Kranz som Fadrelandet gav,Den visner ei paa falden Krieger’s Grav.The chaplet which their fatherland once gaveShall never fade on fallen warrior’s grave.
Kranz som Fadrelandet gav,Den visner ei paa falden Krieger’s Grav.The chaplet which their fatherland once gaveShall never fade on fallen warrior’s grave.
Kranz som Fadrelandet gav,Den visner ei paa falden Krieger’s Grav.
Kranz som Fadrelandet gav,
Den visner ei paa falden Krieger’s Grav.
The chaplet which their fatherland once gaveShall never fade on fallen warrior’s grave.
The chaplet which their fatherland once gave
Shall never fade on fallen warrior’s grave.
True to the motto, the monuments are decked every Saturday with fresh flowers. Fuchsias were also growing in great numbers about. The different spaces of ground are let for a hundred years; if the lease is not renewed then, I presume the Company will enter upon the premises. There were traces about, I observed, of English whittlers. Our countrymen seem to remember the command of the augur to Tarquinius, “cut boldly,” and the King cut through.
The celebrated Three Crowns Battery—Hamlet’s grave—The Sound and its dues—To Fredericksborg—Iceland ponies—Denmark an equine paradise—From Copenhagen to Kiel—Tidemann, the Norwegian painter—Pictures at Düsseldorf—The boiling of the porridge—Düsseldorf theatricals—Memorial of Dutch courage—Young heroes—An attempt to describe the Dutch language—The Amsterdam canals—Half-and-half in Holland—Want of elbow-room—A New Jerusalem—A sketch for Juvenal—The museum of Dutch paintings—Magna Charta of Dutch independence—Jan Steen’s picture of thefêteof Saint Nicholas—Dutch art in the 17th century—To Zaandam—Traces of Peter the Great—Easy travelling—What the reeds seemed to whisper.
The celebrated Three Crowns Battery—Hamlet’s grave—The Sound and its dues—To Fredericksborg—Iceland ponies—Denmark an equine paradise—From Copenhagen to Kiel—Tidemann, the Norwegian painter—Pictures at Düsseldorf—The boiling of the porridge—Düsseldorf theatricals—Memorial of Dutch courage—Young heroes—An attempt to describe the Dutch language—The Amsterdam canals—Half-and-half in Holland—Want of elbow-room—A New Jerusalem—A sketch for Juvenal—The museum of Dutch paintings—Magna Charta of Dutch independence—Jan Steen’s picture of thefêteof Saint Nicholas—Dutch art in the 17th century—To Zaandam—Traces of Peter the Great—Easy travelling—What the reeds seemed to whisper.
The name of the steamer which took me past the celebrated Three Crowns Battery, and along to the pretty low shores of Zealand to Elsineur (Helsingör), was theOphelia, fare three marks. In the Marielyst Gardens, which overhang the famed Castle of Kronborg, is a Mordan’s-pencil-case-shaped pillar of dirty granite, miscalled“Hamlet’s grave.” Yankees often resort here, and pluck leaves from the lime-trees overhanging the mausoleum, for the purpose of conveyance to their own country.
But this is not the only point of interest for Brother Jonathan. Look at the Sound yonder, refulgent in the light of the evening sun, with the numberless vessels brought up for the night, having been warned by the bristling cannon to stop, and pay toll. I don’t wonder that those scheming, go-ahead people, object to the institution altogether—albeit the proceeds are a vital question for Denmark. On the steamer, I fell into conversation with a Danish pilot about this matter. I found that he, like others of his countrymen, was very slow to acknowledge that ships are forced to stop opposite the castle. He said that only ships bound to Russia do so, because the Czar insists on their having their papersvisédby the Danish authorities before they are permitted to enter his ports.[3]
Finding there was no public conveyance toFredericksborg, which I purposed visiting, I must fain hire a one-horse vehicle at the Post. It was a sort of mail phaeton, of the most cumbrous and unwieldy description—I don’t know how much dearer than in Norway—so slow, too. On the road we pass the romantic lake of Gurre, the scene of King Valdemar’s nightly hunt. Some storks remind the traveller of Holland. Right glad I was when we at length jogged over divers drawbridges spanning very green moats, and through sundry gates, and emerged upon a large square, facing the main entrance to the castle.
The private apartments, I found, were, by a recent regulation, invisible, as his Majesty has taken to living a good deal here. But I was shown the chapel, in which all the monarchs of Denmark are crowned, gorgeous with silver, ebony, and ivory; and the Riddersaal over it, one hundred and sixty feet long, with its elaborate ceiling, and many portraits: and, marvellous to relate, the custodian would have nothing for his trouble but thanks. In the stable were several little Iceland ponies, which looked like a cross between the Norsk and Shetland races. They were fat andsleek, and, no doubt, have an easy time of it; indeed, Denmark is a sort of equine paradise. What well-to-do fellows those four strapping brown horses were that somnambulized with the diligence that conveyed us to Copenhagen. That their slumbrous equanimity might not be disturbed, the very traces were padded, and, instead of collars, they wore broad soft chest-straps. The driver told me they cost three hundred and fifty dollars each. That flat road, passing through numerous beech-woods was four and a-half Danish miles long, equal to twenty English, and took us more than four hours to accomplish.
