled us to organize and carry out. It was that the tolh should stand behind the lady's chair, so that he could reach the piedish over her shoulder, and while I diverted the attention of the hostess by asking for something, he hastily, and with great glee, helped himself to piled-up spoonfuls of the porridge. Thus every time the good old lady returned she found the porridge diminished, and was THE DOVKE FJELD. 49 deligbted with her success ; expressing her satisfaction by patting her guest on the back and exclaiming " Ikke sik ! ikke sik ! " (" Not ill ! not ill ! "). Thus all parties were gratified, especially the tolh. Juhj 2nd. — Reach the Dovre Fjeld. It is a vast undulating moorland between three and four thou- sand feet above the sea level. It has no particular claims to the picturesque, and the absence of great rocky masses deprives it of any savage grandeur, though it is sufficiently desolate. Tlie tints of the abundant reindeer moss, or rather lichen, are in many parts very beautiful ; especially where a rounded heap of earth-covered boulders is overgrown with it. It is dry and crisp, forming a luxurious mountain couch ; its colours vary from straw colour, through a pale buff, to a bright orange and warm red brown. Its habit is to grow on the dry well- drained spots, while peat moss occupies the swampy localities. Though early, I halt at the Jerkin station, which is the largest and most famous on this highway from the modern to the ancient capital of Norway, and find it a bustling, rather business-like place: a Norwegian modilication of a Swiss hospice. Most sporting tourists make it a resting place for some days, game being rather abundant on the Fjeld. I find Mr. Gould hard at work, skinning and pre- paring his day's spoil, which was veiy considerable ; a young bird I had cauglit on the way was added to the collection. I was surprised at the variety of birds Mr. Gould had killed ; he had, in mere numbers, more than double the amount of what an E 50 through' NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. ordinary sportsman, accounted a crack shot, would consider a good day's sport hereabouts. The skilful naturalist, without any of the paraphernalia of sporting — no pointers or setters with wonderful instincts, nothing but a very old-fashioned looking gun, and the bare requisites for making it go off — comes to the place for the first time in his life with a predetermination to shoot particular kinds of birds only, and those of particular ages ; he walks straight to their haunts, and shoots nearly all he seeks, a far larger number than the mere bird-slayer who bangs at everything he sees. How any man can be a sportsman without being a naturalist, I cannot understand. Such a phenomenon would, I suspect, be unknown, if in the curriculum of our great Uni- versities science and natural history, the laws and phenomena of creation, were made the leading objects of study, instead of the obscenities of Jupiter, the foul doinofs of the other divinities, and the demoralizing details of Roman rapine and Greek treachery. The Holywell Street literature in which such abominations are gilded and sugared with the delusive glamour of poetic laudation, might with much advantage be buried in the darkness of popular oblivion, and the keys of its sepulchre left in charge of a few special antiquarians. The languages in which the nasty stories are written — or, at any rate, the stilted, pompous Latin that lias been so long dead, might now be buried, and the mental health of our modern youth would be much benefited by such disposal of the pestiferous carcass. The fact that a language, spread by conquest to such an unprece- THE KITCHEN AT JERKIN. 51 dented extent, should so soon have died, and died so hopelessly in spite of popes, and priests, and pedants, is a proof of its inherent unfitness for human speech. Among the birds j\Ir. Gould had shot, were some that live in England during the winter, and come to Norway for their summer vacation. Like our own species, who visit the fashionable holiday places, these birds adopt bright varied colours for their summer dress ; and to secure and preserve them in their summer costume was, I believe, one of Mr. Gould's special objects in visiting Norway. At tliis place I actually dine, have a joint of roast veal, with rich sauce and potatoes, besides several kinds of bread and pancakes, and concluded luxuri- ously with cafe noir, arm-chair, and slippers. The night is perceptibly lighter here than at Christiania, and very cold. July 3rd. — Indulge in a most extravagant southern breakfast of coffee, fried eggs, dried salmon, a kind of polpette, that Pietro, the renowned waiter of the Lepre in Konie, would be proud of serving, and some (jiaufres. The kitchen at Jerkin is justly famous. It is a large wooden hall, a log saloon, whose rich brown smoke-tinted timbers and blazing fire, where some- thing is always frying, form a most enjoyable con- trast, with the bleak waste outside. Every tourist of sound taste prefers to do all his feeding in this kitchen, and leaves the fine room over the way to the inexperienced visitors. It is exceedingly difficult to leave off eating in such a place, prei)ared as the appetite is by such an atmosphere, and incited con- E 2 52 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. tiniiously by the hostess, whose sole happiness evidently consists in feeding people. She oscillates perpetually between the fire and the guests, aided by a couple of sweet satellites, the most rosy-cheeked of kitchen-maids. Never a driver leaves the door, but the black bottle is brought from its lurking place, and a toss of the head, a smack of the lips, and the Norwegian grasp of thanks follows. Even after this, two or three deep inspirations may be heard, showing further how the drinker appreciates the liq^uor by making the most of the vapour that still lingers in his throat. I felt strongly tempted to stay another day here ; but the midnight sun in the far north will not wait for me, so I resolutely pushed on ; bidding a temporary farewell to my English friends, and a long one to the model hostess and her memorable kitchen. I must not forget to mention the beautiful flowers that decorated that kitchen : every window was filled with them, and all were in full blooming condition. They were not mere Alpine plants from the Fjeld outside, but bright southern exotics that must have been brought here with considerable care and expense, and cannot be retained in such a climate without much attention. There were flowers at several of the other stations, but not equal to these. My bill for dinner, bed, and breakfast, amounted to 2 marks, or Is. 9^?. Walking on over the Fjeld, the view of Snehaetta is rather fine from its highest ridge. This moun- tain, long regarded as the highest in Norway, is not so imposing as might be expected from its THE VALLEY OF THE DRIVA. 53 height, 7620 feet above the sea ; but it is only 4500 feet above Jerkin, and 3520 above this point, which is 4100 feet above the sea level, and said to be the highest carriage-road in North Europe. After crossing the high plateau of the Fjeld, the road plunges into a deep valley in company with the river Driv, which roars and foams among the rockv masses that restrain its course. The amount of water at this elevation gives evidence of the extent of the Fjeld, and the quantity of snow that is thawing around Snehsetta. Many small lateral streams pour into the valley, cutting deep Sfullies in the rocks over Avhich thev fall. Several of these flow directly from the patches of snow that fill the hollows above. There is a curious and very pretty effect produced by a peculiar conformation of the mountains on the other side of the river. Each ridge of rock runs down nearly parallel with the valley, and forms a long, slender-pointed, high- backed promontory; one side of the promontory ridge being nearly perpendicular ; thus a little blind glen is formed, into which the rocky promontory would about fit if it were reversed. These glens are evenly curved and smooth, covered with rich grass, and dotted with shrubs and liliputian birch-trees. They are very numerous, much alike, and occur at rather regular intervals, giving quite a character to the valley and contrasting beautifully with its general wildness : any one of them would form a subject for a charming little picture. The scenery is very grand all the way down this ravine to 54 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. Drivstuen. The river makes some fine cascades, and several minor ones are formed by the streamlets that tumble from the snow patches. The character of the scenery changes below Driv- stuen; where, instead of wild, broken rocks, the road passes over an almost park-like greensward. Dine at Drivstuen on eggs, liam, German sausage, and milk, for which I pay 8 skillings, about 3^d. The new road referred to in Murray's Guide, and by Professor Forbes, as being commenced, is now complete, and is a very excellent one ; entirely avoiding the tremendous ascent of the old road, which still remains, and is quite a curiosity in its way. I was overtaken by two English tourists, and over- took them again at Drivstuen. One of them was a fine specimen of a sturdy old traveller ; the other a young man with a green veil, which was evidently a relic of the last Derby day. I should advise other tourists who intend travelling by carriole to provide themselves with similar veils, for the dust in some parts of these roads must be choking when sitting so near to the horse's heels. Stopping at Eise, a neat and rather smart station, I have some "ol" (ale) with my supper. It is a turbid liquid, of a reddish green colour, and from its flavour appears to be an infusion of hay flavoured with a bitter decoction of pine knots. Possibly it is the beverage made from the molte heer, a large red three-lobed berry, that grows wild upon the hills. The ale made from malt and hops, which is so commonly drunk on the other side of the SOilE SCANDINAVIAN ETYilOLOGIES. 55 Fjelcl, appears to be a modern innovation ; it is called Baiersk, the Norsk for Bavarian, and is re- marlvably good. Beer made from berries is as old as history, and I suspect that the beer of our own country was of this kind, before the process of malting was discovered, and that the name is derived from " heer" a berry ; probably the word malt is derived from molte ; for the sweetened barley, being used as a substitute for the sweet-tasting " molte heer" would naturally receive its name. July Ath. — Breakfast on eggs and ham, which to- day are " steaJced," i.e. fried. The learned in words tell us that our word steak is derived from the German " stuk," a lump or slice ; that a beef-steak therefore means a slice of beef. 1 deny this. A beef-steak originally means beef fried or broiled, or to be fried or broiled. The continual use of the verb to steak here forces this etymology upon one ; and the use of the word steak in the north-east parts of Scotland — where a slice of salmon, if broiled, is called a salmon-steak, but a similar slice boiled is no steak at all — confirms this view. Lax, the Norwegian and Danish name for salmon, is still used occasionally in that part of Scotland. The Norsk verb to hoil is "koge," — anything boiled is "ko(/t,'' pronounced cooked : the <][ being generally hard, like k. Scholars refer us to cuocere for the origin of our word. The coffee and thick cream were brought, as usual, to the bedside, and with it some wafer-cakes. Knowing now sufficient Norsk to make myself under- stood, I had the coffee carried back, to be taken with 56 THROUaH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. breakfast. I did not venture to ask for this until quite satisfied that I had got up the requisite phrase with intelligible pronunciation, lest I should be misunderstood and the coffee taken away altogether. This day's walk was through a rich cultivated valley, with snowy mountain peaks ahead. Murray savs that Schneehoetten is visible here, but unless my map and compass deceive me considerably, this must be a mistake. A little before reaching Ovne or Aune station, there were some of the most magnificent banks of pansies I ever beheld. Several j^atches of above a hundred square yards were covered with an unbroken carpet of these beautiful little flowers ; the variety, richness, and harmony of their colom's were most exquisite ; they saturated the atmosphere far around with a delicious aroma, which was almost intoxica- ting in its concentration when I slept upon them for an hour or two ; the sunbeams poured ujion me Avith a roasting heat, the rooks were cawing above and the river rumbling below; though yesterday and this morning it was freezing, and the snow patches were still visible in all the hollows of the craggy rocks above. I dreamed of oriental vapour baths, otto of roses, and beautiful princesses just imported from the snowy Caucasus, and selling by auction in Covent Garden Market at a few skillings per dozen. Snehaetta is visible near Stuen, about fifteen miles below the place where Murray speaks of it. It is a more picturesque object from this point than from the Dovre Fjeld. A number of other snowy peaks are also visible. POKRLDGE ETIQUETTE. 57 The women hereabouts wear a sort of cuirass of printed cotton, the black silk cap or lue, that has prevailed all the way from Christiania, and short white sleeves. The boys have strange skullcaps, with immense, straight, square peaks, which, pro- jecting stiffly forward, just balance the long, straight, tow-coloured hair that hangs correspondingly behind. The men wear red nightcaps when at work in the fields, but on great occasions they are surmounted by beaver hats, evidently inherited with the farms, and having the large crown, hollow walls, and brim turned up at the sides, of the days of Beau Brummel and the Prince Regent. I dined at Stuen in the kitchen, where four girls were dining at the same time. Between each two was a wooden bowl containing a sort of thin porridge or broth ; they sat at arm's length from the bowl, and breaking off a chip of fladbrod, which they broke again and made into a bunch of several layers, they stretched out their arms and dipped the flad- brod into the curd ; then describing a long sweeping curve with the hand, put the bunch of fladbrod into the mouth, where it disappeared. All made pre- cisely the same movements ; yet I saw no reason why they should sit so very far from the bowl, or why the hand should not be brought straiglit to the mouth ; probably it is a matter of etiquette and good-breeding; the sweep of the arm certainly is rather graceful, tlujugh somewhat pompous and bombastic. The short S-shaped wooden s])oon, common hereabouts, is used with the same action. Perhaps the custom may have originated from one 58 THKOUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. of their forefathers having, at a remote period, diued at a German tahle dliote, and sat next to a fat burgomaster who commenced proceedings by tucking his napkin into his cravat to form an apron, then placed his face horizontally over his plate like a pig at a trough and shovelled the viands into his mouth, which retained one-half and let the rest fall into the plate again. A simple-minded man who had wit- nessed such a spectacle, would go straight home and teach his children ever after to keep their platters at arm's length, and practise the virtue of self-denial by making their food take a long deliberate jouniey on its way to the mouth. My dinner of eggs, milk, and cheese, cost 8 shil- lings, or Z^d. The scenery is very fine in the neighbourhood of Sundseth station, a deep alpine valley, with rounded wooded hills in the distance, forming huge billows of pine tops. It is about midnight when I reach Bjerkager, which, like all these farmhouse stations, is composed of several wooden buildings. One is usually a kitchen, another a lodging-house for peasants ; some are filled with hay, others are furnished for the accommodation of cows, &c., while externally there is but little difference between them. In this case I find the doors of all unfastened, walked into two or three, and disturb several cows before finding anybody else. I should have helped myself to a bed I found in one of the buildings, but being intolerably thirsty and unable to find the well or any vessel containing water, was compelled to waken ENGLISH ANGLERS IN NOKWAY. 59 the human elements of the establishment, which could only be done by dint of a terrible amount of rapping and rattling. In many places people would be sulky and ill-tempered on being roused at such unseasonable hours, but here I was served with as much alacrity and goodwill as though I had arrived at the usual time. July bih. — The road beyond the station commands fine views of the valley, a deep ravine thickly wooded with fir-trees, and the river dotted with pine-covered islands. There are many indications of glacier action hereabouts similar to those in the valley of the Driva, mentioned by Professor Forbes, but more extensive and decided. The rich verdure of the Guldbrandsdal prevails over the greater part of the country through which I have walked to-day, and the fields are carpeted with sweet flowers as those of yesterday. I little expected to find this element of beauty so generally prevalent here in the far north. On arriving at Soknaes station, am surrounded by a group of inquirers, who, on ascertaining that I am an Englishman, tell me that two Englishmen are residing here ; one of whom comes forward and invites me to his room. He is a devoted angler from Oxford who has spent several summers in Norway, and is well acquainted with the language of the country. He and a friend have rough apart- ments liere, the rental of which includes the privi- lege of angling in the river. Ucfore coming to Norway I was under the impression that anyone might cast a line where he pleased in the rivers 60 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. of SO wild and primitive a country, but this is not the case ; the Englishman's insatiable desire to kill something that can struggle, or is difficult to get at, has brought all the great rivers of Norway into the market, not excepting those within the Arctic Circle. They are rented by English anglers, sometimes on long leases: and for the best portions of the most celebrated rivers considerable sums are paid ; the usual stipulation being that the angler, besides paying the rent, shall give all the fish he catches, beyond those required for his own consumption, to the farmer. This amuses the Norwegians mightily, fishing in Norway being one of the vulgar occupations by which men obtain a livelihood. Our laundresses Avould be similarly amused if Chinese mandarins were to migrate annually to England and pay large sums of money for the privilege of turning their mangles. I spend a pleasant evening with these anglers, who give me much information on many matters connected with the social condition of the people. It appears that fly-fishing was quite unknown in Norway until it was introduced by English anglers, and that the Norwegians are now trying to persuade themselves that there is some fun in it ; though, as this unusually candid angler confessed, he has some- times whipped the stream most scientifically all day long, aided with every appliance of gaudy-feathered flies and the most complicated tackle, and has caught nothing; while a little boy with a common stick, a piece of string, and a hook little better than a bent pin, has filled a basket. A TERRACED VALLEY. 