CHAPTER IX.A MOUNTAIN WALK.
Steamboat Service—A Night in a Mountain Sæter—Primitive Accommodations—A Talkative Farmer—Riding Horseback under Difficulties—An Exhausting Tramp and a Trial of Patience—Up the Geiranger Fjord to Merok—Approach to Hellesylt.
Steamboat Service—A Night in a Mountain Sæter—Primitive Accommodations—A Talkative Farmer—Riding Horseback under Difficulties—An Exhausting Tramp and a Trial of Patience—Up the Geiranger Fjord to Merok—Approach to Hellesylt.
The steamboat service in Norway is excellent. The larger steamers run along the coast, and up the principal fjords, carrying the mails and freight, and are fitted with comfortable passenger accommodations.
The captain, mates, and purser all speak English, and often the stewards and others employed about the steamer understand English; we found them social and obliging, always ready to answer questions and impart information, and the captains were especially agreeable and well informed. These steamers run at frequent and regular intervals, and it is the boast of the Norwegians that their steamers deliver theirmails with as much regularity, and as little interruption, as the railway mail service in other countries.
Upon the numerous narrow fjords penetrating far inland is a service of smaller steamers, mostly running during the summer months, occasionally taking extra routes for tourists. They run at stated but not frequent intervals, and in planning a trip through Norway it is necessary to give considerable study to the “Norges Communicationer,” a publication giving the time tables and routes of all steamers and the few railways in the country; and happy is the man who can arrange his journey so as not to lose a few days while waiting, at a little out-of-the-way place, for a steamer.
I had planned a three weeks’ trip, in which everything followed along serenely, provided I could walk across the country in one day between Vik on the Indfjord, and Sylte on the Norddalsfjord, a distance of twenty miles on the map; whereas, if I went by steamer down the Romsdalsfjord and drove across country, I must wait for two days for a steamer up the fjord, and my whole future journey would be disarranged; therefore I decided, if possible, to walk across to Sylte and there take the steamer. On inquiring I was told it was a pleasant walkthrough mountain valleys, easily accomplished in six hours; but I concluded afterwards that my informers knew no more about it than do you, gentle reader.
The innkeeper’s son at Veblungsnaes, a bright lad who was studying English, who had ordered a nice dinner for me, also engaged two boatmen. There is a fixed tariff for boatmen at so much per kilomètre, according to the number of rowers. Two hardy farmers rowed me down the fjord, keeping close to the rocky cliffs, over whose sides flowed numerous cascades; then we turned up the contracted Indfjord, with farm houses nestled amid green fields at the base of the rugged mountains, and arrived at a cluster of houses called Vik. For the row of an hour and a half the boatmen were perfectly satisfied with sixty-five cents, which included a fee to each of them besides the fixed tariff, and they were to return at their own expense. They both gave me a hearty hand shake, and conducted me to the principal gaard (farm house), where I made the old farmer understand by means of a map in my Baedeker, and a volley of Norse substantives and infinitives fired at him at random, that I must reach Sylte at four o’clock the next afternoon; and he consented to act as my guide.
He brought me a bottle of home-made beer, compounded of roots and herbs, which tasted like fermented thoroughwort tea, to brace me up for the arduous journey, and then harnessed his jaundice-colored mare into the stolkjærre, a two-wheeled cart, the body resting directly on the axle, the only spring being in the wooden supports of the seat branching backward from the shafts. The seat, wide enough for two, was without cushions, with a low railing for a back, and as we rattled down the slope over the stones, on our way to the road in the valley, it would have been certain destruction to false teeth, and there was a spine-shattering sensation that brought before the vision groups of twinkling stars. The valley road proved much better, and in time one can become accustomed to the motion of a springless cart, as well as to that of an ocean steamer, and it was really an enjoyable drive up the narrow valley, whose lofty sides shut out the rays of the setting sun. In the deepening twilight we gradually ascended through forests until, after slowly climbing in steep zigzags a wall of rock, farther progress in the cart ended at a collection of rude timber-built sæters.
We had accomplished eight miles of the journey, and were to pass the night here. Weentered the largest of the sæters, consisting of two rooms, and I was given to understand I could have one of them. In one corner was a rude box-bed; around the sides were straight-back wooden benches, under and upon which were cheeses and tubs of butter; husband’s Sunday coat, with its rows of big shining buttons and mother’s best gown and cap, hung from a beam above the benches, while the family collection of go-to-meeting boots and shoes protruded from beneath the bed. The men from the other houses, and the children of assorted sizes, gathered in the room to keep away all feeling of lonesomeness, and plied me with questions I could neither answer nor understand.
As each man puffed away at a black pipe, while a woman, in a homespun gown, tight-fitting cap much like a nightcap, and heavy shoes, was removing the dairy exhibition from the benches and preparing the bed, the air became so thick that I sought relief out of doors. Returning soon after to find the assembly still seated in the room, as it was approaching midnight I made them understand by pantomime that I wanted to go to bed, and they finally withdrew.