Bidding adieu to Copenhagen, I returned by rail to Korsör, and embarked in the night-boatSkirner, from thence to Kiel. As the name of the vessel, like almost every one in Scandinavia, is drawn from the old Northern mythology, I shall borrow from the same source for an emblem of the stifling state of the atmosphere in the cabin. “A regular Muspelheim!” said I to a Dane, as I pantingly look round before turning in, and saw every vent closed. A fog retarded our progress, andit was not till late the next afternoon that I found myself in Hamburg. Some few hours later I was under the roof of mine host of the “Three Crowns,” at Düsseldorf, where I purposed paying a visit to Tidemann, the Norwegian painter. Unfortunately, he was not returned from his summer travels, so that I could not deliver to him the greeting I had brought him from his friends in the Far North. His most recent work, which I had heard much of, the “Wounded Bear-hunter returning Home, having bagged his prey,” was also away, having been purchased by the King of Sweden. At the Institute, however, I saw several sketches and paintings by this master.
Anna Gulsvig is evidently the original of the “Grandmother telling Stories.”
Bagge’s “Landscape in Valders,” and Nordenberg’s “Dalecarlian Scenes,” brought back for a moment the land I had quitted to my mind and vision. “The Mother teaching her Children,” and “The Boiling of the Porridge,” also by Tidemann, proclaim him to be the Teniers of Norway. Though while he catches the national traits, he manages torepresent them without vulgarity. But perhaps this lies in the nature of the thing. The heavy-built Dutchman anchored on his square flat island of mud can’t possibly have any of that rugged elevation of mind, or romance of sentiment, that would belong to the child of the mountain and lake.
The school of Düsseldorf—if such it can be called—has turned out some great artists,e.g., Kaulbach and Cornelius; but the place has never been itself since it lost its magnificent collection of pictures, which now grace the Pinacothek at Munich.
As I sipped a cup of coffee in the evening, I read a most grandiloquent account of the prospects of the Düsseldorf Theatre for the ensuing winter. The first lover was perfection, while the tragedy queen was “unübertrefflich” (not to be surpassed). The part of tender mother and matron was also about to be taken by a lady of no mean theatrical pretensions. This self-complacency of the inhabitants of the smaller cities is quite delightful.
On board the steamer to Emmerich was a family of French Jews, busily engaged, not in looking about them, but in calculating their expenses, though dressed in the pink of fashion.
Here I am at Amsterdam. In the Grand Place is a monument in memory of Dutch bravery and obstinacy evinced in the fight with Belgium. This has only just been erected, with great fêtes and rejoicings. Well, to be sure! this reminds me of the Munich obelisk, in memory of those luckless thirty thousand Bavarians who swelled Napoleon’s expedition to Russia, and died in the cause of his insatiable ambition. “Auch sie starben für das Vaterland” is the motto.
V. Ruyter and V. Speke are both monumented in the adjoining church. The former, who died at Syracuse from a wound, is described in the inscription as “Immensi tremor Oceani,” and owing all to God, “et virtuti suæ.”
The warlike spirit of Young Amsterdam seems to be effectually excited just now. As I passed through the Exchange at a quarter to fiveP.M., the merchants were gone, and in their room was an obstreperouscrowd ofgamins, armed “with sword and pistol,” like Billy Taylor’s true love (only they were sham), and thumping their drums, and the drums thumping the roof, and the roof and the drum together reverberating against the drum of my ear till I was fairly stunned. “Where are the police?” thought I, escaping from the hubbub with feelings akin to what must have been those of Hogarth’s enraged musician, or of a modern London householder, fond of quiet, with the Italian organ-grinders rending the air of his street. Dutch is German in the Somersetshire dialect; so I managed to comprehend, without much difficulty, the short instructions of the passers-by as to my route to various objects of interest. By-the-bye, here is the house of Admiral de Ruyter, next to the Norwegian Consulate. Over the door I see there is his bust in stone.
As I pass along the canals, it puzzles me to think how the Dutchman can live by, nay, revel in the proximity of these seething tanks of beastliness and corruption. That notion about the pernicious effects of inhaling sewage effluvia must be a myth, after all, and the sanitary commission aregular job. Indeed, I always thought so, after a conversation I once had with a fellow in London, the very picture of rude health, who told me he got his living by mudlarking and catching rats in the sewers, for which there was always a brisk demand at Oxford and Cambridge, in term time. Look at these jolly Amsterdamers. I verily believe it would be the death of them if you separated them from their stinking canals, or transported them to some airy situation, with a turbulent river hurrying past. Custom is second nature, and that has doubtless much to do with it: but the nature of the liquids poured down the inner man perhaps fortifies Mynheer against the evil effects of the semi-solid liquid of the canals. Just after breakfast I went into the shop of the celebrated Wijnand Fockink, the Justerini and Brooks of Amsterdam, to purchase a case of liqueurs, when I heard a squabby-shaped Dutchman ask for a glass of half-and-half. It is astonishing, I thought with myself, how English tastes and habits are gaining ground everywhere. Of course he means porter and ale mixed. The attendant supplied him with the article he wanted, and it was bolted at a gulp.
Dutch half-and-half, reader, is a dram of raw gin and curaçoa, in equal portions.
What a crowd of people, to be sure. “Holland is over-peopled,” said a tradesman to me. “Why, sir, you can have a good clerk for 20l.per annum. The land is ready to stifle with the close packing.”