61 July 6th. — The road now enters the Gultlalen, or valley of the Giila, the view down which is verv beautiful. It is a rich cultivated valley, the river winding through a finely wooded plain, and round about green knolls and mounds that have a very complicated appearance seen from above. On de- scending the valley and walking a few miles down it, the structure upon which this peculiar appearance depends becomes evident. It is due to a regular series of step-like terrares which extend throughout the whole distance of this day's walk — above twenty-five miles. The valley of the Gula is a long trough sloping and widening downwards till it dips below the salt waters of the Trondhjem Fjord, one branch of which is but the lower end or mouth of this valley descending below the sea level. At the upper part of the valley, where my walk commenced this morning, the first terrace appears. It is a flat deposit about six or seven hun- dred feet above the sea, and filling up that part of the trough of the valley to that height. The river cuts through it. Lower down is another, then another, and another similar terrace all cut throuoh in like manner by the river. In some of the lower parts of the valley the upper terraces still remain. Near Melhuus station, I counted five of these rising like gigantic steps one above the other and perfectly parallel. In some parts the upper terraces are merely narrow ledges ; in others they form elevated fertile plains of considerable width as well as length. On reaching Leer station am encountered at the threshold by the bearer of a large wooden mug or 62 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. rather bucket, having the shape of a truncated cone, and capacity of about six quarts. It is bountifully charged with excellent ale, and placed in my hands with pressing invitations to drink. I obey first, then look around for explanation, and 'find that there had been a wedding some days before, and that the wedding breakfast is still proceeding. It usually continues about a week in Norway, and during the whole of that time beer-buckets are prominent features of the landscape. Among the many visitors was a party of old folks, chiefly women, who were making a substantial repast, and for the first time I witnessed the old Norwegian custom of shaking or rather grasping hands all round. It is done very deliberately, almost solemnly, like a grace after meat. Everyone grasps the hand of everyone else, and repeats, " Tak for mad " (" Thanks for food"). There were sixteen at dinner, and as everyone shook hands with fifteen and re- peated " Tak for mad " fifteen times, there were 16 X 15 = 240 repetitions of " Tak for mad," and 120 graspings of hands. There has been a great display of the Beau Brummel beaver hats to-day among the men coming from church. They wear frock-coats and hats on Sundays, and dress-coats during the week. Both men and women dress very neatly on all occasions, the material being good and substantial woollen cloth. The men wear dark gray and black, the working-dress being in fact very nearly what we should call evening costume, with the addition of a red nightcap. Stop at Oust, a station which has some amount of RECENT CHANGES. 03 hotel pretensions, and have a good supper and bed. Though within a short walk of Trondhjem, which I might reach to-night, 1 prefer stopping here in the country, as old experience has taught me that a muddy pedestrian, without luggage, arriving in a large city at a late hour is not always well received. Professional hotel keepers generally discover that all their rooms are engaged on the arrival of such a visitor. This is very annoying at bed and supper time after a long day's walk. It matters little in the daytime, as the traveller who carries all his luggage on his back is as iodependent as the hotel keepers — can forage in a big town, buy a penny loaf at the first baker's shop, and eat it on a door- step, then proceed to inspect the guide-book lions and take his chance of passing some suitable hostelry on the way. Pedestrians may escape a good deal of vexation by thus timing their arrival in large towns. Note, 1876. — I halted at Dombaas again in the course of my last visit to Norway, and at once recognized the good motherly hostess that struggled so hard to feed the sick lady. Eighteen years had altered her outward appearance, but the immortal part, her hearty womanly goodness, remained un- changed. How she fed us all and insisted upon our continuous eating is narrated in the volume devoted to this journey. I particularly noticed one change whit-h the lapse of years has produced. In 1856 the one English lady was an object of curiosity as well as of special solici- tude ; in 1874 six English ladies all arriving together, 64 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. were only regarded as an unusually large party. Besides this, even the good hostess of Dombaas had become more like an hotel keeper, the entertainment of guests being now obviously a matter of business routine and no longer an excitement. I observed this sort of change everywhere, and felt it somewhat oppressively, almost painfully, for it cuts a large slice from the romance of Norwegian travel. The domestic welcome of the peasant farmer has departed, the participation of the family meal with the bonder, his wife and housemen, is no more ; the smoke-bronzed beams and log walls of the kitchen dining-room, with its long deal table and benches, its carved and painted cupboard and great linen chest, its hooded hearth with chains and hook and cauldron, and other cooking tools are now almost hidden fipm the tourist on these great main highways of Norway. He is now shown into a special apartment, which in many cases is furnished with downright mahogany and Tottenham- Court-Road upholstery. I felt this most bitterly at Jerkin, where the line old kitchen has become practically inaccessible to the tourist. We were compelled to dine in the state room over the way ; but I made a pilgrimage to the kitchen. If weeping were in my line, I could have done a tear or two on this occasion, and have sighed forth the wailing words of sweet Ophelia : " Oh, woe is me ! To have seen what I have seen, see what I see." The grand old kitchen is now divided into a kitchen and dining room proper by a wooden partition ; the LUXURIOUS INNOVATIONS. 65 flowers were gone, and I stood there a shamefaced intruder who had rudely viohited the realms of domestic privacy. The old man, " Jerkin of Jej'kin" was still there, seemingly but little older, but the hostess was invisible. The general deterioration of the whole establishment rendered inquiry for her unnecessary. There is no baby now in tlie painted wooden cradle, but the bright-eyed maiden w^ho manages the household is probably the same that filled it at the time of my first visit. riadbrod is no longer compulsory, and rye bread has ceased to be a luxury in Norway. Huntley and Palmer, or Peek and Frean, have invaded every im- portant station, and even wheaten bread is almost common. Had I been afoot and alone again, such enfeebling luxuries would have driven me from Norway to Patagonia, but as some of m*y fair com- panions had hypothetically assumed an inability to eat black-bread and oat-cake, and as neither my eloquence nor example could remove the illusion, I am reluctantly compelled to admit that French rolls, biscuits, tinned meats, and even mahogany furniture may improve Norway in the estimation of many English tourists. 3Iy own particular brethren, the genuine pedes- trians who really revel in " rougliing it," need not, however, despair of Norway. The Tellemark remains as of old, and what that was the latter chapters of this book will tell. The changes above described have occurred only on the great highways, and even these will shortly revert to their former .simplicity, as the railways lately sanctioned and now actively 66 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. in course of construction will leave the old carriole roads with about the same kind and quantity of traffic as they had in 1856, and restore my descrip- tion of " the good old times " to the status of " latest intelligence." The railway between Christiania and Trondhjem is now nearly completed, and will be opened next summer. It leaves tlie Mjosen Lake at Hamar, diverges from the Guldbrandsdal to the Osterdal, avoids the Dovre Fjeld altogether by following the Glommen to its main source, the Aursund Lake above Roros ; and then by a westward detour regains the old route at Storen about forty miles south of Trondhjem. It is emphatically a tourists' railway ; the portion I have traversed presents the most splendid panorama of scenery I have ever seen from any railway. For particulars, I must refer to * Through Norway with Ladies.' This and the other railways forming a well-devised and complete system, will take all the luxurious and hurried traffic — Americans and others who are " doin' " Europe, &c., and will leave the old carriole roads to the full and healthful enjoyment of those who desire and are able to leisurely travel " through Norway with a knapsack." ( 67 ) CHAPTER lY. The approach to Trondhjem — The universality of good-breeding in Norway — Infiueuce of an aristocracy — The Cathedral of Trondhjem — Origin of Gothic architecture — Frost minnmies — Start for Hammerfest — The Trondhjem and Namsen fjords — A marine omnibus — Torghatteu, and its mysterious tunnel — The Seven Sisters — The Hestniand — A lovesome giant's mournful story — Grand scenery of the coast — Glaciers of the Fondalen. July 7th, 1856. — After the Oust station, which has some amount of hotel ])retensions, the road ascends the hills, and commands fine views of the city and fjord of Trondhjem. The city is approached by a line of warehouses very much like the Noah's-ark toys of our childhood made on a large scale : they are close to the water's edge, and appear ready to float off immediately should the water rise. The streets of Trondhjem are wide and clean, with water tanks at the corners, and only a small number of shops, but those very good. It is the universal custom here, as in Christiania, to uncover on en- tering a shop and continue so while making a purchase. The idea of treating a shopman as an inferior does not appear to be entertained by any class in Norway. The people here are nearly all well dressed, the ladies very gaily, with round hats and tlie latest London — not Paris — fashions. I have seen but one Norwegian puppy ; he was one of the saloon passengers in the steampa(!ket from F 2 68 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. Hull. He affected aristocratic English airs, and treated his modest fellow-countryman the stone- mason so rudely that the salmon-fisher and . I cut him altogether. We found on landing that he was a commercial traveller. The different classes of society in Norway are not distinguishable by their conduct ; for all are quiet, courteous, unassuming, and dignified. An English puppy, as we are all aware, is the most contemptible of the brutes, and a true English gentleman the most dignified of human beings. The Norwegians of all classes exhibit the peculiar external attributes of high English breeding in a very remarkable degree. They are, as far as I have yet seen, the best behaved people in Europe : haughtiness and cringing seem equally unknown among them. It is often argued that an aristocracy is necessary to give by example a high tone to society, but Norway is almost the only country in Europe without an aristocracy or any pretensions to such ; unless it be the aristocracy of timber-merchants and fish-salters. In one sense, it is true, the great bulk of the Nor- wegian people may be regarded as an aristocracy, seeing that they are the owners by inheritance of the land upon which they live.* This doubtless contributes largely to their quiet sense of dignity and independence ; and, coupled with the fact that the nation has never passed through the degrading- stage of feudal tyranny and serfdom, may go far to account for these characteristics. It must be borne * In Norway, according to Mr. Luing, there is one estate for every twenty-two of the population. AKISTOCRATIC INFLUENCES. 69 iu mind that while an aristocracy, by its example, diffuses refinement and elegance in society, it also inevitably engenders more or less of snobbishness or flimkyism among the naturally vulgar-minded and incapable imitators of true dignity and refinement. The peculiar absence of these pitiful vices in Nor- way is, I suspect, largely attributable to the fact that aristocratic influences — the aping of style, and our prevalent ideas of " station " and " social posi- tion " — are so little known. Stopping at the Belle Vue Hotel, I found my Christiania friend the salmon-fisher there. Mr. Gould and Mr. Wolff were at a private house in the same street, the hotel being full ; but we all met at the table d'hote, where a good domestic sort of dinner was provided. The house is but little like an hotel ; for on arrival I was shown into a small drawing room where the mistress of the house, a graceful and elegant lady, received me just as any lady would receive a visitor coming to her house with a letter of introduction : and such is the tone of the whole establishment. On my way to visit the cathedral I overtook a military funeral, conducted with mucli pomp and solemnity, and entered tlie cathedral with the funeral procession — a circumstance wliich added very much to the effectiveness of my first view of this curious old building. The exterior has a very odd, irre- gular, and quaint appearance. It cannot be called imposing or beautiful, Ijut there is an air of origi- nality and genuine antiquity about it tliat is very interesting. It is true that some of the most quaint 70 THKOUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. and antique-looking portions are the most modern ; having been rebuilt after fires, and the old materials put together without any particular reference to what they were intended for: columns being let into walls for mere ornament, or placed in niches as though they were statues. I should like to bring an archseologist who knows all about the symbolism of Gothic ornament, and can fix the date of an edifice by the shape of its arches, to this building, and set him to read it without any knowledge of its recorded history : he would make some magnificent blunders. I suspect that Mr. Laing is quite right in stating that " it shakes the theory of Saxon and Norman, the round and pointed arch having been used ex- clusively in particular and different centuries, and affording ground for determining the comparative antiquity of Gothic edifices. The Norman arch in its most florid style is connected with the Saxon in its most simple and massive form, in a building where the known date of the portion containing this admixture is more ancient than the ascertained date of those English edifices from which the theory is derived." Were I an archoeologist, I should regard this building as worthy of a special pilgrimage and the most minute and careful study. If the original design could be fully made out (and the materials for working it out are in existence), I suspect that it would throw more light upon the real origin and history of Gothic architecture than any other edi- fice in Europe. It appears to me to form a con- necting link between the Mosque of St. Sophia and ORIGIN OF GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. 71 our more recent Gothic edifices. The idea of de- riving the pointed Gothic arch and nave from the old Scandinavian shrine or sarcophagus of the sea- kings — a ship hauled ashore and placed keel upper- most — is most feasible ; for if instead of placing the inverted ship upon natural pillars of the craggy coast rocks of Norway, a wooden roof with beams, ribs, &c,, shaped like a ship's hull, were placed on a Byzantine colonnade and arclies, with a rude Byzan- tine cupola at the stern end, we should have exactly what appears to have been the original form of this shrine and sarcophagus of the converted and canon- ized old Scandinavian king, St. Olaf. The date of its construction extends from about 1033 to 1248. It may be thought presumptuous on my part to express an opinion, having only read the stone re- cords, and none whatever of the many printed treatises on the subject; but still I cannot refrain from protesting against the practice of applying the name of either Saxon or Norman to the rounded arch with the zigzag ornaments and squat columns, with capitals that all differ from each other in every- thing but the common attribute of ugliness. These in all their varieties are unmitigated Byzantine barbarisms : the architectural refuse of the decaying Koman empire : they are but bad copies of what we may see yet remaining in Constantinople, in the subterranean temple, or rather re3(3rvoir of the thousand and one columns ; and in the Mosque of St. Sophia. Every tyro in the history of art is aware that up to the thirteenth or fourteenth century— the era of 72 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. Cimabue, Giotto, Van Eyck, &c. — the art of Europe was almost exclusively in the hands of a few wan- dering Greeks ; the little that was done in painting, sculpture, and architecture was done by them. Cimabue, Giotto, and their contemporaries copied the Greek artists, with their gilded backgrounds, Guy Fawkes attitudes, and their other Byzantine ab- surdities and beginnings of beauty. The original gilded mosaic ceiling of the St. Sophia, now covered with whitewash and falling in fragments upon the thick bed of pigeons' dung on the floor,* may be taken as the prototype of the painting and mosaics of that period ; and the architecture of the mosque is as obviously the prototype of everything in both Saxon and Norman architecture excepting the nave and its ship-shaped adjuncts : the pointed arch and doorway being but a transverse section of a boat or ship, keel uppermost. The early Christian missionaries adopted the dates and many of the ceremonies of pagan festivities, as well as the forms and symbols of their worship, but gave them a Christian signification ; and in like manner by combining the Scandinavian ship-temple * Pigeons are cultivated in the vicinity of all the mosques. When I visited the St. Sophia, the pigeons were flying about the interior, and some of the galleries were yielding beneath the weight of the pigeons' dung deposited upon them. I picked up a handful of fragments of mosaic that had fallen from the ceiling. They are pieces of glass gilded or silvered on the face, and with a thin layer of glass over the leaf of gold or silver. The figures of some of the seraphim were distinguishable in spite of the whitewash, and are precisely in the style of the specimens of Byzantine art in the gallery of Florence, which are so obviously the sources of Cimabue's earliest inspirations. THE CA.THEDRAL OF TRONDHJEM. 73 with the columns and arcades of the Byzantine architecture, they probably produced the beginnings of what we call Gothic. Such, at least, appears to me the true theory of the origin of Gothic archi- tecture ; and this cathedral of Trondhjem is a most interesting illustration of it. The family pews are very curious ; they are tiers of boxes made of deal wood, like rabbit-hutches, piled one above another. A colossal figure of Christ, after Thorwaldsen, is well placed in the choir, and is very impressive ; the most effective and appropriate statue I have ever seen in any church. Standing alone, and visible from every part of the building as the dominant object, its presence and influence are felt to be diffused throughout, and are finely suggestive of the living influence that should be similarly felt, and really is in a Norwegian church if anywhere. I paid another visit to the cathedral in the after- noon, and in a kind of vault or cellar saw a large number of mummies, said to be the bodies of Nor- wegian kings ; which I doubt, for kings can scarcely be so cheap.* They are in rough wooden boxes, or coffins, very rudely and disrespectfully heaped upon each other, warehouse fashion ; most of the boxes are broken and the bodies visible. They are in an excellent state of preservation, the features being distinct and the hair remaining attaclied ; the skin is hard and dry to the touch. They appear to have been simply frozen and desiccated, like the bodies in the Morgue at St. Bernard. * Unless they are the Vikings, or Sea-kings. 