Heigho and heigho!My small one, how are you?Indeed but you’re brave and well:The rain it pours,And the hurricane roars,But my bairn it sleeps on the fell.
Heigho and heigho!My small one, how are you?Indeed but you’re brave and well:The rain it pours,And the hurricane roars,But my bairn it sleeps on the fell.
Heigho and heigho!
My small one, how are you?
Indeed but you’re brave and well:
The rain it pours,
And the hurricane roars,
But my bairn it sleeps on the fell.
I vow that the touching address of the daughter of Acrisius to her nursling, in the Greek Anthology, never sounded so sweetly to me in my school-boy days, as did the lullaby I had just heard. I’m sure the girl will make a good mamma. Perhaps she’s thinking of the time when that will happen.
Another—
My roundelay, it runs as nimbleAs the nag o’er the ice without a stumble;My roundelay can turn with a twirl,As quick as the lads on snow-shoes whirl.
My roundelay, it runs as nimbleAs the nag o’er the ice without a stumble;My roundelay can turn with a twirl,As quick as the lads on snow-shoes whirl.
My roundelay, it runs as nimble
As the nag o’er the ice without a stumble;
My roundelay can turn with a twirl,
As quick as the lads on snow-shoes whirl.
A strapping peasant lad, joining ourtête-à-tête, I bantered him on the subject of sweethearts.
“You’ve got one. Now, tell me what you sing to her.”
With a look ofnonchalance, which thinly covered over an abundance of sheepishness, therustic swain pooh-poohed the idea, and, in defiance, sang the following—
To wed in a hurry, of that oh! beware;You had far better drag on alone;What, tho’ she be fair, a wife brings much care,With marriage all merriment’s flown.Well, suppose you have land, and flocks and herds too,But at Yule, when they’re all in the byre,It perhaps happen can, that you’ve scarce a handfu’Of fodder the cattle to cheer.
To wed in a hurry, of that oh! beware;You had far better drag on alone;What, tho’ she be fair, a wife brings much care,With marriage all merriment’s flown.Well, suppose you have land, and flocks and herds too,But at Yule, when they’re all in the byre,It perhaps happen can, that you’ve scarce a handfu’Of fodder the cattle to cheer.
To wed in a hurry, of that oh! beware;You had far better drag on alone;What, tho’ she be fair, a wife brings much care,With marriage all merriment’s flown.
To wed in a hurry, of that oh! beware;
You had far better drag on alone;
What, tho’ she be fair, a wife brings much care,
With marriage all merriment’s flown.
Well, suppose you have land, and flocks and herds too,But at Yule, when they’re all in the byre,It perhaps happen can, that you’ve scarce a handfu’Of fodder the cattle to cheer.
Well, suppose you have land, and flocks and herds too,
But at Yule, when they’re all in the byre,
It perhaps happen can, that you’ve scarce a handfu’
Of fodder the cattle to cheer.
“That’s very fine, no doubt,” interrupted the girl; “but he’s got a kjærste (sweetheart) for all that, and I’ll tell you what he sings to her:—
Oh! hear me, my pretty maid,What I will say to thee,I’ve long thought, but was afraid;I would woo thee,Wilt thou have me?Meadows I have so fair,And cattle and corn good store,Of dollars two or three pair,Then don’t say me nay, I implore.”
Oh! hear me, my pretty maid,What I will say to thee,I’ve long thought, but was afraid;I would woo thee,Wilt thou have me?Meadows I have so fair,And cattle and corn good store,Of dollars two or three pair,Then don’t say me nay, I implore.”
Oh! hear me, my pretty maid,What I will say to thee,I’ve long thought, but was afraid;I would woo thee,Wilt thou have me?
Oh! hear me, my pretty maid,
What I will say to thee,
I’ve long thought, but was afraid;
I would woo thee,
Wilt thou have me?
Meadows I have so fair,And cattle and corn good store,Of dollars two or three pair,Then don’t say me nay, I implore.”
Meadows I have so fair,
And cattle and corn good store,
Of dollars two or three pair,
Then don’t say me nay, I implore.”
The girl had completely turned the tables on the said flippant young fellow, who, by his looks, abundantly owned the soft impeachment.
Taking leave of these good folks, I pursued my downward course along the river, which was, however, hidden by trees and rocks. Suddenly, however, we got a sight of the torrent in an unexpected manner. The earth at our feet had sunk into a deep, well-like hole, leaving, however, between it and the stream, a great arch of living rock, crowned with trees like the Prebischthor in the Saxon Switzerland, only smaller. Soon after this, we pass a picturesque bridge (Horbro), where the river roars through a deep and very narrow chasm, terrible to look down into; and, after some hours’ walking, get the first peep into the placid lake of Hildal, with two great waterfalls descending the opposite mountain, as if determined to giveéclatto the river’s entrance therein. Visions of Bavarian beer, fresh meat, clean sheets, &c., crowd upon my imagination, as, after catching some trout in crossing the lake, we land on the little isthmus which separates the sheet of fresh water from the beautiful salt-water Sörfjord; and with light foot I hasten down to Mr. M——’s, the merchant of Odde. The situation is one of the grandest inNorway. The mighty Hardanger Fjord, after running westward out of the Northern Ocean for about eighty miles, suddenly takes a bend south, and forms the Sör (South) Fjord, which is nearly thirty miles long. At the very extreme end of this glorious water defile I now stood. To my left shoot down the sloping abutments of the mountain plateau, on which lies the vast snow-field called the Folgefond; they, with their flounce-like bands of trees, first fir, then birch, and above this mere scrub, are now immersed in shadow, blending in the distance with the indigo waters of the Fjord. But further out to seaward, as we glance over the dark shoulder of one of these natural buttresses, rises a swelling mound of white, like the heaving bosom of some queenly beauty robed in black velvet. That is a bit of “Folgo” yet glowing with the radiance of the setting sun. As I stood gazing at this wonderful scene—the snow part of it reminding me of the unsullied Jungfrau, as seen from Interlacken, only that there the water, which gives such effect to this scene, is absent—I saw a man rise from behind astranded boat in front of me. He was a German painter, and had been transferring to his canvas the very sight I had been looking on.