“Yes,” said I, “so it appears. That operation going on under the bridge is a fit emblem of the tightness of your population.”
As I spoke, I pointed to a man, or rather several men, engaged in a national occupation: packing herrings in barrels. How closely they were fitted, rammed and crammed, and then a top was put on the receptacle, and so on,ad infinitum.
We are now in the Jewish quarter. “Our people,” as the Israelites are wont to call themselves, formerly looked on Amsterdam as a kind of New Jerusalem. Indeed, they are a very important and numerous part of the population. The usual amount of dirt and finery, young lustrous eyes, and old dingy clothes, black beards and red beards, small infants and big hook noses, are jumbled about the shop-doors and in the crowdedthoroughfares. Here are some fair peasant girls, Frieslanders, I should think, or from beyond the Y, judging by their helmet-shaped head-dresses of gold and silver plates, with the little fringe of lace drawn across the forehead, just over the eyebrows, the very same that Gerard Dow and Teniers have placed before us. If they were not Dutch women, and belonged to a very wide-awake race, I should tremble for them, as they go staring and sauntering about in rustic simplicity, for fear of that lynx-eyed Fagan with the Satyr nose and leering eye fastened upon them, who is clearly just the man to help to despoil them of their gold and silver, or something more precious still, in the way of his trade.
As we walk through the streets, the chimes, that ever and anon ring out from the old belfries, remind us that we are in the Low Countries; and if that were not sufficient, the showers of water on this bright sunny day descending from the house-sides, after being syringed against them by some industrious abigail, make the fact disagreeably apparent to the passer-by. This will prepare me for my visit to Broek; not that there is so muchto be seen there—and Albert Smith has brought the place bodily before us—but if one left it out, all one’s friends that had been there would aver, with the greatest possible emphasis and solemnity, that I had omitted seeingthewonder of Holland. So I shalldoit, if all be well.
Here is the Trippenhuus, or Museum of Dutch paintings, situated, of course, on a canal. Van der Helst’s picture of the “Burgher Guard met to celebrate the Treaty of Münster”—the Magna Charta of Dutch independence, pronounced by Sir Joshua to be the finest of its kind in the world—of course claims my first attention. The three fingers held up, emblematic of the Trinity, is the continental equivalent to the English taking Testament in hand upon swearing an oath. But as everybody that has visited Amsterdam knows all about this picture, and those two of Rembrandt’s, the “Night-watch,” and that other of the “Guild of Cloth Merchants,” this mention of them will suffice.
That picture is Jan Steen’s “Fête of St. Nicholas,” a national festival in Holland. The saint is supposed to come down the chimney, and showerbonbons on the good children, while he does not forget to bring a rod for the naughty child’s back.
De Ruyter is also here, with his flashing eye, contracted brow, and dark hair. While, of course, the collection is not devoid of some of Vandervelde’s pictures of Holland’s naval victories when Holland was a great nation.
There must have been great genius and great wealth in this country wherewith to reward it, in the seventeenth century. In this very town were born Van Dyk, Van Huysum, and Du Jardin; in Leyden, G. Douw, Metzu, W. Mieris, Rembrandt, and J. Steen. Utrecht had its Bol and Hondekoeter; while Haarlem, which was never more than a provincial town with 48,000 inhabitants, produced a Berghem, a Hugtenberg, a Ruysdael, a Van der Helst, and a Wouvermans.
In proof of thesharpnessof the Amsterdamers, I may mention that most of the diamonds of Europe are cut here.
Next day, I took the steamer to Zaandam, metamorphosed by us into Saardam, pretty much on thesame principle, I suppose, that an English beefsteak becomes in the mouths of the French a “biftek.” The tumble-down board-house, with red tile roof, built by the semi-savage Peter, in 1632, will last all the longer for having been put in a brick-case by one of the imperial Russian family. I always look on Peter’s shipwright adventures, under the name of Master Baas, as a great exaggeration. He perhaps wanted to make his subjects take up the art, but he never had any serious thoughts of carpentering himself. He only was here three days, and, as the veracious old lady who showed the place told me, he built this house himself, so what time had he for the dockyards? When some of your great folks go to the Foundling Hospital, and eat the plum-pudding on Christmas-day, or visit Woolwich and taste the dietary, and seem to like it very much, that is just such another make-believe.
“Nothing is too little for a great man,” was the inscription on the marble slab over the chimney-piece, placed there by the very hand of Alexander I. of Russia. In the room are two cupboards, in one of which Peter kept his victuals, while the otherwas his dormitory. If Peter slept in that cupboard, and if he shut the door of it, all I have to say is, the ventilation must have been very deficient, and how he ever survived it is a wonder. The whole hut is comprised in two rooms. In the other room are two pictures of the Czar. In the one, presented in ’56 by Prince Demidoff, the Czar, while at work, axe in hand, is supposed to have received unwelcome intelligence from Muscovy, and is dictating a dispatch to his secretary. The finely chiselled features, pale complexion, and air of refinement, here fathered on this ruffian, never belonged to him. The other picture, presented by the munificent and patriotic M. Van der Hoof, is infinitely more to the purpose, and shows you the man as he really was, and in short, as he appears in a contemporary portrait at the Rosenborg Slot. Thick, sensual lips—the very lips to give an unchaste kiss, or suck up strong waters—contracted brow, bushy eyebrows, coarse, dark hair and moustache—that is the real man. He wears broad loose breeches reaching to the knee, and on the table is a glass of grog to refresh him at his work.