74 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. Note, 1876. — The cathedral has lately undergone very considerable alterations and restorations. The rabbit-hutch family pews were in course of removal when I was last there, and they are not likely to be replaced. I sought in vain for the vault wherein I pre- viously saw the desiccated bodies of the so-called kings of Norway. I made many inquiries and could obtain no tidings of them. On referring to my original short-hand notes of 1856, I find that my visit to the cathedral was in company with some other English visitors who were travelling with a " tolk," or courier, and that the information respect- ing the royalty of the remains was derived from this authority. I now suspect that what I saw was merely an extensive vault containing a large number of ordinary coflSns, and that tlie tolk invented the kings in order to increase the value of the show. Tourists who engage professional guides see many wonderful things of this sort. I stopped this time at the Hotel d'Angleterre. It is rather larger than the Belle Vue. The hotels of Norway ai-e all evidently becoming more hotel-like ; the private-house character so remarkable in 1856 is gradually vanishing. Commercial travellers are more numerous, and naturally exert an important influence on hotel arrangements. July 7th and 8th, 1856.— At 11 p.m. in the still lingering daylight embark on the Constitutione steam- packet, bound for Haramerfest. We start at midnight, and on rising early I find that we are still in the TGRGHATTEN. 75 Trondli jem Fjord. The scenery hereabout is not very strikini^, but it becomes much finer in tlie Namsen Fjord which we reach later in the day. Here the packet winds about through narrow channels, sorce less than a quarter of a mile wide, and breaks into a succession of landlocked basins forming beautiful lakes with richly wooded banks and hills and islands. Many of these are much like Loch Katrine. The Avell-grown forests, the rich green fields and sub- stantial farms, all under a scorching sun, are curi- ously contradictory to one's preconceptions of the physical geography of lat. 64^°, but two degrees from the Arctic Circle. Glorious sunset. Nothing can exceed the pro- tracted loveliness of these northern sunsets. The glowing beauty lingers for hours, all the evening, through midniglit, and on to the next morning. Juhj 9th. — Awakened at an eaily hour this morn- ing by the captain (who, as well as the lieutenant, speaks English fluently), to see the mountain of Torghatten, so named from its resemblance in shape to a " wide-awake " or " sou'-wester " hat. When near to it, this peculiar shape was not very evident, though at a greater distance it is remarkably so. It is an insular granite rock, 824 feet high, j)erforatetl throughout by a very curious tunnel between 400 and 500 feet above the sea level. This tunnel is 530 feet long, 66 feet high at its eastern entrance, 250 feet high at the western entrance, and about 200 feet high in the middle. The floor slopes downwards from E. to W. from 470 feet above sea level to 400 feet. The roof of the tunnel is thus 650 feet above the sea at the W. opening and 530 at the E. 76 ' THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. As the steamer passes, tlie daylight is seen clear through the body of the mountain. (The figures now given are from recent measure- ments made by Norwegian surveyors. In my earlier editions I was only able to state approximate and rather contradictory estimates. The recent measure- ments are interesting, as will appear hereafter.) I am not aware of the existence of any other cavern of a similar kind to this, at such an elevation, and in a granitic rock. No explanation of its formation has yet been given. Beyond this the scenery of the coast is magnificent ; being composed of great chains of mountains with craggy peaks and snowy sides. The Seven Sisters is a short range of mountains rising directly out of the sea to a height of 3000 or 4000 feet, and forming an island. They make a glorious panorama as the steamer sweeps along tlieir feet. Then the Hestmand, or horseman, rears his head from the sea, and marks the crossing of the Arctic Circle. This Hestmando is another mountain island, shaped like a horse with a mantled rider. The head and ears of the horse from one point are quite ludi- crous in their resemblance. When I stated that no explanation had been given of the origin of the Torghatten tunnel, I had not seen the Hestmand, which is seventy miles farther north, nor heard his story narrated by a Norwegian sailor: but now the whole matter becomes quite clear. The story is as follows : One of the younger brothers or cousins of the devil, a " Jutul," residing in this neighbourhood, went, as A DOLEFUL STORY. 77 he was wont to go, on a visit to his Seven Sisters. There he met a female cousin many degrees removed who was likewise a visitor, her residence when at home being on an island some distance farther south. As is usual on such occasions, the two young people fell desperately in love with each other ; and, as is also usual, they vowed eternal fidelity. Business of importance called the giant home, and his fair cousin also had to return to attend on a sick brother ; so, with tears, and vows, and protestations, they mutually tore themselves asunder, and the Seven Sisters found the Jutula swooning on the shore from which her lover had departed. She went home to her sick brother, put his feet in hot water, applied a mustard poultice to his chest, and by the aid of these and a little aperient medicine he soon recovered. During his illness his sister made him her confidant, and he agreed that she should marry the Jutul of her choice ; but on his recovery his perverse nature returned, and he determined that his sister should wed a disso- lute companion of his, whom she had always objected to on account of his smelling so strongly of tobacco- smoke. Every Jutul family has some special power or malignant charm by which to battle with its enemies ; the specialty of this family was petrifaction. The cruel brother exercised that power on the messengers from his sister's lover and turned them all into rocks. Now the lover was not aware of the brother's existence, for the fair giantess had very improperly concealed the fact, on account of his extravagant habits having imperilled her dowry. Believing therefore that his 78 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. plighted one was the last of her race, and that she alone possessed the power of petrifaction, he of course concluded that she had put the stony insult on him ; so mounting his steed, and shouldering his crossbow, he shot a heavy bolt at the dwelling of the Jutuless : his specialty being the power of unerring aim. Her brother was bathing at the time, and it being a very wet morning he wore his sou'-wester. The bolt sped through 70 miles of air, passed through the hat of the treacherous Jutul, and carried away a portion of his skull ; but then, impeded by this re- sistance, failed to make the ricochet the archer had relied upon, and simply skimmed the water and fell at the fair one's feet. She knew the bolt, and that none but he could have shot it. She saw her brother (who with all his faults she dearly loved) sinking beneath the wave never to rise again, and all that remained of him for her loving eyes to gaze upon was his perforated sou'-wester floating on the waters. She thought of the perfidy of the lover she had believed so true, and her heart was broken ; but as she died she exercised her power of petrifaction ; and herself, the floating perforated hat, her lover, and the horse he rode were all converted to fast-rooted rocks. The Seven Sisters who witnessed the consummation of this doleful tragedy were petrified with horror. Those who doubt the authenticity of the foregoing narrative should go to the spot and examine the evidences for themselves. There is the mounted Hestmand with his martial cloak flung over his shoulders; there is the perforated sou'-wester, and beyond it the drooping fair one, all turned to stone ; MONUMENTAL EVIDENCE. 79 there the messengers, a long procession of low rocky islands, reaching from the Hestmand to his love, and there the Seven Sisters in stony stillness looking on. We are told by many very eminent men that we are not to judge a narrative relating to times long past by what would be probable or improbable, possible or impossible, at the present day ; but that if the narrative is minutely circumstantial and the circum- stances are self-consistent, they afford internal evi- dence of its truth ; and if, in addition to this internal evidence, we have the external evidence of monu- ments and localities that perfectly correspond with the narrative, these together are sufficient, and the modern current notions of inherent probability or improbability, possibility or impossibility, are not to interfere with our belief. All these conditions being fulfilled by the above legend and its monuments, we are bound to believe in the sad story of the Hestmand and his love. As we sail along the coast, fresh scenes of savage grandeur continually unfold themselves. The great inland chain of snowv mountains is well seen about Rodo, latitude 66^° to 70^. The valleys descending from these are filled with magnificent glaciers, their orreat crevices and blue ice being visible from the steamer with telescopes. These glaciers appear as extensive as the glaciers of the Alps : Von Buch states that some of them touch the sea; but he speaks from hearsay ; there is no record of any tra- veller having visited and examined them. The whole region — the Fondaleu — is uninhabited; a snowy waste, extending away to the Swedish frontier. 80 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. CHAPTEE V. The great sea-serpent caught at last — The natural history of the veritable Kraken — The Lofoden Islands — The fish harvest — Cod-liver oil — Continuous and growing grandeur of the coast scenery — The Maelstrom a myth — Cowardice of the Ancient Greeks and Romans — The Arctic summer — Rapidity of vege- tation — Tromso — Her Majesty's representative — An encamp- ment of Laplanders — Excessive heat — Physiognomy and general appearance of the Lapps — Construction and interior economy of a Lapp hut — Love of home and domestic snugness. July 9th, 1856, continued. — At about eight in the evening, as we approached the Salten Fjord, lat. 67°, I observed a curiously-shaped ship, and tried to define it with the telescope. Presently it diminished to half its former size, then rose again, but this time was seem- ingly undermined by a sort of notch or open angle formed by one portion of it with the surface of the horizon. Further examination showed that it could not be a ship, and many opinions were expressed con- cerning it ; but at last I discovered its real nature. It was the head of the veritable " Kraken," the great Scandinavian sea-serpent ; the angle being the monster's mouth, his upper jaw only being above water. The folds of his enormously long body were seen stretching along the horizon, now rising, now sinking, all in continuous motion. At the most moderate calculation his length must have been three or four miles, from the uplifted head to the liiii 3' \ h III ill CQ CD CO CD -1 Ti (D CO o ''■'M ll'te' 111 ilip,,, III, 4;i ■tj a I'Ki' , mwK\ iiH ,1-1 ,' *■ • ri'j THE PETRIFIED BODY OF THE KRAKEN. 81 last visible fold ; and how far the point of his tail might be from this portion I will not venture to conjecture, as this point was not displayed. It continued moving, and sometimes the greater part of it disappeared suddenly ; at one moment the head almost entirely vanished, at another time only the head and the extreme caudal folds were visible, then more than half of the tail end had gone. Why, then, have neither geologists nor fishermen found any fossil or recent remains of this creature ? Simply because they have not properly sought for them : the petrifections exist abundantly. They may be found hereabouts — in the form of low rocky ridges, stretching in long lines, with spaces of sea between them, like the Hestmand's messengers. Some start abruptly out of the water and rise to fifty, a hundred, or more feet in height; these are the heads, the low ridges are the coils of the body, of the Kraken. Towards the end of a long, clear, glaring summer's day, after the sun's rays (which here are powerful to a degree incredible to those who have not felt them) have been for eighteen or twenty hours continually pouring upon these rocks, which from the nature of their surface are excellent absorbers of heat, they become considerably hotter than the surrounding sea, and are covered with a layer of rarefied air continually ascending and waving about, and re- fracting the light very differently from the denser air over the intermediate sea. Now let us suppose a line of these lowTocks just visible above the horizon, and between them and the spectator's eye a number of other low rocks, which he, raised on a ship's deck, Q 82 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. looks over. It is evident that as he moves along he will see a particular point on the horizon sometimes over an unbroken line of sea, or sometimes over one or more of these low, warm rocks, with a rarefied atmosphere above them. Anyone who is acquainted, with the rudimentary principles of optics will per- ceive that under these circumstances an apparently undulating motion would be given to objects on the horizon ; they would appear to rise or fall, according as they are viewed through a denser or rarer atmo- sphere; and thus the waving of the coils of the serpent's body is accounted for. This may be illustrated by holding a hot poker between the eye and a distant object which is seen just over the poker. But how about the uuderminino- of the head-rock forming the serpent's uplifted jaw? This is as easily explained, though the principles upon which it depends are not so popularly understood. Light may pass at any angle from a rare medium into a denser, as from air to water, water to glass, &c. : but when it has to effect the apparently easier passage from a dense into a rarer substance, as from glass to water, water to air, &c., the case is quite difterent. It cannot do this beyond certain degrees of obliquity without becoming mathematically illogical and violating the consistent ratio of the sine of its angle of ordinary refraction to that of its angle of incidence. This it refuses to do so stubbornly, that rather than be thus mathematicallv stultified,* it suffers total reflection. It turns back altogether when consistent progress becomes no longer possible. Hence under THE HEAD OF THE KKAKEN. 83 certaiu circumstances the thinnest film of air is absolutely opaque : more opaque than a dense metal, for gold-leaf allows some light to pass through it while the film of air admits the passage of no light whatever, but reflecting all that falls upon it, shines like polished silver. By taking advantage of the remarkable power which carbon in some of its forms possesses, of clinging tenaciously to a film of air, I have devised a simple experiment which illustrates this in a striking manner. Take a piece of sheet metal, as copper, brass, iron, or any other, and hold it over the flame of a caudle or lamp until its surface is uniformly blackened ; then let it cool, taking care not to touch the blackened surface with the fingers. Now plunge this in a tumbler, or other convenient vessel of water, and look at it obliquely through the water: the dull black carbon surface disappears, and a bright, glistening, silvery mirror takes its place. Then take the plate out of the Avater, and (if the experi- ment has been carefully conducted) the blackened surface will be quite dry : the water has not touched the carbon, for it carried down a thin adhering film of air; it was that which shone like silver, and by its opacity concealed so completely the black surface beneath. It is because you looked very ob- liquely through a dense medium, the water upon the surface of a rare one, the film of air, that this effect was produced. If you take a tumbler of water, and look up obliquely through the water to its surface, the surface appears mirror-like, and reflects objects that are in the water; but your finger, held just G 2 84 THROUGH NOKWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. above the surface of the water, is invisible, on account of the perfect opacity of the air under these conditions.* Many water-beetles and water-spiders have the power of carrying under water a film of air adhering to their bodies, which appears like a coat of polished mail. If the blackened plate be laid horizontally at the bottom of a glass vessel — such as an aquarium tank — and viewed through the sides, an explanation of the mirage of the desert is at once exhibited : the black surface disappears, and a mirror takes its place ; such a mirror as the thirsty traveller sees upon the distant sands and mistakes for a sheet of water. The hot sand rarefies the film of air in contact with it, the spectator's head is immersed in a denser stratum of air, and looking from that very obliquely to the rarer film upon the sand, he sees the mirror just as you may see it on the air-film of the blackened plate; but he sees it only afar off, near the horizon, and not at his feet; and as he advances, the bright illusion advances also ; the reason of this being, that the difference is so small between the density of the film upon the sands and the stratum enveloping his head, that a very great obliquity is necessary for this total reflection to take place. Other explanations of the * (1876.) — The public aquaria, which have become so numerous since the above was written, aftbrd a very striking illustration of this. The spectator below looking upwards to the surface of the water in a tank sees all the fishes, rock-work, &c., perfectly reflected ; the trans- parent air above the water surface is absolutely opaque to him, while he is distinctly visible to any spectator placed outside and above the tank. By application of this principle a cell might easily be con- structed in which all the movements of a prisoner could be freely watched by invisible warders. THE MOUTH OF THE KRAKEN. 85 mirage have been pveii, but this I believe to be the true one. The explanation that it is reflection from vapour will not bear examination. The reader, however, may still be at a loss to see how this bears upon our sea-serpent and his uplifted jaw. It is thus : let us suppose one of these island rocks to have a sloping shore, or that there is a reef of low rocks close to it ; these, being heated, will be covered, on their sunward side, with a film of rarefied air clinging to them for a while before ascending. Such rocks, or sloping coast, when near the horizon, will be seen at an obliquity sufficient to produce a mirage ; this, the necessary obliquity, will be main- tained up to a certain height of the slope, and, so far, the dark rock will be invisible, and its place occupied by a bright reflecting surface. The light, thus' reflected, will be scarcely distinguishable from the transmitted light of the horizon, and hence it appears (unless carefully observed) that the bright part of the rock or shore is transparent, or tliat the rock is cut off from below : this is the gaping jaw. This apparent uplifting of low islands and coasts, and more particularly of the long promontory slopes of islands or coasts, is a very common illusion that may be witnessed without going to Norway. The Londoner may see it well displayed on any fine summer afternoon from the deck of a steampacket going to Margate, or the Nore, or Heme Bay, when the sun has been shining brightly all day on the Essex coast at the mouth of the Thames. 