“Eine wunderschöne Aussicht, Mein Herr,” remarked I.
“Unvergleichbar! We’ve nothing like it even in Switzerland,” said he.
With this observation I think I can safely leave the scenery in the reader’s hands.
“That church, there,” said the German, pointing to a little ancient edifice of stone, with mere slits of windows, “is said to have been built by your countrymen, as well as those of Kinservik and Ullensvang, further down the fjord. They had a great timber trade, according to tradition, with this part of the country. But, to judge from that breastwork and foss yonder, the good people of the valley were favoured at times with other visits besides those of timber merchants.”
Author visits a glacier—Meets with two compatriots—A good year for bears—The judgment of snow—Effects of parsley fern on horses—The advantage of having shadow—Old friends of the hill tribe—Skeggedals foss—Fairy strings—The ugliest dale in Norway—A photograph of omnipotence—The great Bondehus glacier—Record of the mysterious ice period—Guide stories—A rock on its travels.
Author visits a glacier—Meets with two compatriots—A good year for bears—The judgment of snow—Effects of parsley fern on horses—The advantage of having shadow—Old friends of the hill tribe—Skeggedals foss—Fairy strings—The ugliest dale in Norway—A photograph of omnipotence—The great Bondehus glacier—Record of the mysterious ice period—Guide stories—A rock on its travels.
Next day I went across the Hildal Lake to visit a glacier of which I had got a glimpse the evening before. It then seemed a couple of miles off; but I never was more taken in in judging of distance before—such is the uncommon clearness of the atmosphere and the gigantic scale of objects in this country. After a sweltering walk, however, of nearly three hours, I at last stood at the spot, where a torrent of water, the exact colour of that perennial sewer that comes to the light of day, and diffuses its fragrance just below London Bridge, rushed out of an archway of the purest azure, setting me a moralizing about deceitfulappearances, and so forth. My boy-guide halted the while at a respectful distance from the convulsed mass of ice.
“Do let me go back,” he had apostrophized me; “I am so frightened, I am. It is sure to fall on us.”
And it was only by yielding to his cowardly entreaties that I prevented him from imitating the trickling ice, and being dissolved in tears.
Close to the ice grew white and red clover, yellow trefoil, two kinds of sorrel, and buttercups. This fertility on the edge of a howling desert had been taken advantage of, for, as I moved my eye to the opposite cliff from taking a look at the sun, who had just hidden his scorching glare behind the tips of the glacier, I descried several men and women busily engaged, at an enormous height, making hay on a slope of great steepness. As we descended, a noise, as of a salute of cannon, greeted my ears. The above sewer, which descends with most prodigious force, had set agoing some stones apparently of great size, which thundered high even above the roar of the waters, making the rocks and nodding groves rebellow again.
Next day I had determined to cross “Folgo” to the Mauranger Fjord, but the clouds hanging over him forbid the attempt.
That evening it cleared up, and two compatriots from the Emerald Isle arriving by water, we agreed to join forces the next day.
On the 20th of August, at an early hour, we started with two guides, one Ole Olsen Bustetun, and Jörgen Olsen Præstergaard. The latter was a very grave-looking personage, with a blue face and red-tipped nose, which, however, told untrue tales.
“Well, Jörgen,” said I, “how are you off for bears this year?”
“Hereabouts, not so bad; but yonder at Ulsvig they are very troublesome. It was only the other day that Ulsvig’s priest was going to one of his churches, when a bear attacked him. By good luck he had his hound with him—a very big one it is—and it attacked the bear behind, and bothered him, and so the priest managed to escape.”
“Aren’t there some old sagas about the Folgefond?” asked I.
“To be sure. I know one, but it is not true.”
“True or not true, let me hear it.”
“Well, then, it is said among the bonders that once on a time under all this mountain of ice and snow there was a valley, called Folgedal, with no less than seven parishes in it. But the dalesmen were a proud and ungodly crew, and God determined to destroy them as He did Sodom and Gomorrah—not by fire, however, but by snow. So He caused it to snow in the valley for ten weeks running. As you may suppose, the valley got filled up. The church spires were covered, and not a living soul survived. And from that day to this the ice and snow has gone on increasing. They also say that in olden days there used to be a strange sight of birds of all colours, white, and black, and green, and red, and yellow, fluskering about over the snow, and people would have it that these were nothing but the spirits of the inhabitants lingering about the place of their former abodes.”
“That’s a strange story, no doubt,” said I.
“And, now I think of it,” continued Jörgen, “I’ve heard old men say that this tale of the snowing-up must be true, for, now and then, when there has been a flom (flood), pieces of hewntimber, as if they had belonged to a house, and household implements, such as copper kettles, have been brought down by the stream that comes out of Overhus Glacier.
“Now and then, too, the traveller over Folgo is said to hear strange noises, as of church bells ringing and dogs barking. But the fact is, there’s something so lonely and grewsome about the Fond, and the ice is so apt to split and the snow to fall, that no wonder people get such-like fancies into their heads.”
As we ascend I see tufts of a dark green herb growing in the crevices of the grey rocks.
“Ah! that’s spraengehesten (horse burster),” said Jörgen. “If a horse eats of this a stoppage of the bowels immediately takes place. A horse at Berge, below there, was burst in this way not long ago.”
[The reader may remember that a similar account was given me last year on the Sogne-fjeld].[30]
We had now emerged from the thickets, and, after crossing amauvais pasof slippery rock, touched the snow after four hours’ hard walking. The glare of the sun on the snow was rather trying to the eyes, I congratulated myself that I was not shadowless, like Peter Schlemil, as it was a great relief to me to cast my vision on my own lateral shadow as we proceeded. It was first-rate weather, and the air being northerly, the snow was not very slushy. The German painter ought to be here. He told me hisforteis winter landscape.
“Now,” said the grave-faced Jörgen, who was at bottom a very good sort of intelligent fellow, “look due east, sir, over where the Sör fjord lies. Yonder is the Foss (waterfall) of Skeggedal, or Tussedal, as some folks call it.”