Ten minutes sufficed for me to take the whole thing in, and to get back in time for the returning steamer, otherwise I should have been stranded on this mud island for some hours, and there is nought else to see but a picture in the church of the terrible inundation; the ship-building days of Zaandam having long since gone by, and passed to other places.
By this economy of time I shall be enabled to take the afternoon treckshuit to Broek. A ferry-boat carries us over the Y from Amsterdam, a distance of two or three hundred yards, to Buiksloot, the starting-place of the treckshuit, when, to my surprise, each passenger gives an extra gratuity to the boatman. This shows to what lengths the fee-system may go. And yet Englishmen persist in introducing it into Norway, where hitherto it has been unknown. Entering into the little den called cabin, I settled down and looked around me. On the table were the Lares, to wit, a brass candlestick, beyond it a brass stand about a foot high, with a pair of snuffers on it, and then two brasiers containing charcoal, the whole shining wonderfully bright. Opposite me, sitting on the puffy cushions,was a substantial-looking peasant, immensely stout and broad sterned, dressed in a dark jacket and very wide velveteen trousers. He wore a large gold seal, about the size and shape of a half-pound packet of moist sugar, and a double gold brooch, connected by a chain. As the boat seemed a long time in starting, I emerged again from this odd little shop to ascertain the cause of the delay, when I found to my surprise that we were already under way. So noiselessly was the operation effected, that I was not aware of it. Dragged by a horse, on which sat a sleepy lad, singing a sleepy song, the boat glided mutely along. The only sound beside the drone of the boy was the rustling of the reeds, which seemed to whisper, “What an ass you are for coming along this route. You, who have just come from the land of the mountain and the flood, to paddle about among these frogs.” Really, the whole affair is desperately slow, and there is nothing in the world to see but numerous windmills, with their thatched roof and sides, whose labour it is to drain the large green meadows lying some feet below us, on which numerous herds of cows are feeding.
Broek—A Dutchman’s idea of Paradise—A toy-house for real people—Cannon-ball cheeses—An artist’s flirtation—John Bull abroad—All the fun of the fair—A popular refreshment—Morals in Amsterdam—The Zoological Gardens—Bed and Breakfast—Paul Potter’s bull—Rotterdam.
Broek—A Dutchman’s idea of Paradise—A toy-house for real people—Cannon-ball cheeses—An artist’s flirtation—John Bull abroad—All the fun of the fair—A popular refreshment—Morals in Amsterdam—The Zoological Gardens—Bed and Breakfast—Paul Potter’s bull—Rotterdam.
I was not sorry when the captain, who of course received a fee for himself besides the fare, called out “Broek!” The stagnation of water, and sound, and life in general, on a Dutch canal, is positively oppressive to the feelings; it would have been quite a relief to have had a little shindy among the passengers and the crew, such as gave a variety to the canal voyage of Horace to Brundusium.
To enliven matters, supposing we tell you a tale about Broek, which I of course ferreted out of a drowsy Dutch chronicle, but which the ill-natured Smelfungus says has been already told by Washington Irvine. In former times, the people of the place were sadly negligent of their spiritual duties, and turned a very deaf earto the exhortations of the clergyman. A new parson at last arrived, who beholding all the people given to idolatry in the shape of washing, washing, washing all the day long, and apparently thinking of nothing else, hit upon a new scheme for reforming them. He bid them be righteous and fear God, and then they should get to Paradise, and he described what joys should be theirs in that abode of bliss. This was the old tale, and the congregation were on the point of subsiding into their usual sleep.
“The abode of bliss,” continued the preacher, “and cleanliness, and everlasting washing.” The Dutchmen opened their eyes. “Yes,” proceeded the preacher; “the joys of earth shall to the good be continued in heaven. You will be occupied in washing, and scrubbing, and cleaning, and in cleaning, and washing, and scrubbing, for ever and ever, amen.”
He had hit the right chord; the parson became popular, the church filled, and a great reformation was wrought in Broek.
Sauntering along the Grand Canal, from which, as from a backbone, ribbed out divers lesser canals,I entered, at the bidding of an old lady, one of the houses of the place, with the date of 1612 over it. Of course its floor was swept and garnished, and the little pan of lighted turf was burning in the fireplace; and there was the usual amount of china vases, and knickknacks of all descriptions scattered about to make up a show. And then she showed me the bed like a berth, which smelt very fusty, and the door, which is never opened except at a burial or bridal. After this, I walked into a little warehouse adjoining, all painted and prim, and saw eight thousand cannon-ball-shaped cheeses in a row, value one dollar a piece, each with a red skin, like a very young infant’s. This colour is obtained, I understand, by immersing them in a decoction of Bordeaux grape husks, which are imported from France for the purpose. I next went to the bridge over the canal, and tried to sketch the avenue of dwarf-like trees and the row of toy-houses, and the old man brushing away two or three leaves that had fallen on the sward. At this moment came by a buxom girl in the genuine costume of the place, who exclaimed, “Lauk, he’ssketching!” (in Dutch) and stood immovable before me, and so of course I proceeded incontinently to sketch her in the foreground, she keeping quite still, and then coming and peeping over my shoulder, to see how she looked on paper.