1'he Essex coast is very low, and there are trees upon it ; under the 86 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. conditions I have mentioned, the land becomes invisible, and the trees appear suspended in the air. Sometimes the lower half of the trees are also in- visible, and only their tops are seen, cut off from the earth, and standing apparently unsupported con- siderably above the line of the horizon. Anyone who will carefully observe these phenomena on this or any similar coast, will, I think, be satisfied that my explanation is correct ; for they are only visible under the conditions I have named, viz. wlien the land is warmer than tlie air over the sea, and they only extend to those parts seen at a great obliquity. By attentively comparing the horizon over the in- visible land with that over the sea, it will be seen to be more luminous, and to resemble the film of air upon the blackened plate. I have seen this apparent uplifting of the coast most strikingly displayed in the Greek Archipelago, and alono; the Mediterranean coast of Africa. The Greek islands were fantastically distorted ; and at Algiers the effect was very curious ; the palm-trees upon the coast seemed like balloons or parachutes flying over the sea. But, as I have said before, it may be seen on almost every coast on any afternoon of a hot summer's day ; and I have been surprised to find how many people — even sailors — have seen it for the first time only when I have pointed it out to them. The moving rocks and islands forming my great sea-serpent, were seen at about 8 p.m., near the Salt en Fjord, lat. 67°, and I have very little doubt that he is identical with the classical " KraJcen " of Pontoppidan and the old Scandinavian mariners. THE CLASSICAL KRAKEN. 87 Pontoppidan* tells us that "the Krakeu is the largest creature in the world; its back, or upper part, which seems to be in appearance about an English mile and a half in circumference (some say more, but I choose the least for the greater certainty), looks at first like a number of small islands surrounded with sometliiyig that floats and fluctuates like seaweeds." He then proceeds to say, " If I were an admirer of uncertain reports and fabulous stories, I might add much more conceruing this and other Norwegian sea-monsters, whose existence I will not take upon me to deny ; but I do not choose by a mixture of uncertain relations to make such accounts appear doubtful as I myself believe to be true and well attested." Mr. Milfordt gives the following extract from the letter of an " intelligent friend at Bergen," who had made some inquiries on the subject : " I have consulted a gentleman of much learning, and intimate knowledge of everything belonging to Norway, Stiftamund Christie, whose name is so much connected with the political institutions of Norway from the year 18144 I especially asked his opinion about the sea-serpent, and he assured me that not only do the peasants feel convinced of its existence, but tliat he himself believes that it exists ; that the Bishop of Bergen, a few years ago, published an article in an antiquarian paper, which comes out occasionally, by the directors of the Bergen Museum, * 'Natural History of Norway,' published 1751. t 'Norway and her Laplanders in 1841,' p. 197. + His statue now stands in the market-place of Bergen. 88 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. containing information in corroboration of this belief; that the inhabitants of the island Herroe at Sondmor see the serpent every year for a couple of months, in summer, whenever the weather is fine and the sea calm," &c. I might add many other extracts of a similar kind. All agree in describing the undulating motion of the monster and the "fluctuating" appearance about liim. Such undulation and fluctuation are the in- variable concomitants of the illusion described, and are produced by the rising of the heated air. The time of year, the state of the weather, and the locality of the monster's appearance are similarly confirmatory. He is usually seen in these low, rocky, island-spotted coasts. I alhide to the real Kraken with his " mile and a half" of circumference and some miles of length, not the puny sea-serpents of a hundred yards' length. It is stated in some of these accounts that boats have been chased by the monster; but it is rather curious that such an immense beast should never have succeeded in catching the boats : if the rapidity of its movements bore any proportion to its magnitude, a rower should stand but a poor chance. I suspect the truth is that the fear of the Kraken has been suiflcient to convince the boatman that the monster was after him, but not strong enough to swamp the boat or kill the rower in calm weather and in presence of spectators on shore. Note, 1876. — I saw no sea-serpent in 1874, but his absence then by no means weakens my explanation, DISAPPEAKANCE OF THE KRAKEN. 89 as the conditions necessary for his existence were also absent. Instead of tlie clear sky and continuous solar radiation, we had mist and drizzle at the time of passing that part of the Norwegian coast which is cut by the Arctic Circle. It is here and hereabouts that hundreds, or even thousands, of glacier-planed ridges and knolls of rock running in long lines barely emerge from the sea, and where twenty-four hours of sunshine may produce the phenomena I observed in 1856, but which cannot be produced in cloudy weather. All I have seen and heard and read, since 1856, confirms my theory of the sea-serpent, always under- standing that I only refer to the veritable Norwegian Kraken of many miles in length, and waving serpen- tine form, 1856. — We are now fairly in the region of the mid- night sun, and according to our calculations, taking the declination and refraction into account, the sun should just touch tlie horizon or dip a little below it. We watcli it anxiously till about half-past eleven o'clock, when it is still considerably above the horizon, but we lose it behind the mountains which the progress of the steamer places to the northward. The daylight, warmed with the beautiful sunset glow, continues all night, lighting up with inde- scribable beauty the rugged summits and snow hollows of the wild mountains that start up from all points of this majestic coast. July \^lh. — Leaving the mainland and its fjords we cross to the Lofoden Islands. These are, if 90 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. possible, still wilder and grander than the mainland: sharp granite pyramids springing from the sea to a height of 3000 or 4000 feet, and breaking at their summits into a countless multitude of jagged points, thoroughly justify Mr. Everest's comparison with a shark's jaw. The snow lies thickly in the hollows of these teeth and spines, but there are a few small rich green pasture patches even here, and sheep and goats are to be seen occasionally ; but the chief harvest of this region is cod-fish, and this harvest was now in course of reaping. We could smell the land as we approached it, where acres and acres of rock were covered with the split fish lying out to dry in the sun. Like the bodies in the vaults at Trondhjera Cathedral, the mummification of the fish is effected by simple drying, and " stock fish " so much demanded for fast days in inland Catholic countries is the result. When the drying is com- plete, they are stacked into heaps which may easily be mistaken at a distance for hayricks. Near to these stacks and drying acres — generally close upon the shore — are huge boilers, where the cod-livers are stewing most odoiiferously. We stopped at many of these reeking stations, and steamed between bare granite mountains starting so abruptly from the sea that in some parts we passed through walled-up channels not wider than the windings of the Thames about Richmond, and winding as much or more than that river winds, but with sharp angular bends. On approaching these the vessel appears to be running hopelessly aground, and not until the bow- sprit seems almost crashing upon tall rocks ahead, THE LOFODEN ISLANDS. 91 does the helmsman pull furiously at the wheel; when the ship swings round into the suddenly discovered opening. It must be remembered that during this journey we were not always progressing to the northward, but sometimes sailing westward, eastward, or even due southward ; through channels, up and down fjords and branches of fjords ; stopping at coast and island stations to pick up and set down passengers and goods; and landlocked apparently at every turn by fresh islands and promontories and shores of fjords; so that the whole journey is like sailing through a tortuous chain of ten thousand glorious lakes. These lakes of the Lofodens resemble the Lake of Lucerne in its wildest parts, but they are still gi-ander ; for though the mountains are not so highj, they are much more rugged, harsh, and savage, and the great snow patches filling the hollows at the foot of each of the spiky pyramids, add vastly to their sublimity. The wailing and screaming of the sea-fowl among the bare granite crags and right overhead, as they were startled by the steamer rounding the abrupt bends and breaking suddenly upon their solitudes, were in fine harmony with the wild desolation of the whole scene, and heightened its effect prodigiously. Towards midnight a mist came gradually down, first hiding the peaks and magnifying the visible sides of the hills, then hanging about the masthead, and finally for a short time enveloping us altogether. It broke as we approached a station ; or it may be 92 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. that we sailed through it. The effect was glorious. Out of the misty chaos there suddenly started one of the grandest clusters of these rugged granite peaks. The vessel was near to the shore when the cloudy curtain rose, the mountains sprang upon us instantaneously like a range of pliantoms, and by the suddenness of their apparition seemed quite close overhead and almost falling on us. The hemispliere of gray mist that for a while had bounded our vision, reddened as we reached its boundaries, and all the panorama which its opening disclosed was glowing in the ruddy glories of these incomparable midnights of the north. I had sat up on deck all the night before, and only went to bed in the morning during our stay at Bodo and part of the crossing of the channel ; yet here I am again on this bright sunny night, drowsy and giddy with perpetual staring and excitement, and yet incapable of sleep. I have seen many a grand sea-coast, all the best that the Medi- terranean can show, but nothing to equal this. A fellow-passenger, and veteran tourist, who has sailed all the world over, can remember no rival, unless it be the Straits of Magellan. From the Seven Sisters to the north extremity of the Lofodens, the panorama maintains this unrivalled magnificence. In the early part of the day we pass close to the channel against which the terrible word Maelstrom is marked on most of our English maps. Ever since my first school lessons in geography I have pictured this place to my mind as a great, whirling, conical hollow in the waters, like the den of the ant-lion, near to which no ship dare approach, not even within THE MAELSTROM A MYTH. 93 many miles. I looked for it on my Norwegian map, but it is not marked there ; tlie rest of the English passengers were equally diligent, but with no better success, though there were three difierent maps among us and all on a large scale, giving minute details. We peeped at the ship's charts, and could not find it there in the portions that we examined. We then inquired of the captain, a man of much experience in these seas, who told us that all he knew about the Maelstrom had been communicated to him by his English passengers. He was very satirical, and cruelly hard upon us: he told us that the English had imported a great deal of entertain- ing knowledge into Norway, amongst which was this information concerning the Maelstrom; also, that the English patronized the Norwegians very kindly, and" showed them how to improve their political institutions, their agricultural operations, and the build of their ships and boats: and among these practical hints and the suggestions he classed the sail- ins directions for avoiding the ^Faelstrom, which had been drawn up by English hydrographers for the benefit of Scandinavian mariners. We had much difficulty in getting at him at all on the matter, he was so impermeably ironical ; but the lieutenant was more communicative. It appears that the Maelstrom, which we read about, is an unmitigated myth. There are many mael strums, or lad currents, hereabouts. Several of the channels between the islands are, in certain concurrent states of the wind and tide, rather dan- gerous for small craft; and even larger vessels, if 94 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. not skilfully handled, may be drifted against the rocks. The channel where we mark the Maelstrom is one of these, but by no means the worst of them ; in ordinary states of wind and tide it may be navi- gated safely in a cock-boat. There is no huge gulfing eddy anywhere hereabouts, and I believe not in any other part of the world. The ancient Greeks and Romans talk of Scylla and Charybdis, but they were a set of lubberly mariners, as the narrative of the voyages of ^Eneas and the other classic humbugs sufficiently show. No true sailors could have invented such a catalogue of mythical terrors as those feeble coast crawlers believed in. They made more fuss about the small bit of their petty Mediterranean lake which they attempted to navicrate, than did the Phoenicians and old Scan- dinavians about the whole Atlantic. The passage between Scylla and Charybdis is not more perilous than going through the middle arch of Putney bridge against tide : it is just possible to get upset at Putney ; but the other channel is so wide and currentless, that the idea of any danger is simply absurd. I have bathed there several times, and, though I swam about in every direction, never found an eddy that could whirl me round. Of course the travels of ^neas, &c,, are only the dreams of the poet ; but they describe the tradi- tions and terrors of the mariners of the time : otherwise they would have been laughed at when written. July 11th. — On returning to the mainland we seem to come upon a southern climate, though PAEADOXICAL CLIMATE. 95 still proceediug farther north. Here are rich verdure, well-cultivated, comfortable-looking farms, and bright, smiling, sunny landscapes, backed with luxuriant woods and frowning crags. The channel from Havnvyk to Dypo, and onward for several miles, presents as fine a combination of luxuriance and grandeur as any of the lakes of Switzerland. This, and the oppressive heat, are quite subversive of one's ordinary notions of the Arctic regions ; for we were now above two degrees north of the Arctic Circle. We passed several waterfalls coming from the snow-fields down to the sea : some of them having evidently only a few weeks' existence during the hot summer, which lasts about a month. The rapidity of Arctic vegetation is here exhibited most wonderfully. The captain and lieutenant assured us that all this luxuriance had come into existence during the last fortnight : that the birch- trees now in full leaf were quite bare only two weeks ago, when they made their last voyage. In a few weeks hence their boughs will be bending under a burthen of new-fallen snow. There is no closing of the blossoms at nightfall here — no vege- table repose — no halting of the upward movement of the sap — but one unceasing development, stimu- lated throughout by the continuous sunbeams ; and then comes the long, long winter's sleep and dark- ness, wlien all the vegetable world lies torpid beneath its coverlid of snow, until the next short one-dav summer awakens it again to a wild revelry of life and growth. We pass several fine glaciers to-day, especially in 96 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. tlie neisfbbourhoocl of Kastnelmven. The summer was late this year, and the quantity of snow greater than usual at this date ; but the weather has been very fine ever since I arrived at Christiania : two or three showers, and one wet night, are all I have seen of bad weather in Norway. We were disappointed of the midnight sun again to-night : there are high mountains to the north- ward ; but the midnight glow was beautiful as ever. July \Wi. — We reach Tromso and go ashore. It is a little trading town on an island : " 5 " is the Norsk for island, and all places with that termina- tion to their names are islands. It is only by this, or reference to the map, that one can distinguish, when on the spot, the islands from the mainland ; all being so much cut up with fjords and channels. There is an English consul here ; and it is a matter of etiquette to call upon the consul at such places. This custom, as tourists become more numerous, the consuls will doubtless regard as " more honoured in the breach than in the observance : " it must be already somewhat of a bore ; though Mr. Hoist Avas as polite and cordial as though we were the only Englishmen of the season. Some of my readers may possibly imagine that Her Majesty's representative at Tromso is a stately idler, lounging in a magnificent mahogany office, duly enveloped in brass rails and red tape, and perpetually reading a very large newspaper. Not so, by any means ; dignity and usefulness go together here, as they should all the world through. The TROMSO. 