As I cast my eyes eastward, I saw the highest top of the Hardanger Fjeld, which I traversed last year; my old friend Harteigen very conspicuous with his quaint square head rising to the height of5400 feet, while his grey sides contrasted with the Storfond to the south and the dazzling white Tresfond and Jöklen to the north.
Straight in a line between myself and Harteigen I now discerned a perpendicular strip of gleaming white chalked upon a stupendous wall of dark rock. That is Skeggedals foss. It falls several hundred feet perpendicularly, but no wonder it looks a mere thread from here, for it is more than fourteen miles off as the crow flies.
“There are three falls at the head of the valley,” continued Jörgen. “Two of them cross each other at an angle quite wonderful to see. They are called Tusse-straenge (Fairy strings).”
Wonderful music, thought I, must be given forth by those fairy strings, mayhap akin to
“The unmeasured notesOf that strange lyre whose stringsThe genii of the breezes sweep.”
“The unmeasured notesOf that strange lyre whose stringsThe genii of the breezes sweep.”
“The unmeasured notes
Of that strange lyre whose strings
The genii of the breezes sweep.”
“Tussedal is a terribly stügt (ugly) dale,” went on Jörgen, “so narrow, and dark, and deep. A little below those three waterfalls the river enters into the ground, and disappears for some distance,and than comes out again. We call that the Swelge (swallow). Just below that there is a great stone that has fallen across the chasm. It’s just like a bridge: I’ve stood on that stone and looked down many, many ells deep into the water boiling below. Ay! that’s an ugly dale—a very ugly dale. It’s not to be matched in Norway. You ought to have gone to see it; but now I think of it, it’s difficult to get to the falls, for there is a lake to cross, and I think the old boat is stove in now.”
After passing one or two crevasses (spraekker), which become dangerous when the fresh snow comes and covers them over, we at length arrive at the first skiaer (skerry), a sort of Grand Mulets of bare jagged crag, on which the snow did not seem to rest. After lunching here, and drinking a mixture of brandy and ice, we descend a slope of snow by the side of a deep turquoise-coloured gutter, of most serpentine shape, brimful of dashing water. Just beyond this a sight met our eyes never to be effaced from my memory. Far to the westward the ocean is distinctly visible through afilm of haze rising from the snow, just thick enough, like the crape on those veiled Italian statues, to enhance its beauty. Between us and the sea, purple ranges of mountains intersect each other, the furthermost melting into the waves. At right angles to these ranges is the Mauranger Fjord, to which we have to descend. There it lies like a mere trough of ink, opening gradually into the main channel of the branching Hardanger, with the island of Varald lying in the centre of it. Over this to the north-west lies Bergen. To the southward, skirting the Mauranger, is a cleft rock, like the Brèche de Roland in the Pyrenées, while between it and us may be seen the commencement of the great Bondehus glacier.
Look! the smooth, sloping, snow-covered ice has suddenly got on thequi vive. It’s already on the incline, no drag will stop it; see how it begins to rise into billows and fall into troughs, like the breakers approaching the sea-shore; and yonder it disappears from view between the adamantine buttresses that encroach upon its sweep. To our right is another pseudo glacier hanging from ahigher ascent like a blue ball-cloak from the shoulder of a muslin-frocked damsel.
Therochers montonnéeson which we stand tell tales of that mysterious ice-period when the glacier ground everything down with its powerful emery, while by a curious natural convulsion, a crevasse as broad and nearly as deep as the Box cutting—not of ice but of rock, as if the very rocks had caught the infection, and tried to split in glacial fashion—strikes down to a small black lake dotted with white ice floes.
It was indeed a wondrous scene. As we looked at it, one of my companions observed, one could almost imagine this was the exceeding high mountain whence Satan shewed our Saviour all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. As if to make the thing stranger still, on one of the bleached rocks are carved what one might easily suppose were cabalistic letters, the records of an era obscured in the grey mists of time, but which it is beyond our power to decipher. Above us the sky was cloudless, but wore that dark tinge which as clearly indicates snow beneath as the distantice-blink of the Arctic regions tells tales to the voyager of a frozen ocean ahead.
“Now were off the Fond,” said Jörgen. “You laughed at me when I asked you if you had a compass. We’ve made short work of it to-day, but you don’t know what it is when there is a skodda (scud) over Folgo. Twenty-five years ago five Englishmen, who tried to come over with five horses, lost their way in the mist, and had hard work to get back. Why it’s only fourteen days since that I started with three other guides and four Englishmen, but we were forced to return. At this end of the passage there is one outlet, and if you miss that it is impossible to get down into the Mauranger.”
I found he was right; for, after worming our way for a space through a hotch-potch of snow and rocks, we suddenly turned a sharp corner, and stood in a gateway invisible a moment before, from whence a ladder of stone reached down to the hamlet of Ovrehus, at the head of the Fjord, four thousand feet below us.
“Four years ago,” said Jörgen, “I guided aGerman state-councilor across the Fond. How he did drink brandviin! I think it was to give him courage. He had a bottle full when he started, and he kept pouring the spirits on to lumps of sugar, and sucking them till the bottle got quite empty and he quite drunk. We could not get him a step further than this, and night was coming on. I had to go down to Ovrehus, and get four men with lanterns, and at last we got him down at two o’clock in the morning.”
Jörgen thought the traveller was a German, but I suspect if the real truth were known, it must have been our friend the Danish Count, whose propensity for drink and other peculiarities have been recorded in theOxonian in Norway. The descent was uncommonly steep, even in the opinion of one of my companions, who had ascended the Col du Géant, and the stiffest passes in the Tyrol.
After descending in safety, we entered a belt of alder copse-wood. In one part of this the ground had been ploughed up, and the trees torn away and smashed right and left, as if some hugeanimal had rushed through it, or rather, as if two or three Great Western locomotives had run off the line and bolted across country. What could it be! The gash, I found, reached to a torrent of fierce snow-water, in the centre of which a rock of a great many tons weight had come to an anchor. This was thecorpus delicti. Looking at the cliffs, I could discern several hundred feet above me the mark of a recent dislocation, whence the monster had started. The rupture had occurred only two or three days before. What a grand sight it must have been.