Finding it was late, I hurried back to catch the return boat, faster, I should think, than anybody ever ventured before to go in Broek; at least, I judged so from the looks of sleepy astonishment and almost displeasure which seemed to gather on the Lotos-eater-like countenances of the citizens I met. As it was, I just saved the boat, and am now again gliding smoothly back to Amsterdam.
As I look through the windows of the cabin, I perceive a few golden plover and stints basking listlessly among the reeds, undisturbed by our transit. This time, however, there was more bustle on board. There were two foreigners who were very full of talk, and who, though they were speaking to a Dutchman in French, I knew at once to be English. As I finished up my sketch, I heard one of these gentlemen say, “Ah! I am anEnglishman; you would not have thought it, but so it is. Few English speak French with a correct accent, but I, maw (moi?); jabbeta seese ann ong France, solemong pour parlay lar lang, ay maw jay parl parfaitmong biong.” I differed from him. It has seldom been my lot to hear French spoken worse. John Bull abroad is certainly a curiosity.
That evening I sallied out to see the Kirmess, or great annual fair. Its chief scene was round the statue of Rembrandt, in the heart of the city. Hogarth’s “Southwark Fair” would give but a faint idea of the state of things. There was the usual amount of wild beasts and giants; there was a pumpkin of a woman and her own brother, as thin as if he were training to get up the inside of a gas-pipe, to be seen inside one show, and their faithful portraits outside on a canvas, painted after the school of Sir Peter Paul Rubens. A mechanical theatre from Bamberg was apparently doing an immense trade under the auspices of an unmistakable Jewish family, who appeared from time to time on the platform. Close by was a picture of Sebastopol,which professed to have arrived from London. But the undiscerning public seemed to care very little about it; it was in vain that they were summoned to advance to the ticket-office by the sound of fife and drum—one could almost imagine, that the person of rueful and despairing aspect who was waiting for the people to ascend the parapet, had been spending some weeks in the trenches before the devoted city. The crowds, that surged about in serried masses, had their wants well seen to in the refreshment way. One favourite esculent was brown smoked eels, weighing perhaps half a pound each, and placed in large heaps on neat-looking stalls, kept by neat-looking people. The eels were stretched out full length as stiff as pokers, and I saw several respectable looking sight-seers solacing themselves with a fish of the sort.
But the most popular refreshment remains to be mentioned. Ranged along the street, in a compact row, were a number of gaudily painted temples; in front of each sat the priestess. Mostly, she was young and pretty, but here and there, blowsy and obese. By her side was a largebright copper caldron, steaming with a white hasty-pudding-looking substance. In front of her was a fire, over which was a broad square plate of iron, studded with small holes like a bagatelle-board. The female held in her hand a wand, or rather a long iron spoon, which she dabbed into the caldron, and then delivered a portion of the contents into the little holes above-mentioned. This required great adroitness; but custom appeared to have brought her to the pinnacle of her art, and she hardly ever missed her mark. In a second or two, the hasty-pudding became transformed into a sort of small pancake, and was whipped out of itslocus in quoby a light-fingered acolyte of the male sex. I observed that behind the priestess were sundry little alcoves, shaded by bright-coloured curtains; in these might be seen loving pairs, feasting on the handiworks of the lady of the spoon. The repast was simple, and was soon dispatched, for a constant succession of votaries kept entering and issuing from the alcoves. If I was correctly informed, it would have been possible to have got as high as the top buttonof your waistcoat for the small sum of a few stivers.
I was sorry to hear that this national festival—a sort of Dutch carnival, which is visited by all classes—is ruinous to what is left of morals in Amsterdam.
Before leaving the city, I must not omit to mention the Zoological Gardens. If you wish to find them, you must ask for the “Artis;” that is the name it is known by to every gamin and fisherman in Amsterdam. The Dutch are very classical, and the inscription over the entrance is, “Naturæ artis magistra.” Half-a-dozen other public places go by Latin names. Thus, the Royal Institution of Literature and Art is called “Felix Meritis,” from the first words of a legend on the front of the building.
Next day, I take leave of my room in the hotel, with its odd French-shaped beds, closed in by heavy green stuff curtains, and great projecting chimney-piece. In my bill, the charge for bed tacitly includes that for breakfast; these two items being, seemingly, considered by the Dutch all onething. Cheese appears to be invariably eaten by the natives with their morning coffee, which is kept hot by a little spirit-lamp under the coffee-pot.
After this, I stopped at Shravenhagen (the Hague), to see Paul Potter’s Bull. On the Sunday, attended a Calvinistic place of worship, where I was horrified to behold the irreverent way in which the male part of the congregation, who looked not unlike your unpleasant political dissenter at a church-rate meeting, gossiped with their hats on their heads until the entrance of the clergyman.
Next day, I found myself at Rotterdam. The steamer for London managed, near Helvoetsluys, to break the floats of her paddle-wheel; the engine could not be worked; and as there was a heavy sea and strong wind blowing on-shore, we should soon have been there, had not another steamer come to our assistance, and towed us back into a place of safety. After repairing damages, we proceeded on our voyage, and eventually arrived unharmed in London.