97 royal standard of Great Britain waves over the door of a homely wooden shop in the general line, where the inhabitants buy halfpenny candles and nips of brandy, and where you may be suited with a pair of shoes, a Dutch cheese, or a pocket-knife ; and you may buy a horse, a bottle of claret, a bearskin, or anything in reason, from a full-rigged ship down to a box of matches. The representative of Great Britain represents tlie greatness of Great Britain fairly and truthfully, by driving a flourishing trade and thereby benefiting himself and his fellow-crea- tures around him. Tromso consists partly of the Noah's arks, as at Troudhjem, and partly of some streets of well-sepa- rated log houses. The Noah's arks, common at all the coast and island stations in the north, are fish warehouses — not for fishmonger's fish, but dry fish ; they are barns, where the harvest of stock fisli is stored ready for exportation. Tromso, I believe, does a considerable trade with Russia. We — that is, the English passengers — crossed the water and walked up a valley opposite the town to a Lapp encampment, distant about four miles. I have scarcely ever felt the heat more oppressive than during this short walk. The mosquitoes were very troublesome : I say mosquitoes, because it is the fashion to give that name to every kind of trouble- some gnat one encounters out of England, and to no kind of gnat at home. We finally reach the Lapp camp, which consisted of two huts, one containing some goats, the other being occupied by families of the human species. H 98 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. Besides these huts, or wigwams, there were some skeleton huts made of sticks, from the ribs of which various unintelligible articles were suspended. One was a baby's cradle, or shell, a kind of elongated egg, with a hole near one end ; inside of this egg the infant is deposited and closely packed with moss. There were skin packets, containing snow skates, and some pulks, or reindeer sledges, and other winter utilities, now packed up and out of use. As we approached the huts a small man with a large supply of ragged red hair, stepped forward a few yards, and then stood still in the sun and perspired. His complexion was of a yellow-ochre tint, and his features exhibited very decidedly the leading characteristics of the Mongolian type. In the hut was another man with dark eyes and hair, and features less decidedly Mongolian. There were some women and children, all sittins: on the ground and all perspiring. It was evident at a glance that hot weather does not suit these people. Though by no means corpulent, they have a considerable amount of superficial fat pretty equally distributed over tlie body like the blubber of the cetacea. It probably serves the same purposes, protection against the cold, and a reserve of respiratory food ; but in this hot weather it is a greasy burthen in a state of oily fusion, visible to the eye and sensible to the nose. My first impressions of these Laplanders were very disagreeable, and I confess that my courage almost failed me in the matter of entering the hut ; the odour, gloom, and squalor of the place, and the LAPPS AT HOME. 99 certainty of many fleas disporting on the floor, made me hesitate upon the tlireshold and rather peep through the low door than boldly walk in. Some of us did fiuallv venture in, myself among them. The inmates had no notion of bidding us welcome, and seemed equally, free from any sense of intrusion, nor did their faces exhibit any kind of activity beyond that of perspiring. The hut, which at a distance looks like a stack or mound of peat, is circular, supported by a framework of wooden ribs, all bearing towards each other in the centre, and leaving an open space at the top for the smoke to issue. A rude door closes it ; this is so low that one has to bend considerably to enter. The heig-ht of the hut at the centre is about 8 feet, and the diameter of the whole edifice about 15 feet. The floor of earth is strewn with twigs of fir and juniper. The fire is on the ground in the centre of the hut, and some arrangements for hanging a pot over it were visible. The women had their hair parted in the middle and tied in a knot behind, as is common in England. Some wore skin dresses with the fur inside, others a thick woollen material with red and yellow stripes about it. Men and women both seemed to have but a single garment on their bodies, without any under- clothing ; and it has somewhat the shape of our overcoats. The legs are protected with a kind of gaiter, and the shoe, or " comargo," is a large and rather handsome aff'air made of the reindeer skin. After a while, on becoming fiimiliar with their faces, they appeared less repulsive, and when they H 2 100 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK, awakened into a little animation there was something pleasing in the innocent simplicity of their manner. One woman was almost pretty and might have been quite so, had she been clean, or thereabouts; she had fine black eyes and hair, and when she laughed looked somewhat like an Irish peasant girl. After being a short time in the hut and accustomed to its gloom and odour, I could easily understand how, amid the snows of an Arctic winter, such a hovel might be an object of strong home affections to its inhabitants ; how a sense of warm, dirty, loving snugness might exist among a heap of these little people, when all are huddled together on tlie floor round the centre fire during the long darkness of their bitter winter-time ; and how the Lapp girl, who was married to a Frenchman and lived for many years among the gaieties of Paris, returned to the snows of the fjeld again when her husband died and left her alone in the dreary solitude of a crowded city. It reminded me of a story told to me by William Chambers, who, after purchasing Glen Ormiston, was much shocked at the manner in which some of the people upon the estate were living. He found the family of a very intelligent working man all living, sleeping, and feeding together in one apartment, without regard to age or sex ; he remonstrated, and did more : he built an extra room to their cottage and furnished it comfortably as a sleeping apartment. Three months afterwards he paid them another visit, and was surprised to find that the new room had not been occupied, and on asking why, was answered that it was ** mair cheery-like to be a'thegither." THE DELIGHTS OF DIRTINESS. 101 If a philanthropist were to erect improved dwell- ings for the Laplanders, with more spacious apart- ments, separated for the sexes, with ventilating shafts, and mahogany chairs and tables, the little people would doubtless desert the commodious, well- ventilated, mahogany-furnished dwelling, and erect one of their accustomed hovels, where they would find it " mair cheery-like " to pig together on the floor in their accustomed huddle of warm domestic dirtiness. There were several children about, who were much better looking than their parents and appeared more active and intelligent. No reindeer were visible ; they were on the hills among the snows, Avhere they remain during the hot weather to escape the gnats that infest the valley. I saw no food of any kind in the huts. This colony is evidently accustomed to receive visitors, for they brought out for sale spoons made of the reindeer horn ; they asked half a dollar or three marks each for them, and sold some at one mark each. Their bargaining, and all their proceed- ings, are singularly apathetic : they seem to have neither cupidity, curiosity, civility, nor incivility, nor any kind of activity whatever ; they are the most expressionless people I have ever seen. Note, 1876. — The modern progress of steam com- munication around the Norwegian coast has cut away some of the interest of the Arctic journey, as the Hammerfest and Vadso packets do not cross to the Lofodens but keep to the mainland coast. This shortens the journey to the North Cape, but the 102 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. sacrifice is serious. Tourists who are well supplied with time may still see the Lofodens and see them well by means of the small packets, which in corre- spondence with what I may call the main-line steamers, run in between the islands and call at intermediate mainland stations. The smallness of these vessels necessarily restricts their passenger accommodation. For overworked people in need of brain-rest, and to whom a sea voyage has been pre- scribed, these inter-Lofoden packets afford an un- rivalled means of obtaining bracing sea air, and the most complete change of all surroundings. Such a tourist might land at any station and remain there until the calling of the next packet, fishing, shooting, rowing, sailing, or basking on the rocks, or all in turns ; or by the aid of the local fishing boats could sail about from one island to another through land- locked salt-water channels, where no business letter or other postal annoyances could possibly reach him. Tromso has made wonderful progress since my first visit. It then had barely 2000 inhabitants. Now its population exceeds 5000. For further particulars I must refer to my forthcoming volume, as I stayed there with the ladies nearly a week, and therefore became almost naturalized. I revisited the Lapps in the Tromsdal and found the family considerably increased. The perspiring patriarch was still there, but somewhat melted down and wrinkled. Two additional huts were built to accommodate his growing family. The old man is reputed to be very rich. For details of our visits I must again refer to ' Through Norway with Ladies.' ( 103 ) CHAPTER YI. The midBight sun — Lapps in theu- Sunday clothes — Moral and religious character of the Lapps — Drunkenness no longer pre- valent — A Lapp aristocrat — Adaptation of the eye to cold climates — Anomaly of climate — Alten — Fashion and gaiety in the Arctic regions — Tariff for refreshments on board the Arctic passenger steampackets, and the kind of food, &c., pro- vided — The northernmost town in the world — Floating colony — Alfresco bedrc oms — Live dolls — The Fjeld Lapp a con- siderable capitalist — The Thief Mountain — Wine in the far north — The great meridian line from the Danube to the Arctic Ocean — Migratory movements of the Lapps, and their progress in civilization — Present condition of Hammerfest — Programme of the midnight sun. Sunday, July 12th, 1856. — Leave Tromso at six in the evening. The scenery of the coast is still very grand and many glaciers are visible. At last we have open sea to the north, intercepted only by the picturesque island of Fuglo, or " Fowl Island," and we see the midnight sun. It is higher than I ex- pected, about four times its apparent diameter above the horizon. At twelve o'clock it stood over the island, which is about 2500 feet high : we try to light cigars and paper with a small lens, but fail, though a few hours previously the experiment was successful. The band of golden glitter upon the sea, stretching from the eye to the horizon beneath the sun, is very beautiful ; but the general effect of the warm subdued light upon the scenery is not so 104 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. fine as when the sun itself is behind a range of hills. At the Oxf jord station is a good example of a ter- minal glaciei" moraine. It appears like an artificial pile of stones set up to bear the flag-staff which is mounted on its summit. Several Lapps, much better dressed than those we saw at the encampment, were sitting upon the moraine awaiting the steam- packet, and two of them came on board. During the day many other Lapps came on board ; they all seemed to be dressed in Sunday clothes, made of coarse woollen material, " ivadmal" gaily trimmed with red and bright yellow : they wore overcoats and leggings of the same shape as those at the camp. These Lapps were lionized considerably, not only by the English passengers, but also by several of the Norwegian passengers who came from the south. They showed some signs of bashfnlness at being thus observed, and were even blushing with confusion when their clothes were examined; this was probably caused in a great measure by the fact that they wore their very best clothes. The first timidity overcome they became more communicative, and showed us the knives in wooden sheaths, which all of them wore attached by a thong of reindeer skin round the waist. They even submitted to be measured, blushing a good deal, and laughing some- what among themselves. The sailors treated them with patronizing gentleness, patting them on the cheeks and shoulders and lifting them about like dolls : at which they smiled good-humouredly and blushed a little more. They appear to be the A LAPP AKISTOCRAT. 105 gentlest of human beings, child-like in mind as well as in stature. The height of the man we selected as an average specimen was fonr feet six and a half Danish measure, which is equal to about four feet eight inches English. Most of them were making short journeys ; some on their way to church. They are a strictly religious people ; not merely a church- going people, but high moral and well-conducted. We were told by the Norwegians on board, who know them well, that the drunkenness which was once common among them has now almost totally disappeared. j\Iost of them can read and write. There was one who spoke a little English and seemed to be a man of station among his people. He was live feet high and rather proud, objecting de- cidedly to being made an object of popular curiosity. He came on board at Kaafjord on his way to Bosekop, and was the best dressed of them all ; his wife and daughter were almost handsomely dressed ; their caps, or bonnets, were quite elegant artistic affairs, fitting close on the top and sides of the head, and rising at the back to a point which bends forward with a graceful curve ; this was gaily and tastefully embroidered in many colours. The women's dress is a kind of tunic tied loosely at the waist, and reaching a little below the knees, edged round with a bright yellow or red band, or with a double band of both colours. The trousers, of the same drab or buff colour as the tunic, are tied rudely about the ankle with reindeer thongs ; the same thongs tie the " comargo," or shoe, which is as picturesque as the 106 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. headdress. These shoes, or boots, are made of rein- deer skin with the fur outside ; they fit very loosely and reach to the ankles, where, being tied up with the trousers, they effectually keep out the snow ; they are ornamented with red and yellow bind- ings, and the toes are turned up like Turkish slippers. A Quain also came on board. He was about five feet two inches in height, and had a much larger head than the Lapps ; his figure was thick-set, with much bone and muscle ; he had a sturdy sailor-like bearing, and was evidently a more energetic but less amiable man than the Lapps. His complexion had somewhat of an olive tint, and his features were quite Tartar-like. He sturdily avoided us, and com- pelled us to feel conscious of the impertinence of practical ethnology. The peculiar obliquity of the eye — or rather of the lower outline of the upper eyelid, which slopes dow'uward to the nose, and forms the strongest typical characteristic of the Mongolian race or variety — was more decided in the Quain than in the Laj)ps. This peculiarity results from the adaptation of the eyelid to the requirements of an intensely cold climate. The gland, or " tear-pit," in the inner corner of the eye is completely overlapped by the eyelid in the Esquimaux and others of the Mongolian variety of mankind. A corresponding arrangement for the protection of the gland is also found in many of the ruminant animals that inhabit high latitudes. THE QUAINS. 107 The Quains are natives of Finland; althoiigli manv of them have settled in Norway, especially in the vicinity of Kaafjord and the Alten valley. Both Quains and Laplanders are called Finns by the Norwegians : they are sometimes distinguished as Lapp-Finns and Quain-Finns. These Quains, or Esthonians, are usually described as having less of the Tartar countenance than the Lapps; but this was not the case with the one on board, whose physiognomy was more decidedly Tartaric than any Lapp I have seen while in Norway. The Quains are usually taller and more energetic and athletic than the Lapps. Though their dress is similar, their habits are very different; the Quain being an agriculturist, and having a fixed habitation. The scenery of the banks of the Alten Fjord is curiously summer-like and verdant in many parts ; especially upon the Kaafjord, which is the inmost l)ranch of the Alten Fjord. This, combined with a bright sky, a scorching sun, and an atmosphere of a softness suitable for a consumptive patient, renders it difficult to believe oneself in latitude 70"^, and nearly 400 miles due north of Tornea. The journey from Alten to Tornea (430 miles by the track), during the whole of which the traveller is proceeding nearly due south, presents the remarkable anomaly of a climate of continually increasing severity as he proceeds southwards. In the winter he travels from the open sea of the Norwegian coast to the head of the frozen Gulf of Bothnia. Li the summer the ther- mometer sometimes rises to 87° in the shade, and in the 108 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. winter it rarely, if ever, falls below zero, when, in other parts of the globe with the same latitude, mercury freezes. This vilLage of Alten, with its rich pasturages, its high civilization — (largely due to copper mines) — where young ladies play the airs of Verdi's last opera, and expand their skirts to Parisian dimensions, is in about the same latitude as that in which Franklin and his comrades are pro- bably frozen. We saw the midnight sun again, and an hour after arnved at Hammerfest, the northernmost town in the world. After leaving the Kaafjord the grandeur of the scenery begins to decline ; about Hammerfest it is comparatively monotonous and uninteresting. In order to afford the reader full information of the cost of everything, I append a copy of the steward's account against me for provisions consumed on the way : " Han med yardl bortes.'' D. M. s. D. M. S. 1 fiokost .. .. 1 8 2 the .. 16 1 the .. 8 1 frokost .. .. 1 8 1 caflfee .. 12 2 caffee .. 20 1 midrlag .. .. 2 12 1 middag .. .. 2 12 1 kal lik. vin .. .. 1 12 1 afteu .. 1 6 1 aften .. 1 6 2 the .. 16 2 the .. 16 Ifl. ul. .. . .. 10 1 middag .. .. 2 12 1 frokost .. .. 1 8 Ifl. via .. .. .. 3 2 the .. 16 1 aften .. 1 6 1 midda;^ . . .. 2 12 2 the .. 16 1 aften .. 1 6 1 frokost .. .. 1 8 2 the .. 16 2 the .. 16 1 middag .. .. 2 12 1 middag .. .. .. 2 12 1 6 1 fl. vin .. . .. 1 12 1 aften 7 4 8 TARIFF FOR REFRESHMENTS. 109 The following is a literal translation of the above, in English words and English money : " He with the large beard." £ s. d. : £ s. d. 1 breakfast .. ..012 Brought forward 18 9^ 1 tea 3§ , 2 teas 7 1 coffee 5 1 breakfast .. ..012 1 dinner 2 3 2 coffees 9^ ^ bottle wine . . ..014 1 dinner 023 1 supper Oil 1 supper 1 1 2 teas 7 2 teas 7 1 dinner 2 3; 1 bottle of ale . . ..005 1 bottle wine . . . . 2 8 1 breakfast . . ..012 1 supper Oil; 2 teas 007 2 teas 7 1 dinner 2 3 1 breakfast .. .. 12 1 supper 1 1 2 teas 7 2 teas 7 1 dinner 2 3 1 dinner 2 3 1 supper Oil i bottle wine .. .. 1 4 Carried forward 18 9^1 £1 14 11 This account requires some explanation. First, as to the title of the debtor, " He with the large beard." The steward, not knowing our names, gave us de- scriptive designations in his ledger. There were five Englishmen on board who were thus described : " He with the red beard," " He with the white beard," " He with the large beard," " He without a beard," and " He with a veil." The two teas which o(;cur so frequently must not be understood as two meals, but as two cups of tea, or of " the vand," tea-water, as the Norwegians call it. This although offered with the breakfast is charged separately. The fare from Trondhjem to Hammerfest, by best cabin, was 15 specie-dollars 32 skillings, about 'M. 8s. 2d. English. The passage occupied exactly 110 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. six days, including stoppages. The fare for the return journey by the same boat was 15 specie- dollars 27 sk., or 5 sk. less. This difference is for the ticket or booking of the passengers. The charge for any journey is made according to the mileage, with an additional charge for the ticket. This is an equitable arrangement that our railway companies might imitate. Note, 1876.