Three generations—Dangers of the Folgo—Murray at fault—Author takes boat for the entrance of the Bondehus Valley—The king of the waterfall—More glacier paths—An extensive ice-house—These glorious palaces—How is the harvest?—Laxe-stie—Struggle-stone—To Vikör—Östudfoss, the most picturesque waterfall in Norway—An eternal crystal palace—How to earn a pot of gold—Information for theMorning Post—A parsonage on the Hardanger—Steamers for the Fjords—Why living is becoming dearer in Norway—A rebuke for the travelling English—Sunday morning—Peasants at church—Female head-dresses—A Norwegian church service—Christening—Its adumbration in heathen Norway—A sketch for Washington Irving.
Three generations—Dangers of the Folgo—Murray at fault—Author takes boat for the entrance of the Bondehus Valley—The king of the waterfall—More glacier paths—An extensive ice-house—These glorious palaces—How is the harvest?—Laxe-stie—Struggle-stone—To Vikör—Östudfoss, the most picturesque waterfall in Norway—An eternal crystal palace—How to earn a pot of gold—Information for theMorning Post—A parsonage on the Hardanger—Steamers for the Fjords—Why living is becoming dearer in Norway—A rebuke for the travelling English—Sunday morning—Peasants at church—Female head-dresses—A Norwegian church service—Christening—Its adumbration in heathen Norway—A sketch for Washington Irving.
After a very sharp walk of eleven hours in all, we entered a small farm-house. No less than eighteen persons, from the sucking infant to the old woman of eighty-four, surrounded us, as we dipped our wooden spoons into a round tub of sour milk, the only refreshment the place afforded. Red stockings,and blue caps, with an inner one of white, and red bodices, were the chief objects that caught my eye. The ventilation soon became so defective from the crowd, that I got up and succeeded in pushing open a wooden trap-door in the centre of the roof by a pole attached to it. The apartment, in fact, was one of the old “smoke rooms,” described elsewhere, and the orifice, the ancient chimney and window in one, which had been superseded by a modern window and chimney in two. “That’s an awkward place to cross, is that Folgo,” said a big fellow to me. “My grandfather, who lived in Sörfjord, where you come from, was to marry a lass at Ovrehus here. On the day before the wedding he started, with thirteen others, to cross Folgo. Night came, but the party did not arrive. But no harm was done, you see, sir; for I’m his grandson, and if he had been lost I should not have seen the light. [This pleasantry seemed to tickle the crowd.] They did, however, stop all night on the snow, and it was not till next day that they got down.”
From these people I find that there is no foundation for the statement in “Murray,” that a bandof peasants lost their lives in crossing the snow. The nearest approach to an accident is that detailed above.
Next morning we take boat for the entrance of the Bondehus valley, which debouches on the Fjord half a mile from this, and opposite to which, across the Fjord, is a place called Fladebo, from which Forbes ascended the Folgefond by a much easier path than that we had taken. Indeed, as we loll easily in the boat, and look back at the descent of yesterday, it seems astonishing how we ever could get down at all. Landing at Bondehus, after an hour’s walk up the valley, which was occupied for some distance by meadows, in which peasants were at work making hay, we reached a lake, across which we row. By the stream, which here shot into the further side of the lake, there were a couple of water ouzels, bobbing about.
“Ay, that’s an Elv-Konge (river king), or, as some call him, Foss-Konge (king of the waterfall),” said our guide.
In spite of the apparent proximity of the glacier,it still took us several minutes’ climb before we reached its foot.
Truth to tell, the bad fare exhibited by Margareta Larsdatter Ovrehus, was bad travelling on, and made me rather exact in distances to-day. Passing through a birch-grove, full of blue-berries and cloud-berries of delicious taste, we found the glacier only about thirty yards in front of us. The shingly space which intervened was traversed by four or five breastworks of loose sand and stones, about ten feet in height. These are the moraines left by the retreating glacier, so that at one time the ice and the birch-copse must have touched. Indeed, on either side of the glacier the trees may be seen holding their ground close by the ice, loth, apparently, to be separated from their opposite brethren by the intervention of such an unceremonious intruder.
We scrambled over the loose ramparts, and going close under the glacier where a muddy stream came forth, we discovered a huge cave, cut out of a blue wall of ice, some sixty feet in height. Some of the superincumbent mass had evidently just fallen in,causing, perhaps, the roar which we had heard as we ascended the valley. It was rather dangerous work entering the cavern, as another fall might take place, and I had no ambition to be preserved after the manner of the Irish salmon for the London market. But it was not every day that one is privileged to enter such a magnificent hall, so in I went alone. It was lit, too, by a lantern in the roof, in other words, by a perfectly circular hole, drilled through the crown of the arch, through which I saw the sky overhead. Nothing could exceed the intense depth of blue in this cool recess.
But let us come and look a little more at the stupendous scene above. Far up skyward, at a distance of perhaps six English miles, though it looks about one, is the pure cold level snow of the Folgefond, glistening between two mighty horns of shivered rock, that soar still higher heavenward.
These two portals contract the passage through which pours the great ice ocean; so that the monstrous billows are upheaved on the backs of oneanother in their struggle onward, and tower up into various forms.
“By Jove,” said one of my companions, “it looks just like a city on a hill side, Lyons, for instance. Look yonder, there are regular church towers and domes, and pinnacles and spires, and castellated buildings, only somehow etherialized. Why, there’s the arch of a bridge, you can see right under it at the buildings beyond.”
“If Macaulay’s New Zealander were there,” remarked I, “he would behold a grander sight than ever he will on London Bridge when the metropolis of the world is in ruin.”
“Ruin!” rejoined the poetical son of Erin, “that’s already at work here. Look at this hall of ice which has come down to-day. Ah! it’s quite melancholy to think how all this splendid vision, these cloud-capped towers, these glorious palaces of silver and aquamarine, are moving on insensibly, day by day, to their destruction, and will melt away, not into air, but into dirty water, by the time they reach the spot where we’re standing.”