Oxford in the Long Vacation—The rats make such a strife—A case for Lesbia—Interview between a hermit and a novice—The ruling passion—Blighted hopes—Norwegian windows—Tortoise-shell soup—After dinner—Christiansand again—Ferry on the Torrisdal river—Plain records of English travellers—Salmonia—The bridal crown—A bridal procession—Hymen, O Hymenæe!—A ripe Ogress—The head cook at a Norwegian marriage—God-fearing people—To Sætersdal—Neck or nothing—Lilies and lilies—The Dutch myrtle.
Oxford in the Long Vacation—The rats make such a strife—A case for Lesbia—Interview between a hermit and a novice—The ruling passion—Blighted hopes—Norwegian windows—Tortoise-shell soup—After dinner—Christiansand again—Ferry on the Torrisdal river—Plain records of English travellers—Salmonia—The bridal crown—A bridal procession—Hymen, O Hymenæe!—A ripe Ogress—The head cook at a Norwegian marriage—God-fearing people—To Sætersdal—Neck or nothing—Lilies and lilies—The Dutch myrtle.
I was sitting in my rooms, about the end of the month of July, 1857, having been dragged perforce, by various necessary avocations, into the solitude of the Oxford Long Vacation; not a soul in this college, or, in short, in any college. “A decided case of ‘Last Rose of Summer,’” mused I. “Those rats or mice, too, in the cupboard, what a clattering and squeaking they keep up, lamenting, probably, the death of one of their companions in the trap this morning; but, nevertheless, they are not a bit intimidated,for it is hunger that makes them valiant.” The proverb, “Hungry as a church mouse,” fits a college mouse in Long Vacation exactly. The supplies are entirely stopped with the departure of the men: no remnants of cold chicken, or bread-and-butter, no candles. It is not surprising, then, they have all found me out.
I positively go to bed in fear and trembling, lest they should make a nocturnal attack.
Each hole and cranny they explore,Each crook and corner of the chamber;They hurry-skurry round the floor,And o’er the books and sermons clamber.
Each hole and cranny they explore,Each crook and corner of the chamber;They hurry-skurry round the floor,And o’er the books and sermons clamber.
Each hole and cranny they explore,
Each crook and corner of the chamber;
They hurry-skurry round the floor,
And o’er the books and sermons clamber.
The fate of that worthy Bishop Hatto stares me in the face. If they did not spare so exalted a personage, what will become of me? And as for keeping a cat, no, that may not be. I am not a Whittington. They are a treacherous race, and purr, and fawn, and play the villain—quadrupedal Nena Sahibs. I always hated them, and still more so since an incident I witnessed one year in Norway.
On the newly-mown grass before the cottage where I was staying, a lot of little redpoles—thesparrows of those high latitudes—were very busily engaged picking up their honest livelihood, and making cheerful remarks to one another on the brightness of the weather and the flavour of the hay-seeds. Intently examining their motions through my glass, I had paid no heed to a cat which seemed rolling about carelessly on the lawn. Suddenly, I perceived that it had imperceptibly edged nearer and nearer to the pretty little birds, and was gliding, snake-like, towards them. I tapped at the window lustily, and screamed out in hopes of alarming my friends; but it was too late; they flew up, the cat sprung up aloft likewise, caught a poor little fellow in mid-air, and was away with it and out of sight in a moment.
At vobis male sit,catis dolorumPlenis, qui omnia bella devoratis!Tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis!O factum malé! o miselle passer!
At vobis male sit,catis dolorumPlenis, qui omnia bella devoratis!Tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis!O factum malé! o miselle passer!
At vobis male sit,catis dolorum
Plenis, qui omnia bella devoratis!
Tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis!
O factum malé! o miselle passer!
Norway! and why am I not there? It is too late this year to think of it. I must write to that friend, and say I can’t keep my promise, and join him thither. No, I must be content with a little trout-fishingin Wales or Scotland. At this moment a tap is heard at the door. An ingenuous youth, undergraduate of St. Sapientia College, and resident in the neighbourhood, had brought a letter of introduction from a common friend, begging me, as one deep in the mysteries of Norwegian travelling, to give the bearer some information respecting that country, as he thought of taking a month’s trip thither.
As I pulled out Munck’s map, chalked out a route for the youth, and gave him a little practical advice on the subject, a regular spasm came across me. Iö was never plagued by that malicious gadfly, or “tsetse,” so much as I was for the rest of the day by an irresistible desire to be off to the old country. The steamer was to start in three days. On the third day I stood on board of her, in the highest possible spirits. The ingenuous youth was also there; but high hope was not the expression on his countenance. Most wofully he approached me. To make assurance doubly sure, and secure a good berth, he had left home the day before. On arriving at the terminus, his box was not to be found—the box with all his traps, and the 50l.in it. He had sent telegrams, or telegraphemes, to the four ends of Great Britain for the missing box; but it was not forthcoming. In a few hours we weighed anchor. The expectant visitor was left behind, and as there was no vessel to Norway for the next fortnight, the chances were that his trip thither would not take place. The above facts will serve as a warning to young travellers.
As daylight peered through the small porthole in the morning, I found that we had no less than eight people in our cabin, and that the porthole was shut, although it was smooth water.
“What an atmosphere,” said an Englishman, in an adjoining berth. “I have opened that porthole two or three times in the night; but that fat, drum-bellied Norwegian there, who seems as fond of hot, stifling air as a melon, has shut it again.”
“What can you expect of the people of a country,” replied I, “where the windows are often not made to open?”