— Three substantial meals are now served daily on all the coasting packets that have superseded the old Constitidione, at uniform, fixed, and printed tariff. The " frokost," or breakfast, the tariff price for which is 36 skillings = about Is. 4fZ. English, usually consists of one dish of hot fish and one of meat, handed round by the waiter, besides sundry shavings of German sausage, pressed meats, &c., that are freely spread in small dishes upon the table. Tea and coffee are also served, but charged separately at 8 skillings = 3^(i. per cup. The tariff' for dinner is 60 skillings = about 2s. M. It usually includes soup, fish, two dishes of hot meat, or one of meat and one of poultry or game ; and a dessert, consisting of cakes, like our sponge and pound cakes, almonds and raisins, and the fruit of the season and locality ; cranberries, bilberries, and raolteberries with cream being the most characteristic. Besides these there are the usual shavings in plates on the table, which is further decorated with growing flowers. Delicious lobsters are freely supplied, especially between Bergen and Trondhjem. The tariff for supper is the same as for breakfast, THE FISHER, OR SEA-LAPPS. Ill which it resembles, excepting that the regulation only- promises cold meats. Tea and coffee are served with this also on the same terms. Both at supper and breakfast wine and ale are served, and preferred by many of the passengers. Coffee is prepared after dinner and brought on deck for those who choose to take it. The wine carte is rather extensive, prices moderate, and the quality, so far as I am able to judge, is good. It will thus be seen that in spite of " the high price of provisions," the charges remain about the same as twenty years ago, and the table has decidedly im- proved both as regards cookery and variety. The fares remain the same, with some advantages in return and family tickets. For full information on this subject see Appendix. July 14^A, 1856. — Hammerfest, situated in lat. 70° 40', is a small town of one street, composed of the usual straggling wooden houses, some of them, however, of considerable size. There appear to be about as many Lapp inhabitants as Norwegians; or, at any rate, quite as many out of doors. There are two classes of Lapps — the Fjeld Lapp and the Fisher, or Sea-Lapp ; the former I have spoken of at Tromso. The Lapps at Hammerfest are all fishers. Their boats are not larger than the small rowing-boats we have on our coast, and far less strongly built. Tliese are not only their iishing- smacks, but also their family residences ; serving them " for kitchen and parlour and all." They live for the most part afloat, their boats moored to the rude 112 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. quay ; and it is an odd sight to see a row of these floating families going to bed publicly, in the open air, on a fine sunny midnight. After a supper of dried fish, which they pull to threads with their fingers, they say their prayers, and then the husband and wife tuck themselves up together under a reindeer skin at one end of the boat ; the baby, in its " egg," is deposited near to them, and the elder children are concealed somewhere at the other end. An hour after, as I walked along the shore when the pairs of sleeping faces alone were visible, and the silence was complete, the scene wakened in my mind quaint reminiscences of childish fancies of dolls'-houses, toy- boats, Noah's arks, and the little old woman that lived in a shoe. The next day, as the little people walked about in couples, hand-in-hand all so silemtly and gently, speaking in a soft murmur if they spoke at all, and with an expression both in face and gait of such utter harmlessness and amiability, the idea of a colony of living dolls was still more strongly suggested. From a little distance their dress has a becoming and rather a gay appearance ; the cap, or bonnet, of the women is quite elegant in form, and embroidered in many colours, sometimes being inter- woven with gold and silver thread. The reindeer skins, which the fisher Lapps use for bed-covering and clothing, are obtained from the Fjeld Lapps in exchange for dried fish. The Fjeld Lapp is a considerable capitalist, a flock of 400 reindeer being, according to Mr. Laing, only sufiicient to support a family. It is said that many of them possess hoards of buried treasure in the shape THE WEALTH OF THE LAPPS. 113 of silver coins, cups, spoons, &c. The captain of the steamer showed us some silver spoons and small silver drinking-cups he bought of a Lapp. The spoons had a very large bowl and a short twisted handle; the cups were ornamented with a rather elaborate pricked pattern ; the workmanship of both was very rude, but the metal contained very little alloy. Still, these people are practically in a state of extreme poverty, and sometimes sufier great pri- vations : those who have not enough reindeer to subsist upon combine the avocations of both fjeld and fisher Lapp. The number of Lapps in Norway, accordim; to the census of 1847, was 14.464. There is considerable variety in the expression of features of the Lapps here : some are very like idiots in feature, and, from the size and form of the head, cannot be far removed from idiotcy in mental capa- city ; others express considerable intelligence ; but, with the exception of the proud five-feet aristocrat on board the steamer, I have seen none who exhibit any considerable amount of energy. They all have small brains, even in proportion to the body; and an expression of extreme gentleness and amiability is common to them all : they appeal to one's sym- pathies most powerfully. After visiting the consul, as in duty bound, some of tlie party making sundry purchases of skins of white bears, silver foxes, &c., we, at the consul's re- commendation, ascended a hill, called the Thief Mountain. It is about 1500 feet high, with a good deal of snow upon its sides, which has to be scrambled over with that sort of hard labour usual in ascendino: 114 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. steep snow inclines. The heat was most oppressive even on the snow. The mountain commands a good view of the low hills and bluff headlands of the coast ; which, however, are not very striking : we are told that the North Cape is to be seen from it, but this I doubt. The island of Mageroe is just visible on the horizon ; but as the North Cape forms its northern extremity, it does not seem possible to see it from the south. The ascent of Thief Hill affords a very in- teresting opportunity of witnessing the effect of altitude on the growth of the birch. The trees at the foot of the hill are in some instances 8 or 10 feet high ; but on ascending they gradually diminish to liliputian plants of 6 or 8 inches, though still having the form of mature trees. We— that is, " He with the white beard," " He with the red beard," "He with the large beard," " He without a beard," and " He with a veil " — breakfast and dine at the chief hotel. Breakfast of tea, salmon, eggs, and cold roast reindeer, for 1 mark 12 skillings, or Is. 4cZ. Dinner of salmon, hot roast reindeer, and sweetmeats : the dinner cost 1 mark 15 skillings, or Is. 6d: each — the wine 1 mark 12 skillings, or Is. 4:d. The reindeer makes a good dish ; it is something like beef, but of shorter flavour, and bears about the same relation to beef that our park venison does to mutton. The wine was excellent, and the variety rather astonished us. For the in- struction of those who are curious in epicurean sta- tistics, I append a faithful copy of the carte, which for a rude wooden inn within the Arctic Circle, appears rather luxurious : AN ARCTIC WINE CARTE. 115 J'riis courant over Olhallens Vine, 4ttc. Per flok. I Per flok. Champager 1 3 s. Musak LUuel . . M. S. 3 12 Tokayer 1 3 Ditto Picardiu . . — Lacryma Christ! 1 1 Portvin gammel fiiu Cap. Constantia 2 2 (fine old Port) .. 1 1 (» Portvin gammel fiiu Chateau Lafitte 1 (fine old Port) . . i Chateau Leaville . . 3 S Madeira, gammel drey St. Jullien 1 16 (old dry Madeira) 1 1 Rihush viiu 1 1 12 Ditto 4 Haut Sauterne . . 2 13 Portvin hvid (white CheiTy Cordial 3 8 Port) 4 Sberry, god 1 l(i Sherry, old 3 Loudon Brown Stout 1 12 Tennerif 2 Ditto half 20 Malaga 2 Ale, Edinburgher . . 20 Chateau Larose 4 8 01 8 We met some Englishmen here, and a German artist, Professor Hildebrandt, who had just returned from an excursion to the North Cape. We frater- nized, of course, and our party was thereby en- larged. The heat was surprisingly great, and the mus- quitoes most annoying. An odour of hot cod-liver pervades the whole of Hammerfest ; and if there be any virtue in the vapour of cod-liver oil, this must be a paradise for consumptive patients. On the outskirts of the town is the termination of the great meridian line of 25° 20', drawn from the Danube, near Rustchuk, to the Arctic Ocean. Tliis is, I believe, the longest meridian line that has been carefully determined. It is marked by an obelisk bearing a globe, with its axis inclined to the sea * A specie-dollar ih worth about Is. ijd. ; a marlc, 10J(/. ; a skil- ling, ratlier IcBS tJiau one halfjiennv. I 2 116 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. surface in the same degree as that of the earth is to the plane of the ecliptic. On the base of the obelisk is the following inscription : Det Nordlige Endepukt AF DEN Meeidianbue paa 25° 20' ERA DET Nordlige Ocean til Donau Floden IGJENNEN NORGE SVEEIGE OF EUSLAND Efter Foranstaltning of Hans Majestat Kong OSOAE I. oG : Kaiserne ALEXANDER I. NICHOLAS I. VED UAFBRTjDT ArBEIDE FEA 1816 TIL 1852 UDMAALT AF DE TEE Nations Geometer. Beede 70° 40' 11" -3. This signifies that there is "the northern termina- tion of the meridian line of 25° 20' from the Arctic Ocean to the river Danube, through Norway, Sweden, and Eussia, which after the ordination of His Majesty King Oscar I., and the Emperors Alexander I. and Nicholas I., by uninterrupted labours from 1816 to 1852, was measured by the geo- meters of the three nations — Latitude, 70° 40' 11" ' 3." Note, 1876. — I was rather disappointed when I last visited Hammerfest on finding only two or three families of fisher Lapps there, and learned that the large numbers I saw in 1856 are only to be found there on occasions of special immigration. They RECENT PROGRESS OF THE LAPPS. 117 sail about in their boats, drop their rude anchor, and go ashore wherever they please as freely and inde- pendently as private yachtsmen. We were recom- pensed, however, by falling upon a great irruption of Fjeld Lapps into Tromsd. The tourist who desires to study these interesting little people must be era- tent to catch them where he can, though he may safely rely upon finding the family in the Tromsdal as long as the old man continues to perspire and breathe. Whether his heirs will remain faithful to the old " gammer " turf hut, I am unable to say. Sanitary progress is reaching even the Lapps ; they are improving in cleanliness. Some of the gammer are now actually furnished with wooden flooring and lined inside and out with wooden planks. This form of sandwich, with turf in the middle and planks on both surfaces, makes an excellent wall for cold climates, the fibrous turf being so bad a con- ductor of heat. I am told that in Russian Lapland (Finland) a fusion of races is rapidly taking place. This is also occurring to some extent is Norway, where the " Blan- dings folk " or half-castes are now a recognized section of the population. In the course of my last visit, I saw a considerable number of puzzling specimens of humanity, especially in fishing boats and on the Arctic coast between Hammerfest and the Russian frontier. They had the high cheek-bones, liroad noses, and other Mongolian features of the Lapp, but were of taller stature and stronger build tlian true Lapps. Hammerfest does not appear to me to have made 118 THKOUGH NORWAY "WITH A KNAPSACK. aDY visible progress since my first visit, thoiigli its present population of two thousand one hundred, as compared with the seventy-seven inhabitants it had in 1801, shows considerable growth during this century. The hotel has certainly degenerated, and tourists who now look for the wine carte, which I copied as a curiosity in 1856, will be disappointed, as I was on the occasion of my revisit. I saw no ob- viously new buildings in the town, and the old wooden tenements appeared much older and shabbier than when I first saw them. There is, however, one exception to this in the new and luxurious mansion of Mr. Eobertson, the veteran British consul, but this is out of town. The following programme of the midnight sun will be useful to tourists whose time is limited. It includes the elevation due to refraction on the sea horizon, and of course demands such an horizon due north. With this, a day may be gained by ascending about 300 feet. At Bodo . . . . „ Tromso „ Varilo . . . . „ Hammerfest „ North Cape The upper edge of the sun is visible from The half sun is visible from May 31 to July 12 May 18 „ July 25 May 14 „ July 28 Mav 13 „ July 29 May 11 „ Aug. 1 June 2 to July 10 May 19 „ July 24 May 16 „ July 27 May 14 „ July 28 May 12 „ July 31 The whole sun is visible from June 4 to July 8 May 20 „ July 22 May 17 „ July 26 May 15 „ July 27 May 13 „ July 30 At the North Cape there is, of course, a perfectly free horizon, but within the towns named this is not the case. The above, therefore, refers to their vicinity, and to other places in their latitude. ( 119 ) CHAPTER VII. A cruel defeat and humiliation — The return journey — Glaciers of the LjTigen Fjord — A i^ublic breakfast at TromsiJ — A second visit to the Lapp encampment — Moral and religious savages — Condition of the Laplanders a proof of the high character of the Norwegians — Snow and sunshine — The English language a dialect of the Scandinavian — Few, if any, English words derived from tlie German — When to see Arctic Norway at its best — Bodo — The Threnen islands — The ships of the old sea-kings — Curious change in the tone and colour of the light at mid- night — Norwegian table etiquette — A new mission suggested. July loth, 1856. — The Constitutione, after two days' stay at Hammerfest, started to return, and our English party was augmented by Professor Hildebrandt (who speaks English so well that I at first mistook him for a Scotcliman) and the three Englishmen who went to the North Cape : they were students from Cambridge, and immediately on going on board subjected me to a severe humiliation. I should here confess that it has hitherto been my habit to crow over every English tourist I meet on the matter of travelling economically ; and I had never before found a successful competitor in this respect. During a six months' tour in Italy, my whole expenses, in- cluding board, lodging, shoes, theatres, cafes, and all other dissipations, besides fees to cicerone, &c., averaged only 18s. per week ; and yet I saw and did everything that a conscientious tourist who obeys his Mtirray is bound to see and to do. Last summer 120 THKOUGH NOKWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. I made an excursion, starting from London to Duuquerque and Lille, through Belgium by rail; stopping at the principal towns on the way, " doing " the hotels de ville, the churches with their carved pulpits, &c., and the picture galleries ; then up the cockney portion of the Ehine, ascending the proper quantity of " fels," castles, and lateral valleys ; on from Mayence to Frankfort and Nuremberg by rail ; and after enjoying the artistic oddities of that old town, proceeded by rail to Munich, where I spent four days : then by coach to the Tegern-see, and on foot through the Tyrol to Conegiiano ; by rail to Venice ; stayed four days there ; and then on foot through Lombardy, visiting some of the principal cities, and the Lago di Garda, Lago d'Isea, the Lake of Como, the Splugen and Via Mala, Gorge of Pffefers, Lake Wallenstadt, and Zurich, and by Basle to the source of the Moselle ; down the valley of that river to Nancy ; then by rail to Paris and London. This trip occupied six weeks. I started with 15?. in my pocket, and brought a few shillings back ; yet I visited theatres, concerts, &c., and purchased maps and guide-books besides. After having performed such exploits, and boasted of them considerably to my fellow-passengers all the way from Trondhjem to Hammerfest, my disgust and humiliation were most intense on finding that the three students had taken deck passage at one- third the fare I was paying : tbey rolled themselves hardily and bravely under the tarpaulins, and slept among trunks, baskets, and barrels — and Lapps and Norwegians. To be looked down upon by my fellow- DEFEATED ON MY OWN GROUND. 121 countrvmen as au effeminate, lounging aristocrat, an inhabitant of sofas, a sensual sitter upon stuffed cushions while there were hard phwks within reach, was more than I coukl patiently bear. I, who banter every friend whom I can catch in the fact of riding in a first-class railway carriage, upon the folly of paying 3s. per hour for the hire of a cusiiion, to be thus beaten on my own ground was the severest blow my pride could have possibly . receired. It was a source of great consolation, how- ever, to find that the students did not like their deck passage : they looked very uncomfortable, and went ashore at Bodo under pretence of ascending Sulitelma ; but, as I firmly believe, really to wait for the next packet and take saloon passage and claret surreptitiously. On the return journey from Hammerfest, the sleeping and waking hours should be so divided as to see that part of the coast which was missed during the sleeping time of the last passage. The grand scenery commences again from the entrance to the Oxfjord ; where, as before, a party of Lapps were perched on the moraine which supports the flasstaffs. All the stations at which the steamer halts have the Norwegian flag flying. There is, however, no necessity for any such distinguishing mark. Even in a thick mist, a sailor with a keen nose can steer directly to one of these stations at this season of the year, the odour of stewing cod- livers is so decided, and so far diffused from the centre at which it is concentrated. At about four o'clock on the second morning of 122 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. our return journey we pass some remarkable glaciers near to the Havnes station in the Lyngen fjord : one of them very nearly reached the sea. We were near enough to examine them pretty fully, and with the aid of telescopes or opera-glasses to look down the blue crevasses which rib the lower parts. They ex- hibit the whole phenomena of glaciers at one glance : there is the snow field, or neve, above, the source from which the true glacier is derived ; the deep lateral valley narrowing downwards, one of the essential conditions of glacier formation ; then the ice torrent, with its sharp billows and blue chasms filling this valley and carrying with it in its slow descent the blocks of rock form'ing the moraine, which when deposited at its boundaries will remain to mark its place, though the climate of the whole region should change and the ice and snow all melt away. Julif IQth. — We made another halt at Tromso, and all went ashore, proceeding as a matter of course to the principal hotel, the Belle Vue. The house was full — not of provisions — but of guests. We asked for breakfast, and were told by the host that he was very busy and could not give us any. We petitioned for dinner when convenient, and this was refused. We sued for wine or beer, biscuits or fladbrod, or anything digestible or indigestible containing some amount of any of the protein compounds ; but all in vain. We were made to understand that a Norwegian hotel-keeper only proposes to do a limited amount of business, and that nothing will tempt him to exceed that. We then returned to the ship and could get no breakfast there, for it was washing THE SIEGE OF TKOMSO. 123 day — all wore engaged in the swabbing of decks and scrubbing of cabins. A little bread and some chips of cheese were at last reluctantly brought, and these ■we very rashly refused on account of the smallness of the quantity and the grudging with which they were served. ' "We went ashoi*e again, emboldened by hunger, and determined to besiege the town, to force the natives to submission and compel them to supply our wants. We were eight in number, and proceeded first to the general shop of the British consul, where we armed ourselves with bottles of ale and sauterne and lumps of cheese ; then to the baker's shop, where we insisted upon loaves of bread, which were brought in ample quantity. We had, of course, neither glasses, plates, knives or forks, nor seats ; but each man did his best, with his bottle, his loaf, and lump of cheese ; some sitting on the baker's door-step, others standing in the street. Before our meal was finished we had a large con- gregation of lookers on, consisting of all the little boys of Tromso and a considerable proportion of the adult population, who silently contemplated our proceedings from the opposite side of the street until the performance concluded, when the little boys expressed their approbation by rapturous ap- plause. We paid another visit to the Lapp encampment, and ascended the hills above it in the hope of seeing the reindeer, but did not find them. I observed many little things in the hut this time which I did not see before, for we were now received as old friends, with a sort of rude welcome and a more 124 THROUGH NOEWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. communicative spirit. Tlie hone, or wife, had just gathered some wild herbs from the mountain side, which she was cutting up for soup and storing in a bag of reindeer skin. Some homagers and other articles of reindeer skin were in course of tanning, being laid in a pan with strips of beech bark. Among the domestic apparatus was a highly civilized copper tea-kettle, besides some other copper vessels, and a pair of ornamental mahogany bellows. The pan in which the shoes were tanning, being made of thick copper, was of some considerable money value. What would an English capitalist say of using copper for the construction of tan-pits? They showed us two vase-shaped silver cups, like common egg-cups, but a little larger, and some silver spoons with large bowls and short twisted handles; these were all of very antique pattern, with ornamental designs rudely pricked upon them. There was a decidedly pretty girl peeling bark. We had read in many books that the inner bark of trees is used by the Norwegians and the Laplanders for food ; but when we asked her whether she was preparing this for food, she seemed as much amused and surprised at the question as any Englishwoman would be. The idea of using such a material was quite new to her ; but then she bad never read any books of travel, poor thing, and could not be expected to know so much of the manners and customs of northern peoples as we literary and scientific folk. I found similar ignorance prevailing throughout Norway relative to the Scandinavian practice of eating horseflesh. UN-SOPHISTICATED CHRISTIANS. 