I disrobed while the children were running to and fro before the curtainless windows, and,warned by the approaching tramp of the heavy shoes, had just time to dive between the bedclothes as the woman entered for the last cheese. There was no lock upon the door, but though I had what for these poor peasants would have been quite a large sum of money, I had not the least anxiety; for in Norway among the honest country folk robbery is unknown, and I reposed, doubled up like a capital letter S in the short bed, beneath a smothering eider down quilt, with my mind more at ease than my body.
Before five o’clock my farmer guide descended from the loft and awakened me. For the preparation of my toilet he brought a bright milk pan, filled with water, and placed beside it, on a bench, a long comb with eight teeth rising at irregular intervals from among their shattered companions; as my toilet articles were in my knapsack, I dispensed with the use of this ancientheir-loom.
We sat down to breakfast in the other room. At one side of the table was a bed containing three sleeping children, all wearing tight-fitting nightcaps; on the other was the bed which had been occupied by the farmer and his wife. We were served with a peculiar-tasting liquid supposed to be coffee, and piles offladbrodand butter and cheese graced the table.Fladbrodis made from a mixture of barley and oat meal; the unfermented dough is rolled into thin sheets and baked on iron plates over a slow fire. The sheets are round, about fifteen inches in diameter; are piled in cylindrical heaps and kept for six months, and it is said they can even be kept for a year. They are dark brown, crisp and brittle, but without much taste, and it seems like eating so many sheets of thick brown wrapping paper. In addition to thefladbrodwas an equally high pile of wafers, the size of a tea plate, of the consistency of thin tissue paper; one might devour them by the hundred and yet perish from hunger. It was not a substantial preparation for our hard tramp, but the worthy couple had given us the best their humble home afforded, and received the fifty cents, including the charge for us both, with a strong grasp of the hand, which was repeated with many aFarvelas we left them and started upon our walk.
The path at first was good and the exercise in the fresh morning air very exhilarating, as we proceeded up the narrow valley, but soon the path grew rough until it became like the bed of a mountain torrent, with running water and loose rocks, among which we had carefully to pick our way. Ascending until we came to some firmground, we found fresh bear tracks in the path, which we followed for a distance until they disappeared.
The old farmer, like all the sociable Norwegians, was simply aching to talk, and was delighted when I brought forth a few words from my phrase book, or showed that I caught at the meaning of his oft-repeated sentences; on learning that I was from America he was more anxious than ever to talk, as he had a brother living in Wisconsin, but the conversation was limited, as my simple vocabulary was soon exhausted; though it is surprising to find how much one can accomplish with only a few words of a foreign language, and how well one can make himself understood by signs and motions.
We continued on our laborious way until we came to a mountain stream, which was almost a river. While wondering how we were to cross, I saw the guide drive some horses, feeding near by, to the river, and, mounting one of them, he rode to the other side. I caught an old mare, and, succeeding in mounting, urged her into the water, every step as she plunged among the rocks nearly sending me off; when in mid stream, where the swift-running water was up to her belly, the neighing of her colt, who had remained behind, caused her to suddenly whirlabout, and as I frantically clung to her mane, my feet dragging in the water, she returned to the shore; driving the colt into the stream and remounting the mare, I succeeded after shouting and flourishing my walking stick in riding her across, and on reaching the opposite side slipped from her back with a thankful sigh.
The narrower streams that we afterwards came to we forded, and in a decidedly demoralized condition we reached a cluster of rude sæters, the homes of girls who had gone thither with the goats and cows for the summer, where the butter and cheese are made; but we found them deserted, the girls being away with their herds.
It now began to rain as we proceeded down a marshy slope, the springy soil slipping from beneath our feet; and extricating ourselves from a forlorn swamp, we ascended by precipitous zigzags a spur of the mountain. It was then noon, and I had had nothing to eat since my five o’clock breakfast of wrapping-paperfladbrodand tissue wafers. The guide took from his pocket a piece of hard black bread he had brought from his home, and sitting in the rain, on the side of the barren mountain, amid a scene of absolute desolation and eternal silence, that dry bread was the sweetest morsel I had ever tasted.
Willingly would I have lingered and rested, but the guide urged me onward up the mountain, and then, as we descended on the other side, we came to a long extent of snow, where as we walked we slumped down much above our knees, first with one leg then with the other, until it became so tiring that we climbed higher up the mountain side covered with fragments of rock, and jumping from rock to rock continued our weary course. I began to think the guide had lost his way, as there was neither indication of a path nor sign that any one had been in this dreary place before, but he answered my anxious inquiry,Til Sylte?(To Sylte?) with,Ja, ankommen der strax(Yes, we arrive there immediately).