We had some hours of boating before night-fall, so that we were forced to tear ourselves from the scene, not forgetting to have a good look first at a feature in it not yet mentioned—a magnificent waterfall, which descended from the cliffs on the left. So now adieu to the mountains. I shall climb no more this year. Positively I feel as downcast as the hot-brained youth of Macedon when no more worlds were left for him to conquer.
We were soon at the farm-house near the sea, where Ragnhild Bondehus, with her red stockings, blue polka-jacket and red boddice, looking quite captivating, albeit threescore-and-ten, put before us porridge and goat’s milk, which we devoured with keen glacial appetite.
“How is the harvest looking where you came from?” asked she, with anxious looks. This was a question that had been frequently asked me this summer.
“Very good all over Europe.”
“To God be praise and thanks!” she ejaculated. “We shan’t have corn then too dear to buy. Wedid hear that there was no grain sown in Denmark this year; that’s not true, is it?”
The old lady derived no small comfort from my assurance that this must be a fabrication of some interested person.
Our boatmen landing with their great provision boxes to dine at the rocky point where we reach the main Hardanger, we land and examine one of those singular “fixings” for catching salmon, called a laxe-stie, or salmon ladder. It consists of a high stage, projecting on a light scaffolding into the water. In front of this, under the water, is an oblong square of planks, painted white, from twenty to thirty feet long and six broad. This is kept at the bottom by great stones. Beyond this, and parallel with the shore, several yards out, is a fixed wall-net, to guide the fish into a drag-net, one end of which is fastened to the shore, the other sloped out to seaward. The dark-backed salmon, which in certain places are fond of hugging the shore, as they make for the rivers to spawn, swim over the white board, and are at once seen by the watcher perched on the stage above, andhe speedily drags in the net set at right angles to the shore, with the fish secure in the bag. In some places the rock close by is also painted white[31]to attract the fish, who take it for a waterfall. The man lodges in a little den close by, his only escape from hence being most likely his boat, drawn into a crevice of the sheer rocks around him. Sometimes from twelve to twenty fish are taken in this manner in a day. St. Johann’s-tid (Midsummer) is the best time for taking them. The season is now over, and the solitary sentinel off to some other occupation.
According to the boatmen’s account, who, however, are very lazy fellows, the stream is hard against us; indeed, it always sets out in the Hardanger from the quantity of river water that comes into it.
“Ah!” said Ole, “that’s called Streit-Steen (Struggle-Stone). Satan once undertook to tow a Jagt from Bergen up the Hardanger. He had tough work of it, but he got on till he reached that stone; then he was dead beat, and banned and cursed dreadfully. It was he who called it Streit-Steen.”
The less said about the poisonous beer and bad food at Jondal, where we slept that night, the better.
We cross over, early next morning, to Vikör. The elder boatman, seventy-nine years old, was a strange little, dried-up creature, dressed in a suit of dark-green, the ancient costume of Jondal. One of the party told him if he were to see him in the gloaming he should take him for a Tuss. Anyhow he had a great aversion to the priest, against whose profits he declaimed loudly.
“Only to think,” said he, “the parson got tithe of butter and calf-skins—yes, actually got a hundred and fifteen calf-skins every year, worth half-a-crown each, from Jondal alone!”
How beautiful the placid Fjord looked as wepulled up the smiling little estuary to Vikör, and gradually opened behind us the end of the great Folgefond peninsula!
Near Vikör is the famed Östudfoss, said to be the most picturesque waterfall in Norway. At all events, it is a very eccentric one. The stream, which at times is of immense volume, shooting from the well shrubbed cliff above, which projects considerably, makes a clear jump over a plot of green turf, on which a dozen people or more could stand without being wetted; in fact, right inside the fall. While I stood within this crystal palace, one of my Hibernian friends, who had approached the spot by another route, clambering up the rocks, mounted on to the platform,—
“Faith, and I’ve earned the pot of gold!” exclaimed he, breathless with exertion.
“How so?”
“Why, did ye never hear the proverb—‘If you catch hold of the rainbow you will get a pot of gold?’ Ye never saw such a thing; just below there, where the stream makes a shoot, I put me hand right into a rainbow—yes, clean into it.”
On our return we overtook a number of women, dressed in their best. The inventory is as follows: A lily-white, curiously-plaited head-dress, the “getting-up” of which must take an infinity of time and trouble; red or parti-coloured bodice, black gown, and stockings of the same colour, cut off at the ankle, while on the foot were white socks with red edging, and shoes with high leather insteps, such as were worn in the days of the Cavaliers. By their side were a lot of children, also in their best attire.
“Where are you all going to this fine day?”
“It’s vaccination (bole, an Icelandic word) day, and we are all going to meet the doctor, who will be here from Strandebarm by two o’clock. We must all of us get a bolen-attest (certificate of vaccination). That’s the King’s order.”
The merchant’s establishment supplied us with some tolerable Madeira wherewith to drink to our next merry meeting, and my Irish friends, who were pressed for time, took boat that afternoon for Graven.
That evening and the next day (Sunday) I spentunder the hospitable roof of the parson of the district. His house is beautifully situate on a nook of the Hardanger, with a distant view of the Folgefond.
“Ah!” said he, “it won’t be so difficult to explore the beauties of our Fjords for the future. Our Storthing, I see, by the last Christiania papers, has voted several thousand dollars for setting up steamers on this and the Romsdal Fjord, which are to stop at the chief places. The abrogation of Cromwell’s Navigation Act has done great things for Norge’s commerce, and brought much money into the country.”
“Norway is getting richer,” said I, “no doubt, if one is to judge from the increase in the price of living.”
“That may be caused in some measure by the increase of capital, but the chief cause is another, though it, too, lies at England’s door. We used to get a great deal of butter, cheese, meal, and meat from Jutland, but now, since the English steamers run regularly thither, and carry off all the surplus provisions, that source of supply is stopped, and the articles of food are dearer.”