125 The more I see of these gentle savages the more I become interested in them. They are quite an anomalous race. Here they live in direct contact with the high civilization of the Norwegians, in free communication and perfect harmony with them. They are converted to Christianity, and from all I can learn have a better claim to the title of Christian than many of our own church and chapel goers ; for besides attending to the outward forms of devotion, they illustrate the reality of Christianity by their genuine unostentatious humility, their loving gentle- ness to each other and their neighbours, their con- tentment and their disregard of the ambitious struggles, the greed of Avealth, and all the pomps and vanities of the civilized world. It is strange to see a people who can read and write, and who have family prayers morning and evening, still living as nomade pastoral savages; clinging in all particulars to the old habits of their forefathers, clotlied in the skins of beasts, and with so much contempt for Manchester, Birmingham, and SheflBeld, as to still make their own thread of the sinews of their own reindeer, their needles and pins of the bones, and their spoons of the horns. They are probably the only people in the world who do not use Staffordshire ware, and have not the willow- pattern plate among them. Whatever may have been the moral effect of reading and writing, Christi- anity, and the example of civilization, their influence on the industrial habits of these people is almost nothing. The brass-nozzled mahogany bellows, and the first-class copper tea-kettle, displayed as we 126 THEOUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. should display a finely-carved Indian war-club or a Japanese cabinet, tended only to heighten the con- trast between their habits and the modern usages around them: for it must be remembered that, as far as the Norwegians are concerned, this arctic portion of Norway contains some of the most refined, wealthy, and aristocratic people of the country ; the traders in fish, who are in continual communication as merchants with the rest of Europe, especially with the southern Catholic portions, where the stock fish is chiefly consumed. The present condition of these Lapps, their peace- ful, undisturbed existence, their freedom at all periods from persecution or oppression, is a grand evidence of the high moral character of the Norwe- gians. I am not aware of any other instance in the world's history of a people so weak, so helpless for self-defence, remaining for centuries in contact with an energetic, civilized, and altogether stronger people, and never having been attacked, pillaged, enslaved, or subjected to any interference, except for the benevolent purposes of intellectual, moral, and religious education. The Norwegians have recently converted them from their strange old paganism, the worship of Thor, with its conjurations, magical drums, and sacrifices to the stone elfigy of the hammer-bearing a:od : have taup-ht them to read and write, and when they fell into habits of drunkenness sent apostles of temperance among them. The efforts of these temperance missionaries have been highly success- A TESTIMONY TO NORWEGIAN HONOUR. 127 ful, and the druukenness so common among the Laplanders when Mr. Laing resided in Norway in 183-1-5-6, is now very rare. Those who talk about a law of Nature enforcing with unrelenting fatalism the subjugation and de- strnction of an inferior race when a superior and more highly civilized people come in contact Anth it, should visit this part of Norway, and study the present rela- tions of the Norwegians to the Laplanders. It may be imagined that the Lapps have remained un- molested by the . Norwegians because they are so poor as to be not worth robbing either by legal or illegal processes. It is true that the Ijeld they occupy is quite valueless for tillage, and almost so for pasturage ; but this is not the case with the fishing ground. The Fjeld Lapp, as before stated, is a considerable capitalist, and, like all other capi- talists, could not exist as such unless protected either by morality, law, or fighting. A full-grown reindeer now sells for about three or four dollars. A flock of 4U0 reindeer being the smallest uj)on which a Lapp family can subsist, the average present value of the property of each family of the pure Fjeld Lajips is probably not less than 200Z. ; and this for the most part in a readily convertible form. It is not an un- common case for a single family to possess as many as a thousand reindeer. If the Lapps were a sen- sual, drunken, or in any way improvident people, such a state of things could not continue in contact with open markets, money, and civilization : they would sell their reindeer to purchase the means of 128 THKOUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. present indulgence, and rapidly sink into abject poverty and starvation. If there were many sharpers among the Norwegians — " 'cute traders," addicted to " swapping," these poor simple Lapps would long since have been tempted to their ruin. If I were a Norwegian I should point to the en- campments of these peaceful, defenceless little people as the noblest monuments of my country's honour : monuments more worthy of the nation's pride than the trophies of a thousand victories on the battle- field. Juhj 11th. — Leave Tromso a little after midnight. As the day advances the weather becomes excessively hot. At its hottest, the thermometer stood at 11° in the saloon, at 92° in the rok lugar, or smoking saloon, a little cabin built on deck, and 108° in the sun : on shore, in the valleys, it must doubtless have been much hotter. The contrast of this glaring Italian, or, I might almost say, Brazilian sky, with the snow-clad rocks and glaciers dipping almost to the sea-edge, is very striking. It was a continual source of fresh wonderment ; one of the few scenes to which one does not become accustomed, but retains its novelty day after day. Among the incidents on board, was a discussion on the relative importance of the study of Latin and Scandinavian as a key to English. My own opinion of the matter is, that the idea of studying any lan- guage as a means of understanding another is absurd. Every language has its own special laws and charac- teristics, and these are best studied in its own classics, and not in those of any other language. It is true CC r^r^^r^^^^" 129 LATIN AND CULTURE that there are certain general laws common to all lanouages — the laws of thouo;ht in their relations to the faculty of speech, but these are not taught by the degrading drudgery of learning by rote the declensions of Latin nouns, the irregularities of Greek verbs, nor the barbarous and obsolete rhythm of Latin hexameters ; but by the study of comparative phi- lology, a science demanding the exercise of the reasoning powers, and the aid of a tutor that can do something more than setting and hearing a text-book lesson. For the practical illustration of these laws, the English language is incomparably superior to either Latin or Greek, inasmuch as it is compounded of so many other languages, and has absorbed the best elements of each. It grows wherever it is planted, by virtue of its inherent fitness to the human mind and its ample fulfilment of all the requirements of thought and feeling ; while the stilted Latin has withered everywhere, even on its native soil. The common plea for the study of the dead lan- guages, that it affords fine mental discipline and elucidates English, is merely an after-thought — a modern invention for propping up the remnants of an old barbarism. Everybody knows, and none better than those who ply this poor apology the most vigorously, that Latin was not originally intro- duced into our universities for any such purpose, but that its study is merely a remnant of the monkish effort to spread the spiritual dominion of Home by making the language of old Kome and of the Church the universal medium of intelleetuiil intercourse ; an K 130 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. effort which, in the dark ages, was successful, on account of the great advantage of having any common medium of communication between the learned few, then so widely and sparsely diffused over the world. As the Birmingham manufacturers of shoe-buckles and gilt buttons made a loud clamour, and even petitioned princes and parliaments in favour of re- taining the fashions which kept up the demand for their commodities; so, in like manner, it is quite natural, and perhaps excusable, that men who have been cruelly condemned to spend their best days in the study of the classics, and who earn their liveli- hood by teaching them, should argue until they at last convince themselves that these, the only educa- tional commodities they can bring into the market, are the best in existence. This matter was discussed on board with consider- able earnestness, and then came the question whether, assuming that Englishmen require to learn some other language as the basis of their own, this should be Latin or old Norsk. The matter settled down into a convivial wager of a bottle of claret ; the pro- position asserted on the one side being, that, taking the vocabulary of Norsk words in Murray's Sand- hook, above one-third would prove to have common English words obviously derived from them. On examination, it was found that this was the case with about half the words, and of course the affirmer of the proposition won the wager. The loser, and some of the umpires, thought it probable that the words in that vocabulary might be selected on account of their similarity to English, and another THE BASIS OF OUR LANGUAGE. 131 similar wager was made upon the affirmation that if the Danish dictionary be opened at random sixty- times, and the first root-word in the page be taken, above twenty of these root-words should have common English words so obviously derived from them as to be admissible by all the umpires: all technical terms and words derived from Latin or French beins: excluded. This wager was also decided in favour of the affirmer, though it was much a closer run than the former. These experiments, easily repeated, show how nearly our language is allied to the Scan- dinavian ; especially if attention be paid to the kind of words we get from this source. They are our common vulgar words : those which convey the most familiar ideas in the most forcible manner ; those which every good writer strives to use as much as possible, and which children first learn and always prefer. Good hearty English is, in fact, a dialect of the old Norsk or Icelandic, as it is sometimes called ; the language in which the Sagas are written. German is another dialect ; Dutch, Swedish, Danish, and modern Norsk, are others. During the period between the tenth and four- teenth centuries, England, Ireland, Scotland, Nor- way, Sweden, and Denmark, must have had a common language; for the Skalds or bards of Iceland visited these countries and there recited or sung their poems, many of which are still extant. Iceland at that period was the literary locus of Europe ; her poets travelled from court to court, receiving high honours and rich gifts from princes and warriors, and then retired to their native land. K 2 132 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. It must be remembered that these princes and war- riors were not literary, book-reading gentlemen, who could learn a classical language set apart for poetry ; but rude fighters, whose enthusiasm could only be roused by purely vernacular poetry. The Danes and Saxons must have spoken the same tongue, or how could Alfred have sung in the camp of the Danes, or even have had the exploit put upon him by tradition? Anything beyond a difference of dialect would have been sufficient to disable even a literary man like Alfred from extemporizing poetry. Without professing to be a philologist, I cannot help expressing rather a decided opinion upon the practice of etymologists, who, finding that an English word closely resembles a German word, state that the English word is derived from the German. I do not believe that in the whole vocabulary of English, twelve words can be found (not of modern introduction) that have been derived from the German. The multitude of words resembling the German do so from having a common origin with the German ; the English and German being sepa- rate branches from the same trunk, that trunk being the old Norsk. I do not, of course, affirm that Ger- man or old English is altogether derived from the old Norsk; for, of course, we had the Celtic, and some of the Eoman elements introduced at an early period, while the German has, in like manner, its other ancient elements. If I might venture upon a theory, it would be that all we have in common with the German has been derived from the same source, but has passed through a different channel. We AF.CTIC SEASONS. 13 o have received the Icelandic, or old Norsk, through Norway and Denmark, while it has reached Germany through Sweden ; our deviations from the old tongue resemble the Danish, while those of the German are like the Swedish : the Danish words stand midway between ours and the old Norsk, while the Swedish stand in like manner between the old Norsk and German. July 18th. — The grandeur of the Lofodens is con- siderably diminished on our return to them. The greater part of the snow has melted, and the rocky peaks appear diminished in magnitude, illustrating the effect of snow upon mountain scenery. I should advise those who wish to see this splendid coast to full advantage, to visit it at the beginning of July, or even a week earlier. The midnight sun may be seen for a month after the longest day, but every day considerably lessens the quantity of snow. The middle of June is rather too early, for then the weather is uncertain and the mists have not yet cleared. When time permits, the best course would be to make the northward journey about the middle of June, spend a fortnight about the North Cape, Hammerfest, and Alten, and then return early in July. By this means the wondrous rapidity of vegetation, and something of the contrast between the northern winter and summer, niiglit be wit- nessed ; for there is no spring or autumn here, and winter suddenly changes to summer about the middle of June. The sky is remarkably clear during this part of the return voyage, and the grand ranges of mountains 134 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. far inland, with vast glaciers and snowy solitudes, are better displayed than when we passed them before. The melting of the surface snow is here an advantage, as it displays the blue ice of the glaciers. The active business-like proceeding of the steampacket, landing and embarking passengers and goods at the many stations on this coast of a country of classical antiquity, render it difficult to believe that within sight are hundreds of square miles of ever frozen solitudes, whose desolation has never been broken by human footsteps. Juhj \^th. — Near the Arctic Circle we passed a fleet of " yeehts : " not yachts by any means, but quite of different build. They are vessels which carry the stock fish from the Lofodens and the coast to Bergen, where they are shipped again for their southern destinations. These vessels are the most quaint, antique -looking craft I have ever seen, having immense breadth of beam with abrupt flat sterns, and prows standing half as high as the mast. The fish, besides being stowed below, are piled upon the deck in a square mass almost as high as the prow itself. The odour of such a fleet is most remarkable : I was sleeping as we approached them, and the smell awakened me long before we reached the outermost vessel. They are rigged with one large square mainsail, and a very dumpy topsail over that. They cannot be much addicted to high speed, but appear quite indif- ferent to any amount of sea ; and if they struck upon a rock would probably rebound and go on ahead as though nothing unusual had happened. The vessels of the old sea-kings were doubtless such as these : in DIVERSITY OF MIDNIGHT DAYLIGHT. 135 ships of scarcely greater tonnage, held together bv wooden bolts, without chronometers, quadrants, or even a compass, they crossed the Atlantic, discovered and traded with America, and colonized Greenland more than three hundred years before Columbus was born. The midnight daylight was the subject of a con- troversy almost as animated as that on Scandinavian versus Latin. I had observed that a perceptible change takes place in the character of the light after miduight ; that although the altitude of the sun is the same ten minutes before twelve as ten minutes after, and the amount of light probably the same, there is a perceptible difference in its character, as regards tone and colour, corresponding to the usual difference between evening and morning, sunset and sunrise. I even ventured to affirm that the chansfe commenced at the moment of midnight, the warm tints then beginning to pass gradually into the cooler morning light. Professor Hildebrandt, the artist, agreed with me in this ; while one of the English passengers stoutly contested it, maintaining that we were self-deluded : the rest were neutral. I offered to test it by a " crucial " experiment, thus : — I was to abstain from looking at any watch or clock for two or three hours before midnight, and yet to tell by the change of light the moment of midnight, within five minutes one way or other ; the sun being below the horizon or behind the hills. The experiment was tried on three successive nights, each time success- fully ; this success was most remarkable on the first niglit, when we were ashore at Bodo. According to 136 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. the united testimony of our watches and the sliip's clock, I was twenty minutes wrong ; on farther inquiry, however, it appeared that the ship's clock had not been set since we left Tromso, which is nearly five degrees to the west of Bodo, and as I had proclaimed it midnight twenty minutes before the cloclc, I was not above two or three minutes wide of the true time. We afterwards found that our friend who so stoutly denied any difference of tint before and after midnight, was colour-blind as regards the comple- mentary colours of red and green : though he had a keen, piercing sight, he could not distinguish any difference of colour between the red cover of Murray's 'Handbook to Norway ' and the green cover of Bohn's edition of Forrester's ' Norway.' As the jDoint at issue was a distinction between delicate tints of red and gray in the atmosphere, it was not surprising that he should have been quite unable to perceive it. During this voyage many opportunities were af- forded of observing the habits of the Norwegians. We had of course some of the upper classes in the cabin, and there was a bishop and a member of the Storthing among them. Spitting on the floor is evidently a common practice in polite society. Butter, an important article of food, is brought to table without a separate knife. Each person re- quiring a slice cuts it with his own knife, leaving a smear of gravy, or whatever may be upon his knife, as a contribution for the benefit of the next comer. The same is the case with the cheese. Salt- spoons do not appear to have travelled so far north. UNSKILFUL SPITTING. 