A tall, gentlemanly-looking man, who stood before the looking-glass, and had just brushed hisglossy wig into a peak like Mr. Pecksniff, here turned round and said, in Norwegian-English—
“I do assure you, sir, that the Norwegian windows will open.”
“Yes, in the towns; but frequently in the country not. I have been there a good deal, and I speak from experience.”
I find that our friend, who is very communicative, was in London in the days of the Prince Regent—yes, and he once dined with him at the London Tavern, at a dinner given in aid of foreigners in distress: the ticket cost 10l.He remembers perfectly well how, on another occasion, a tortoise-shell, all alive, was carried round London in a cart, with a notice that it would be made intotortoise-shellsoup on a certain day. He dined, and the soup was super-excellent.
Consul ——, for I found that he had attained that distinction—was well acquainted with all the resorts of London. Worxall pleased him much. He had even learned to box. He had also something to say about the war with the Swedes, led on by Karl Johann, in which he took part.
After dinner we divert ourselves by observingthe sleeping countenance of the obese Norwegian who was so fond of carbonic acid gas, assume all sorts of colours,—livid, red, yellow,—not from repletion, though this might well have been the case, but from the light of the painted glass overhead, which transferred its chameleon hues to his physiognomy.
Here I am, once more plunging into the heart of Norway in the national vehicle, the carriole; up hills, down hills, across stony morasses, through sandy pine forests. We landed this afternoon at Christiansand, and I am now seven miles north of it, and standing by the side of the magnificent Torrisdal river, waiting for the great unwieldy ferry-boat to come over. The stream is strong and broad, and there is only one man working the craft; but, by taking advantage of a back stream on the other side, and one on this, he has actually accomplished the passage with little trouble, and hit the landing-place to an inch.
On the other side, three or four carrioles, some of them double ones, are just descending the steep hill, and I have to wait till they get down to the waterside, in consequence of the narrowness ofthe road. One of the strangers, with a broad gold band round his cap, turns out to be the British consul. He is returning with a party of ladies and gentlemen from a pic-nic at the Vigelandsfoss, about three miles from this, where the river makes a fine fall.
That evening we stop at the Verwalter’s (Bailiff’s), close by the falls. I have no salmon-rod, but Mr. C——, an Englishman, who has come up with me to sketch the foss, and try for a salmon, obtains leave, as a great favour, to fish in the pools for one dollar a day, and a dollar to each of the boatmen. The solitary grilse that he succeeded in catching during the next day cost him therefore some fifteen shillings. The charges are an infallible sign that Englishmen have been here.
As in the Tweed, the take of salmon in these southern rivers has fallen off terribly. In Mandal river, a little to the westward, the fishing in the last twenty years has become one-tenth of what it was. Here, where 1600 fish used to be taken yearly, 200 only are caught. But at Boen, in theTopdal river, which, like this, enters the sea at Christiansand, no decrease is observable. For the last ten years the average yield of the salmon fishery there has been 2733 fish per annum. In this state of things, the services of Mr. Hetting, the person deputed by the Norwegian Government to travel about the country and teach the inhabitants the method of artificially breeding salmon and other fish, have been had recourse to. Near this, breeding-places have been constructed under his auspices.
Extensive saw-mills are erected all about this place; and it is probable that the dust, which is known to bother the salmon by clogging their gills, may have diminished their productiveness, or driven them elsewhere. The vast volume of water which here descends, is cut into two distinct falls; but a third fall, a few hundred yards above, excels them in height and grandeur.
While eating my breakfast, an old dame comes in with a large basket and mysterious looks. Her mission is one of great importance—viz., to hire the bridal crown belonging to the mistress of thehouse, for a wedding, which will take place at the neighbouring church this afternoon. She gets the article, and pays one dollar for the use of it. Hearing that the bridalcortègewill sweep by at five o’clock,P.M., on its way from the church, I determined to defer my journey northwards till it had passed.
At that hour, the cry of “They come! they come!” saluted my ears. Pencil or pen of Teniers or Fielding, would that you were mine, so that I might do justice to what I saw. Down the steep hill leading to the house there came, at a slow pace, first a carriole, with that important functionary, the Kiögemester, standing on the board behind, and, like a Hansom cabman, holding the reins over the head of the bridesmaid, a fat old lady, with a voluminous pile of white upon her head, supposed to be a cap. Next came a cart, containing two spruce young maidens, who wore caps of dark check with broad strings of red satin riband, in shape a cross between those worn by the buy-a-broom girls and the present fashionable bonnet, which doesnotcover the head of Englishladies. Their jackets were of dark blue cloth, and skirt of the same material and colour, with a narrow scarlet edging, similar to that worn by peasant women in parts of Wales. Over the jacket was a coloured shawl, the ends crossed at the waist, and pinned tight. Add to this a large pink apron, and in their hands a white kerchief, after the manner of Scotch girls, on their way to kirk. After these came a carriole, with four little boys and girls clustered upon it.
But the climax is now reached. The next vehicle, a cart, contains the chief actors in the show, the bride and bridegroom, who are people of slender means. He is evidently somewhat the worse, or better, for liquor, and is dressed in the short blue seaman’s jacket and trousers, which have become common in Norway wherever the old national costume has disappeared. The bride—oh! all ye little loves, lave the point of my pen incouleur de rose, that I may describe meetly this mature votary of Venus. There she sat like an image of the goddess Cybele; on her head a turret of pasteboard, covered with red cloth, with flamboyant mouldings of spangles, beads, and gold lace;miserable counterfeit of the fine old Norwegian bridal crown of silver gilt! Nodding over the turret was a plume of manifold feathers—ostrich, peacock, chicken, mixed with artificial flowers; from behind it streamed a cataract of ribands of some fifteen different tints and patterns. Her plain yellow physiognomy was unrelieved by a single lock of hair.