“That would not affect us much up here,” put in the Frua (priest’s lady); “No, no; it is the travelling English that do the mischief. Last year, sir, when I and my husband went up to see the Vöring foss, everything was so dreadfully dear, we said we must never venture out on another summer trip. And then, only think, there was an English lord there with his yacht, who saw a pig running on the shore, and said he would have the pig for dinner cost what it might. It was quite a small one, and they charged him six dollars. Yes, it positively makes us tremble, for you know we parson’s wives have not a great deal of money, though we have good farms.”
“At all events, I can’t be charged with this sort of folly,” said I; “for I resisted the extortions of the merchant at Jondal.”
“What, he! he is one of the Lesere, and is considered a very respectable man.”
“But will play the rogue when he thinks it won’t be talked of,” rejoined I. “Shams and realities are wonderfully alike. Do you know, even that black-coated biped, the ostrich, can make a roar just like a lion’s?”
As I crossed over from my bed-room next morning to the main building, I found the grass-plot in front of the house thronged by peasants who had come to church, while in the centre of them was the priest in his Lutheran cloak and elaborate frill. The washing and starching of one of these ruffs costs a shilling. The widow of a clergyman in Bergen is a great adept in getting them up, and it is no uncommon thing for them to come to her by steamer from a distance of one hundred and forty English miles.
The congregation were in church when I entered with the ladies. We sat altogether in a square pew on a level with the chancel dais. This mingling of the sexes, however, was not permitted, of course, among the primitive bonders: the men being on one side of the interior, the women on the other, reminding me of the evening parties in a famous University town. The former wore most of them short seamen’s jackets, though a few old peasants adhered to the antique green coat of singular cut, while their grey locks, which were parted in the centre of the forehead, streamed patriarchally over their shoulders, shading their strongly-markedcountenances. The female side was really very picturesque. The head-dress is a white kerchief, elaborately crimped or plaited, but by some ingenious contrivance shaped in front somewhat like the ladies’ small bonnets of the present day, with one corner falling gracefully down behind, like the topping of the Carolina ducks on the water in St. James’s Park. Another part of this complicated piece of linen, which is not plaited, covers the forehead like a frontlet, almost close down to the eyebrows, so that at a distance they looked just like so many nuns. Nevertheless, they were the married women of the audience. The spinsters’ head-dress was more simple. They wore no cap at all. The back hair, which is braided in two bands or tails with an intermixture of red tape, is brought forward on either side of the head and round the temples just on a level with the front hair. For my part, I much admired the clean and classic cut which some of their heads exhibited in consequence. Most of the females wore tight-fitting scarlet bodices edged with green.
On either side of their bosom were six silverhooks, to hold a cross chain of the same metal. The snow-white sleeves of the chemise formed a conspicuous feature in the sparkling parterre. One woman wore a different cap from the rest: its upper part was shaped just like a glory, or nimbus; this is done by inserting within a light piece of wood of that shape. Her ornaments, too, were not plain silver, but gilt. She was from Strandebarm, which I passed yesterday on the Fjord, the scene of a celebrated national song—“Bonde i Bryllups Gaarden.”
Much psalm-singing prevailed out of Bishop Kingo, of Funen’s, psalm-book. The priest then read the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, with the traditional, I suppose, but what sounded to me very frightful, intonation. The sermon was not extempore.
“He is a tolerable preacher,” said a peasant, with quite the “Habitans in sicco” tone of criticism, “but it is out of a book, and not out of his hoved (head), like priest So-and-so, on the other side of the Fjord.”
Very small and very red babies, not many hoursold,[32]I believe—such is the almost superstitious eagerness with which these good folk rush to have that sacred rite administered—were now brought to be christened. No font was visible; there was, however, an angel suspended by a cord from the roof, with deep, flesh-coloured legs and arms, and a gilt robe. In its right hand was a bowl, in its left a book. The glocker, or clerk, a little man in a blue sailor’s jacket, here dispatched a girl for some water, which was brought, and poured into the bowl, and the ceremony proceeded; which being concluded, the angel was pulled up again midway to the ceiling.[33]
The priest then examined some young men and women, who stood on either side of the aisle, he walking up and down in the intervals of the questions.
As we left the church a characteristic sight presented itself. The churchyard was just the spot in which one would like to be buried—a beautiful freshly-mown sward, sloping down to the sea, and intersected by a couple of brooks brawling down from the hills, extended upwards to the copse of hazel, aspen, ash, and rowan trees that fringed the heights. Under some of these trees sat two or three maidens, looking as stiff as Norwegian peasant girlsonly can, when busked in their best, and before a crowd of people. Nor was a view of the placid fjord wanting. Look, some of the church-goers are already in their boats, the red bodices and white sleeves conspicuous from afar, while the dripping oars flash in the sun.
Before I took leave of my host and his agreeable family, I presented one of them, who was studying English, with a volume of Bulwer’s. The parting glass, of course, past round—a sacred institution, the Afskedsöl of the Sagas.
Up Steindalen—Thorsten Thormundson—Very near—Author’s guide gives him a piece of agreeable information—Crooked paths—Raune bottom—A great ant-hill—Author turns rainbow manufacturer—No one at home—The mill goblin helps author out of a dilemma—A tiny Husman—The dangers attending confirmation in Norway—The leper hospital at Bergen—A melancholy walk—Different forms of leprosy—The disease found to be hereditary—Terrible instances of its effects—Ethnological particulars respecting—The Bergen Museum—Delicate little monsters—Fairy pots—The best bookseller in Bergen—Character of the Danish language—Instance of Norwegian good-nature—New flames and old fiddles.
Up Steindalen—Thorsten Thormundson—Very near—Author’s guide gives him a piece of agreeable information—Crooked paths—Raune bottom—A great ant-hill—Author turns rainbow manufacturer—No one at home—The mill goblin helps author out of a dilemma—A tiny Husman—The dangers attending confirmation in Norway—The leper hospital at Bergen—A melancholy walk—Different forms of leprosy—The disease found to be hereditary—Terrible instances of its effects—Ethnological particulars respecting—The Bergen Museum—Delicate little monsters—Fairy pots—The best bookseller in Bergen—Character of the Danish language—Instance of Norwegian good-nature—New flames and old fiddles.