137 These peculiarities may be to some extent attri- butable to the fact that the Constitutione is the worst appointed boat on the service. We reached Trondhjem on the 21st of July, after an absence of thirteen days. Note, 1876. — Since the above was published the subject of change of tone and colour of the sky after midnight has been further discussed, the majority of observers confirming my statement, I am not at all surprised that some should question it, for inde- pendent of the "personal equation" due to the varying power of perceiving delicate variations of tint, there is another interfering element, viz. the condition of the weather. This subject is further discussed in * Through Norway with Ladies.' I am glad to be able to state that the table-service in the packets has greatly improved, and the dis- agreeable proceedings above described were not observable during my last journey, except in the item of spitting. In this respect our Norwegian primogenitors are as barbarous as our American descendants. My attention was especially directed to this when travelling with ladies, as they were seriously annoyed by it, especially in the cabins of the Arctic steamers, where their fellow passengers lying in their berths converted the cabin floor and cushions into public spittoons, and the Norwegian ladies lacking that precision of aim which is so ambitiously cultivated by the transatlantic tobacco- chewer, the difficulty of finding safe places for bonnets and other articles of dress was very considerable. 138 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. To those benevolent people who are devoted to the improvements of others, and have a strong passion for missionary enterprise, I may suggest the organization of a special mission for the free distribu- tion of pocket-handkerchiefs among the Norwegians ; but I hereby give notice that should any of the missionaries publish ' Through Norway with Pocket- handkerchiefs ' I shall demand a royalty for the copyright of title. ( 139 ) CHAPTEK VIII. On foot again — The pedestrian's advantages — Terraced valleys — Importance of eggs to the tourist — How to converse in a language you have not learned — The Orkedal — Probable centre of the great Scandinavian upheaval — Another explanation of the Torghatten tunnel — Fly-catchers — Tariff of refreshment for man and beast — A battle-field — Physiognomy of the Xor- wegians — Mercenary tenderness of the Surrendal cows — Nor- wegian beds and sheep-skin coverlids — I succeed in living within my income at the Quamen station — The beard pro- vocative of refinement — Female despotism — Trout and salmon in the Surrendal. July 22nd, 1856. — Start again on foot and bend my way westward to the Orkedal. Every time I start upon a pedestrian journey I feel a sensation of escaping from imprisonment ; for, no matter how free I may have been before, there is a sense of vastly greater freedom, of utter self-reliance, when alone upon my own legs, with a knapsack behind me and an unknown land before. This feeling impels me to step forward with long and eager strides, to revel in the rude, vigorous enjoyment of wild nature. It is under such circumstances that one feels the fact that simple physical existence is a positive pleasure : the mere contraction of the muscles, the inspiration of the sweet mountain air, the circulation of the blood coursing with strong vitality through every artery and vein, are all strong pleasurable sensatio ns It is at such a time as this one feels unutterable pity 1-10 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. for the pallid debauchee, who, by the aid of dainty cookery and costly wines, and feeble in-door revelry, makes soch painful efforts to experience a wretched imitation of this genuine and delicious sensuous enjoyment. The fortnight on board the steamer and in Trondh- jem had been to me a period of effeminate, sloppy indulgence ; but now I cast all this aside and begin the true enjoyment of travelling. My breakfast this morning is a pennyworth of bread, bought in the town and carried in my pocket till hunger draws it forth, when I sit upon a stone and eat it : never was a banquet more delicious. The first few miles of the route was the same as that by which I came to Trondhjem from the Dovre Fjeld ; then the road bends over a hill commanding a fine view of the Guldal (the reader should remem- ber that "dal" means valley, and all places with names thus ending are valleys) and the valley of the Nid. Both of their rivers, the Gula and the Nid, are seen winding through the terraced banks I have before described, with groups of farms upon these small plains, churches here and there, and rich wooded hills above. The Lerfosse are marked by the clouds of spray that hang above them, and one of the falls itself is visible from a still higher point of the road. The similarity of the terraces in both valleys is remarkable : it is evident that these valleys were estuaries or fjords up which the sea penetrated, and that subsequent upheaval of the whole country has driven the sea back. If such be the case, all the THE OEKEDAL. 141 valleys hereabouts must preseut indicatiuns of such terraces more or less distinctly marked. The richness and beauty of these valleys contrast most strikingly and pleasantly with the wild and desolate scenery I have just left. Several fine views of the Trondhjem Fjord are obtained from different parts of the road, which ascends many hills, and crosses bright sunny valleys that bring down to the fjord small rivers, which spread out into beautiful little lakes at several places ; the banks of these lakes being rich alluvial slopes, studded with thrivinsf farms. I find that my note-book is quite enthusiastic con- cerning the scenery of this day's walk, but on re-WTiting I have made some deductions; as on coming upon scenery that contrasts strongly ^vith what has preceded it, or on emerging from town to country, that there is a tendency to overrate the beauties which strike so freshly upon the mind. Had this been the last day of a long walk instead of the first, I should probably have thought much less of the scenery. Anyone who has sailed up the Khine on the way to Switzerland, and then returned by the same route, must have been struck with the great difference in the impression which the Rhine scenery made upon him on going and returning. The enjoyment of the scenery was heifrhtened bv a luncheon on wild strawberries, which grow abun- dantly on the banks by the road side. Stop at Bye station ; have sujjpcr of ham, ego-s, and milk, the ham cut into small pieces, the eo-o-g beaten and [nit into the pan, the ham then added, 142 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. and all fried together, and served as a sort of larded pancake. All tourists who venture beyond the limits of hotels, who are not utterly dependent on " waiter, chambermaid, and boots," should learn as much as possible concerning the cooking of eggs ; they should know how to make omelets of eggs mixed with any- thing whatever, and more especially with cheese. They should be aware of the fact that albumen coagulates at a temperature of about 180°, or 32° below the boiling poiat, and becomes tough when heated above that ; and therefore that to boil eggs delicately, the best method is to put them in boiling water, and then set the saucepan by the side of the fire for seven or eight minutes, that the eggs may be heated through to about 180^, and not to 212°. Eggs may be usually obtained where no other animal food is to be had, and they have the advantage of being reliably clean inside, even under the most unfavour- able circumstances. Am rather astonished at finding myself able to hold quite a conversation with mine host, especially as I had failed to make myself understood this morning when only asking the way. This was remarkable progress in learning a language, or it would have been if all the difference had depended upon myself; but the host is an intelligent man, while those I met in the morning were not so ; and the possibility of making a little knowledge of a language go a long way, mainly depends upon the intelligence of the native who has to interpret the broken passages, and to put his own sentences into the most intelligible form. HOW TO SPEAK AN UNKNOWN TONGUE. 143 The art of conversing fluently in a language which you do not understand is a very valuable one to the tourist : quite as valuable as that of cooking eggs; and having had as much experience in the one as the other, I may venture to give the reader a few rules to be observed, by attention to which this art may be easily acquired. First of all, do not carry a grammar, or if you do, never look at it ; for in order to speak the language in a manner to be understood, utter ig-norance of its grammar is a primary essential. Secondly, never attempt to ask for anything, or say anything, in the form of a sentence given for the purpose in any of the 'Familiar Conversation' books; and as a general rule avoid as far as possible the use of any sentences whatever. Thus, supposing the subject to be eggs : the grammatical tourist looks to his * Conversations Lexicon ' under that head, and finds a sentence such as tliis : " Landlord, if your fowls are in a flourishing condition, I shall be supremely obliged if you will do me the very great / favour of preparing a few recently deposited eggs for my supper," He reads this froin the book, pro- nouncing every word most incorrectly, and witli special emphasis on the prepositions ; the poor liost is thereby driven to a state of desolation. All this confusion and difficulty may be avoided by stubbornly ignoring all such superfluities as articles, conjunc- tions, prepositions, and adverbs, and divesting the mind of all scholastic prejudices in favour of number, gender, case, tense, person, mood, and of all false sentiment respecting agreement with nominatives, &c. These impediments being removed, nothing 144 THROUGH NOEWAT WITH A KNAPSACK. more is required than to use the words that are necessary for the expression . of the main ideas ; nouns, verbs, and if quite necessary, adjectives may be used, but you must studiously avoid all merely connecting words that only express the relations of words. By this means, and by taking especial care that each idea before it is expressed shall be mentally clear and definite, with a sharp outline and no meta- phorical blurr or shading, nor envelopment in verbal fog, you may speak any European language witliout suffering the degrading drudgery of learning it. A dictionary and a knowledge of the special phonetic value of the alphabet is of course demanded. The smallest obtainable dictionary is the best. A preliminary rehearsal is necessary at first. You are approaching a station or hostelry of any kind and require supper and bed. Sit down by the road side and think over what you intend to ask for. Pick out from the dictionary all the nouns and verbs required, pencil them down on a slip of paper as your vocabulary ^ro tern., and prearrange how you will use them. After doing this you will have ac- quired a small stock of words, and just those that will be needed again. At your next effort you will learn a few more, and so on. If alone and compelled to use the language of the country, your progress will astonish yourself. Many very expensively educated persons may experience considerable difficulty in thus finding clear and definite ideas before expressing them ; their intellects having been drugged with languages rather than fed with ideas, they have acquired the SCHOLASTIC BONDAGE. 145 poisonous habit of attaching ideas to words, instead of words to ideas; their thoughts run blindly in certain phraseological grooves ; words are necessary to the development of their ideas, which are tuned mechanically to the jingle of sentences. To such people a definite idea standing out clearly before the mind in its simple nakedness has existed only in the forgotten experiences of childhood ; and if many of their most cherished notions were thus stripped of the thickly-padded clothing of words, in which alone they have ever seen them, the pro- prietors might be shocked at their naked deformity. To many learned persons, therefore, the speaking of a language before being able to make it into sentences will be a valuable corrective exercise in unchaining the mind from the slavish trammels of phraseological despotism. Mine host informs me that English tourists are not in the habit of taking this route, and that none have passed this way for twelve months before ; but that a Scotch Englishman who manages the copper-mines at Orkedal resides there. This (23rd July) day's journey up the Orkedal is similar to that just described. The Orkla Elv winds through a rich, terraced valley; the level of the upper terrace remaining constant, its height above the river diminishes as the valley is ascended. The walls of these terraces are in some parts nearly perjjeudicular, and are evidently the cuttings made by the river which flows at the foot of their precipitous slopes. It appears that all the valleys opening into the sea at this part of Norway are L 146 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. alike in this respect, and thus afford evidence of an upheaval of the whole of this region to a height of about 500 or 600 feet. This lifting of the mountains and their sea-filled valleys has occurred at what geologists call a recent period ; probably at about the time when Cheapside, St. Paul's Church- yard, Belgravia, and all the rest of the land on which the world's metropolis now stands, formed the bed of a quiet lake ; when England, Scotland, and Wales were one cluster of small islands, and Ireland another ; and when the soil out of which the plodding peasantry of France are now extracting the sweet juices that we sip in claret and champagne, was being deposited under the waters of a shallow sea. Whether it was the same great heaving of the earth that lifted the Alps from a moderate elevation to their present towering heights — that raised sea- shells to the summit of Mont Pilatus, and formed the Kighi and the Kossberg out of the cemented pebbles of a shingle beach — that carried upwards with it all the sloping plains of France, and united our scattered archipelago into the two islands; or whether there was another independent centre of upheaval for the north, which exerted its greatest energy at Iceland, and then lifted the sea-bottom to the surface with such sharp and violent action as to crack the earth's crust and pour out the volcanic matter of which are formed the Snaefel Jokul, Hecla, the Sulphur Mountains, &c. — in fact, the whole of Iceland — I cannot venture to say ; though it does appear the most probable supposition that the north had its independent centre of upheaval. EXPLANATION OF TORGHATTEN TUNNEL. 147 and that was somewhere about Iceland ; for the traces of Scandinavian upheaval are the most dis- tinct at the north-western portion of Norway ; they are greatest at about that part facing Iceland, and the rising appears to come from that direction. It has appeared to me, while writing the above, that a different theory from the one on page 76 may be given in explanation of the formation of the mysterious Torghatten tunnel. It is well known and easily understood that when a rock is washed by the sea-waves it is liable to be worn away ; that if the rock is of varying composition as regards hardness, the soft parts wear away the most rapidly ; and thus when a hard rock is traversed by a vein of softer rock, the sea washes out that vein and thereby cuts a little cove or gully, or excavates a cavern : or if the veined rock be lofty and surrounded by water, the vein is washed out to the height of the highest beating of the waves, and a tunnel or a natural bridge is formed. We have abundant examples of this sort of action on our own coasts ; especially on the Cornish coast, about the Lizard Point, where the rocks are composed of serpentine, veined with soft soapstone and other magnesian rocks of similar character. That fairies' playground, Kynance Cove, is a most romantic ex- ample of this kind. All who have visited Tenby know St. Katherine's rock, which at high tide is St. Katherine's island, and at low tide is beset by fair huntresses, armed, not with Diana's bow, but with hammers and chisels and indiarubber goloshes, intent upon dislodging the dianthus, niveas, venustas, L 2 148 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. roseas, and other aquarian treasures. This island is perforated by a lofty cavern or tunnel, partly washed out by the waves, and partly formed by the falling of the undermined rock ; a tunnel which has a remarkable resemblance to that of Torghatten, with the exception that it is not so large, and its floor is the sea-beach; but if St. Katherine's island were magnified, carried farther out to sea, and then up- raised some 600 feet, another Torghatten would be formed. My explanation of Torghatten tunnel, therefore, is that when the whole northern coast of Scandi- navia was some 600 feet below its present level, Torghatten was of course similarly lower; that the floor of this tunnel was then washed by the low- tide waves ; that waves of previous centuries had, aided by other agencies, such as frost and the gravi- tation of overhanging masses, formed this tunnel as an ordinary sea cavern, and the great upheaval had raised it to its present place. If this supposition be correct, the beating waves will have left traces of their action round about the island at the tunnel's level. Had I thought of this when upon the spot, I should have made an effort to go ashore and examine the tunnel, of which we have only such vague descriptions. Note, 1876. — Since this was written the tunnel has been carefully examined and measured. The measurements are stated on page 75. These, so far as they go, are confirmatory of my explanation of its origin, which I am told was adopted by the explorers; A LUXURIANT LAKE. 149 but I have not yet been able to obtain a copy of their report. The original tunnel appears to have been considerably modified by subsequent falling of frag- ments of rock from the roof, which is still subject to such disintegration, and the floor of the cavern is covered with debris. 1856. — The Orkedal is a warm and sunny valley in the summer season, and by no means suggestive of the far north. The little lake in which I took my bath to-day was at one end quite carpeted with water- lilies ; its beauty being suggestive of many a pattern for our carpet makers. The blue dragon-flies were fluttering over the surface of the water, laying their eggs, and making the most of their short life in the air, while their ferocious larvae below were devouring everything within reach. On the banks there wei-e growing in great profusion two species * of those curious plants, the Droserx, or sun-dew, their leaves bristled over with the gluey hairs, upon which small flies were struggling or lying dead. Botanists are still puzzled to decide whether these plants, and their southern relatives, the Bionss, or Venus flytrap, really catch the flies to feed on them, or whether they merely perform the functions of the " catch- 'em-alive " papers that abound in London at the same season. At the stations hereabouts a printed placard is placed upon the walls of the travellers' room, in which * One, tlic Drotiera rotundifolia ; the other having a long oval or nearly lanci.-olate leaf with a long footstalk, and whose specific name I am not acquainted with. 150 THROUGH NORWAY WITH A KNAPSACK. is stated the regulation price of various requirements. As this is rather interesting, I have made a copy of it, and the following is a literal translation : TAEIFF. F