“It is not the fashion,” explained a female bystander, “for the bride to disclose any hair. It must on this occasion be all tucked in out of sight.”
This ripe ogress of half a century was further dressed in a red skirt with gold belt, a jacket of black brocade, over which was a cuirass of scarlet cloth shining resplendently in front with the national ornament, the Sölje, a circular silver-gilt brooch, three inches in diameter, with some twenty gilded spoon-baits (fishermen will understand me) hung on to its rim. Frippery of divers sorts hung about her person. On each shoulder was an epaulet or bunch of white gauze bows, while the other ends of her arms were adorned by ruffles and white gloves.
As this wonderful procession halted in front of the door, the gallant Kiögemester advanced and lifted the bride in his arms out of her vehicle. As she mounted the door-steps, a decanter of brandy in hand, all wreathed in smiles and streamers, flowers and feathers, I bowed with great reverence, which evidently gratified her vanity.
“I’ll tell you what she reminds me of,” said my English companion, who had left his profitless fishing to see the sight, “a Tyrolese cow coming home garlanded from the châlet. No doubt this procession would look rather ridiculous in Hyde Park, but here, in this wild outlandish country, do you know, with the sombre pine-trees and the grey rocks, and wild rushing river, it does not strike me as so contemptible. She is tricked out in all the finery she can lay her hands on, and in that she is only doing the same as her sex the world over, from the belle savage of Central Africa to Queen Victoria herself.”
The Kiögemester (head cook)—not that he attends to the cooking department, whatever hemight have done in former days—is a very ancient institution on this occasion. He is the soul of the whole festival. Without him everything would be in disorder or at a stand-still. Bowing to the procession, he is also bowed down by the weight of his responsibility. In his single self he is supposed to combine, at first-rate weddings, the offices of master of the ceremonies, chief butler, speechifier, jester, precentor, and, above all, of peace-maker. His activity as chief butler often calls forth a corresponding degree of activity as an assuager of broils. The baton which he frequently wields is shaped like the ancient fool’s bauble. If he is a proficient in his art he will, like Mr. Robson, shine in the comic as well as the serious department, alternating original jests with solemn apophthegms. But the race is dying out. The majority are mere second-hand performers. The real adepts in the science give anéclatto the whole proceedings, and are consequently much in request, being sent for from long distances.
By-the-bye, I must not omit to mention that on the left arm of the bride hung a red shawl, justlike that on the arm of the Spanish bull-fighter, whose province it is to give thecoup de graceto the devoted bull. From the manner in which she displayed it, I fancy it must have been an essential item in her toilette. Hearing no pipe and tabor, or, more strictly speaking, no fiddle, the almost invariable accompaniment of these pageants, I inquired the reason.
“They are gudfrygtig folk (God-fearing people); they will have nothing to do with such vanities,” was the answer.
There seemed to me, however, to be some contradiction between this “God-fearing” scrupulosity and the size of the bride’s person. It struck me, as I saw the stalwart master of the ceremonies exerting all his strength to lift her into the cart again, that it was high time she was married.
At this moment up drives a gentleman dressed in black, with dark rat-taily hair shading his sallow complexion, and a very large nose bridged by a huge pair of silver spectacles, the centre arch of which was wrapped with black riband, that it might not press too much on the keystone. Thisis the parson who has tied the fatal noose, and is now wending his way homewards to his secluded manse.
Bidding adieu to my companion, who purposed driving round the coast, I now set off to the station, Mosby, to join the main route to Sætersdal, one of the wildest, poorest, and most primitive valleys of Norway, which I’m bent on exploring. On the road I once or twice narrowly escape coming into collision with the carriole of a young peasant who has been at the wedding. Mad with brandy, he keeps passing and repassing me at full gallop. The sagacious horse—I won’t call him brute, a term much more applicable to his master—makes up by his circumspection for his driver’s want of it. He seems to be perfectly aware of the state of things, and, while goaded into a break-neck pace, dexterously avoids the dangers.
Oak—a rare sight to me in this country—aspen (asp), sycamore (lön), hazel, juniper, bracken, fringe the sides of the road northward. Now and then a group of white “wand-like” lilies (Tjorn-blom) risesfrom some silent tarn (in Old Norsk, Tjorn), looking very small indeed after those huge fellows I have left reposing in the arms of the Isis at Oxford. Their moonlight-coloured chalice is well-known to be a favourite haunt of the tiny water-elves, so I suppose the Scandinavian ones are tinier than their sisters of Great Britain.
Nor must I omit to mention the quantities of Dutch myrtle, or sweet gale (pors), with which the swampy grounds abound. It possesses strong narcotic qualities, and is put in some districts into the beer, while, elsewhere, a decoction of it is sprinkled about the houses to intimidate the fleas, who have a great horror of it. Lyng (lüng), some of it white, and that of a peculiar kind, which I have never seen before, also clings to the sides of the high grounds, while strawberries and raspberries of excellent taste are not wanting.