Passing the Östudfoss, I struck straight up Steindalen, purposing to pass a place called Teigen, and thence over to the Samnanger Fjord, on my road to Bergen. My hulking guide, Thorsten Thormundson, who, from his height, had been chosen as the front man of his regiment, was but a poor fellow notwithstanding. Havingstarted later than we ought, we did not reach our destination before dark; and as there was not the smallest vestige of a path through the morasses, we had nearly walked over a cliff into a lake before I was aware of our danger. Luckily, we at last found a cot, and a boy conducted us to our destination.
After an uncomfortable night in a miserable hole of a cottage, I received the agreeable intelligence from my attendant, that he did not know the way any further, and wished to leave me. I informed him that he was quite welcome to do so, but if he did, he must go minus all pay. Upon this, the giant put on a very martial air, but seeing that I was not to be bullied, he prepared for the journey, employing a little maiden to show the way.
It was lucky for us that he did so, for the road was intricate beyond description. The old St. Giles’s rookery may serve as a comparison, for want of a better one. Being ahead, I was marching straight forward, when I was recalled by the shrill voice of the bare-footed lassie.
“On there,” she said, “was a precipice, overwhich Brat-foss poured. There was not foot-hold for a goat that way. We must try and get through the bog to the left, and so round by Raune bottom.”
It was a bottom indeed—cliffs all round, with a treacherous swamp and streams flowing all manner of ways; and then came another descent, the girl leading the pony, and the man pulling hard at its tail by way of drag.
The progress was so slow that I sat down, from time to time, to look about me. In one place I found I was close upon a great ant-hill, a yard high, from whence I perceived a regular line was formed to a neighbouring pine-tree. Up the bole of this a number of these industrious insects were ascending and descending with most exemplary perseverance; though I could not see that, either going or returning, they went otherwise than empty away. I tapped the tree with my stick, when in the twinkling of an eye the ascending and descending squadrons put themselves in a posture of defence; that is to say, each of them threw itself on its back, with its head reared up, and itstail protruded. In a moment or two, when all was quiet, they, as if by signal, unfixed their bayonets, and recommenced their march.
In another part of our round-about walk I sat down by a stream side, and began making rainbows—yes, rainbows. The sun shone straight up the valley, and the wind was blowing in the same direction. I threw a stone into the clear torrent right among some watching trout, and from the spot where it struck an iris immediately threw out its tricoloured arch athwart the stream, slowly disappearing as the spray, upheld for a second or two by the wind, again subsided on the water.
If my friend the Irishman was to find a pot of gold for getting hold of the rainbow, what luck was in store for me who had actually made one? But the augury was a treacherous one, as we shall see.
Following the stream, which abounded in most captivating looking holes, to my piscatorial eye, we at length reach the farm of Tyssen, whence a beautiful view is obtained across the head of the Samnanger Fjord, with the church of Samnanger lyingunder the mountains at the further side. As bad luck would have it, not a soul was at home. The only biped I saw was a statuesque heron standing on a stone by the boat-house. What was to be done? It was my object to obtain a boat here and sail down the Fjord to Hatvigen, where I should be on the great coast road, and not many miles from Bergen.
In this dilemma I descried a little man emerge from the quern, or corn-mill, which stood at the bottom of the stream, near some salmon traps. Perhaps he was only the mill-goblin, but at any rate I would hail him. He took no notice. It must be the Quern knurre. But perhaps the noise of the stream rushing over the rocks into the Fjord drowned my voice, and prevented it being heard; so I and the loutish Thorsten clubbed lungs, when the figure looked round, and immediately walked away. Mr. Thorsten Thormundson wished to be off and leave me to my fate; but I positively forbid him to move until we had discovered some means of conveyance. Presently the small figure reappeared, accompanied by a female figure. Wehailed again, and this time the mannikin walked to a boat and came across to us. He was a poor peasant from the mountains, who had been buying a sack of corn for four dollars three marks, which would serve him and three mouths till “Michelsmass,” and he and his wife had come hither to grind it. The grinding must be finished, and the meal carried up to his distant home before night. Nevertheless he would row me, he said, half a Norwegian mile, where he thought I might get another boatman.
When we had rowed some distance we descry some people making hay on the lea.
“Would they row me?”
“Had no time. But they had a husman in a cottage hard by, who perhaps could do it.”
My man landed, and went in search of the said husman. A tiny little man in rags, much smaller than the mill-goblin, with a very tiny voice, and a still more tiny boy, appear and undertake the job, provided I give him time to have some mad (meat) first. Although the boat was very leaky, and though at one place we encountered a good deal ofswell from the effects of a gale out at sea, we manage by night-fall to reach Hatvigen.
On the road we meet a boat full of boys and girls, who have been several miles to be examined by the clergyman for confirmation. We little know the hardships to which these people are subject. Only a few days ago, a boat similarly laden, and on a similar errand, was upset by a sudden squall, and about a dozen unfortunate young people drowned.
Nothing particular caught my eye next day, as I drove along the coast to Bergen, beyond the new telegraphic line which is just completing to Bergen. Some of the posts are the growing pine-trees, which happen to stand ready fixed for the purpose. Another telegraphic cable is making for a part of the coast to advertize people of the approach of the herrings. This will be the future sea-serpent of the country.
I was not sorry to sleep that night under the roof of Madame Sontum at Bergen. Next day, under the auspices of a German physician, I visit the Leper Hospital on the hill above the town.It is a magnificent building of wood, lately constructed by the State, at an expense of sixty thousand dollars, and kept up from the same source, private donations being unusual. Three years ago the old hospital was burned down at dead of night, and eight unfortunates were consumed. The present spacious building can accommodate two hundred and eighty patients; at present there are only one hundred and eighty inmates. In the Jörgen Spital there are one hundred and thirty, and a few in another hospital in the town. This disease is generally supposed to be incurable. About twenty-five per cent. die in the course of the year. The chaplain, a burley, good-looking man, was in his canonicals, and about to bury a recently deceased patient on our arrival; he descanted on the horrors of the place.