Still onward we go through woods and swamps, till at last, as we pass through an oozing, clinging loam, I am about to give up in despair, when in the distance I perceive a road and a farm house. Weary, lame, and footsore, I reach the farm house, and dismissing the guide, hire a farmer to take me the few miles which still must be travelled before Sylte is reached.
The springless stolkjærre seemed like the easiest riding and most luxurious of coupés, and as we climbed the narrow way high up the cliffabove the fjord, and descended the winding road to Sylte, a delightful sensation of rest stole over my weary frame.
The main street of the little village was filled with men, who had come in from the neighboring farms to vote for county officers, the largest groups being gathered before the little inn. The innkeeper’s knowledge of English was even more limited than mine of Norwegian, so he gave up the former, and I proceeded to order a dinner in Norwegian:Suppe,Lax, andBifstek med Poteteswere mutually understood, and while they were being prepared, I renewed my exhausted strength with bread, cheese, and beer. The Norwegians possess many virtues, but they certainly lack those of quickness of motion, and of hurrying in an emergency. One hour, two hours, went by, and still to my anxious inquiries for dinner nothing appeared but a few plates and some salt and pepper. The time was rapidly approaching for the arrival of the steamer, and it looked as if I must depart dinnerless, when the woman, whose every movement was only performed after mature deliberation, entered with the soup, and the remainder of the dinner was brought on before the steamer appeared far down the fjord.
As a steamer is considered to be on time ifit arrives an hour before or an hour after the advertised time, one is liable to wait two hours and still be told that the steamer is exactly on time; fortunately the steamer that day was an hour behind that denoted by the time table. While waiting on the shore of the fjord for the steamer slowly making its way toward Sylte, two farmers entered into conversation with me in English, and a crowd gathered around us to hear the strange language. The farmers had been to America and had spent several years in Wisconsin, but while living on the level monotonous plains they had had such intense longings for the mountains and fjords of their native land, that, disregarding all material benefits, they had returned to Norway.
As I was rowed out to the steamer by a bright young boy, my friends, whom I had arranged to meet here, greeted me from the deck, and, as I climbed up the steps on the steamer’s side, gathered to welcome me and hear the account of my tongue-tied wanderings of the past three days.
The rain had ceased, and we steamed up the fjord beneath a bright sun, amid a glorious panorama of ever-changing mountain views. At one village two spirited horses were rowed out to us in a small boat, from which they calmlywalked up two planks to the lower deck of the steamer.
The Geiranger fjord is conceded by the majority of travellers to be the most magnificent fjord in Norway; its sides of barren rock rise from the water almost perpendicularly to the height of four thousand feet, with scarcely space for even a foothold at their base, the water beating directly against the precipitous rock. The sides are worn and chiselled smooth by nature, and have but scanty growths of vegetation in occasional depressions, and upon their receding summits. The fjord is in places a mile wide; a lofty peak guards the entrance on the right, and in winter its falling avalanches break by concussion the windows in a farm house perched high on the opposite side of the fjord.
Beautiful waterfalls stream down the sides, fed by the mass of snow on the mountains above, and as the rocky walls are at times capped with mist, the water then has the effect of falling directly from the clouds.
Over the side of a cliff descend a series of silver cascades, called the “Seven Sisters,” leaping from ledge to ledge, until in unbroken streams they reach the fjord, whose transparent waters reflect their entire course. At one point is a little clearing, with a farm house, sixteenhundred feet above the water, reached by a dizzy path in zigzags up the cliff; back of it towers a wall of rock two thousand feet high, and one wonders how a human being can choose such a place for a habitation, midway between heaven and earth, exposed to falling avalanches from above, and to sliding down the yawning precipices into the fjord below. It is said that the parents here tether their children with ropes, to keep them from the edge of the cliff, and from “taking a header far down below.”
The fjord contracts as we advance, and the rocks upon the sides assume fantastic shapes when viewed at the proper angle; high up the cliff we saw goats, in apparently inaccessible places, browsing upon what seemed to be barren rocks, and heard the shouts of a solitary goatherd, as he waved his hat in salute.
At the head of the fjord, ten miles from its entrance, is Merok, where the mountain sides slope more gradually to the water. The inns and small houses composing the little settlement extend along the shore, with a background of lofty mountains, and the situation is most beautiful, although on account of the winding course of the fjord not much of its extent can be seen.
After leaving freight and passengers here, wereturned down the fjord, all the grand scenery passing once more in review, and proceeded to Hellesylt, at the head of the Sunelvfjord.
A landing pier extends into the water, the approach to which is very interesting, as the pier is close beside a wide and imposing cataract falling into the fjord, into whose foaming waters we seemed to be headed, and its spray was blown in our faces as we drew up at the pier and stepped from the steamer.
Hellesylt lies in the midst of scenery almost as grand as that along the Geiranger fjord; but we preferred to feast upon something more material than mountain views, and hastened to the inn, where the genial landlord, Herr Tryggestad, provided us with a delicious supper and comfortable beds.
ACROSS COUNTRY DRIVE.