With these I became personally acquainted on the arrival of Dr. L——, the physician of the establishment.
“Now, gentlemen, if you please,” said that functionary, putting on a blouse of black serge; “but I warn you it is a terrible sight.”
Well, thought I to myself, I will go notwithstanding. The best antidote to the imaginary ills of this life, is to become acquainted with the real ones.
Walking along the spacious corridors, we first entered a room devoted to male cases. Here, as in all the other rooms, there were six beds. I conversed with one man. This case was not yet at a bad stage. He had suffered much hardship in his youth as a seaman, was often wet, and badly fed withal. By dint of industry, he became owner of a jagt, and he said he hoped to get out again and be well enough to take the command of it.
Another man in a bed close by was affected with the smooth leprosy. He attributed it to his having slept in the same bed with a man affected with the disease. He was worn to the bone, and his face and body were blotched and copper-coloured. But before pursuing our melancholy walk, I will just glance at a small tract which has been published by the Government in respect to this foul and mysterious disease, which, after having been driven out of the other countries of Europe, stillholds its ground on the sea-coast of Norway, especially from Stavanger northwards.
There are two sorts of leprosy, which are so very dissimilar in their outward symptoms, that one would hardly imagine that they are the same disease; the one is called the knotted leprosy, the other the smooth leprosy. The first indications of the poison being in the system are lassitude and stiffness in the limbs. The body feels unusually heavy and disinclined to exertion. Sharp pains rack the frame, especially when it is warm, or on the eve of a change of weather. Cold shudderings also supervene, succeeded presently by fever; together with pains in the head, thirst and loss of appetite. All this is accompanied by general listlessness and depression of spirits. Another symptom is a strong inclination to sleep, though sleep brings no refreshment to the limbs.
In knotted leprosy, red spots and sores break out upon the body, especially on the face, which becomes much swollen. These are not accompanied with pain, and often disappear again; but with a new attack of fever they re-appear, andat last become permanent. They now grow larger and larger—some of the knots attain the size of a hazel nut—and are generally of a yellow-brown colour, with occasionally a tint of blue. They are most frequent on the arms, hands, and face, but most of all about the eyebrows, which fall off in consequence. After a period of time—which is shorter or longer as the case may be—pain is felt in these knots, and they then either turn into regular sores, or become covered with a brown crust. The eyes, mouth, and throat are next attacked, and the eye-sight, breathing and swallowing are affected.
In smooth leprosy, the symptoms are large blisters and white spots, together with great pain and tenderness in various parts of the body. These vesicles are from the bigness of a hazel-nut to that of a hen’s egg, and are filled with a watery fluid. They are situated about the elbows and knees, occasionally under the sole of the foot, and elsewhere, and soon burst. The spots, which in the smooth leprosy occur on the body, are not brown, as in the knotted leprosy, but white, and ofa larger size, sometimes being as big as a man’s hand; they are covered with white scales. The pain and tenderness which occur in this kind of leprosy gradually disappear, and are followed by utter absence of feeling. At this stage fire or the knife can be applied to the parts diseased without the patient feeling it in the least. A large portion of the body can be thus affected. The patient now begins to get thin, his skin is dry, and his countenance distorted. He can’t shut his eyes, and he is not able to bring his lips together, so as to cover the teeth; besides this, the toes and fingers become contracted and rot off.
Curiously enough symptoms of both these horrible phases of a most loathsome disorder occur in one and the same person; in that case the knotted leprosy occurs first, and the knots gradually vanishing, the smooth leprosy supervenes.
This frightful malady has been ascertained to be hereditary, that is to say, it can be transmitted by either parent to their offspring. At first the children seem to be quite healthy, but they conceal within their system the hidden germs of thecomplaint, which may at any time break out. Sometimes such children never do betray the presence of the poison, certain defective sanitary conditions being necessary for its development. But, notwithstanding, the disease may come out in the third generation. The most favourable circumstances for its development are an irregular way of life, defective clothing, bad lodging or diet, want of personal cleanliness, and mental anxiety. Under such circumstances, persons who have no hereditary tinge may take the complaint. It is not contagious in the strict sense of the word, but experience seems to show that persons who live in intercourse with leprous persons are very prone to become so themselves. A remarkable illustration of this occurred in Nord-Fjord. The owners of a gaard took the leprosy, and died. The farm was inherited by another family, who became infected with the disease, and died of it. A third family, who succeeded to the dwelling, also perished of the malady. On this, the owner of the house burnt it down.
The Government authorities finally recommend, as a means of getting rid of this dreadful disease,personal and household cleanliness, proper apparel and lodging, wholesome diet (especially abstinence from half-rotten fish), moderation, particularly in the consumption of spirituous liquors; and, above all, they deprecate intermarriage among those so affected. The present number of lepers in Norway is two thousand and fifty odd, or about one in every seven thousand.
But to proceed with our walk through the hospital. In another ward set apart for males, I addressed a lump of what did not look like humanity, and asked how old he was. The answer was sixteen. He looked sixty. His voice—oh heavens! to think that the human voice divine could have become degraded to that hoarse grating, snuffling sound, the dry husk of what it ought to be!
Close by this case was a man whose face was swollen immensely, and over the brows huge knots and folds of a dark tint congregated together. His face looked more like a knotted clump in the bole of a tree than a human countenance. Sitting on a bed in another room was a boy whose face wasliterally eaten through and through, and honeycombed as if by malignant cancer. Nobody can witness all this without realizing to himself more completely the power of Him who could cure it with a mere touch.
Crossing the passage, I saw a nice, pretty little girl playing about.
“She is all right at present,” said the doctor, “but both her sisters showed it at her age, and her parents died of it. She is here to be taken care of.”
On the women’s side, one of the first cases that caught my attention was an old woman with the septum of the nose gone, and groaning with intense agony. Near her was a woman whose toes and fingers had disappeared, and for the present the complaint was quiescent. Indeed, one of the not least frightful symptoms of the disease is, that after a toe or finger is gone the sore heals up, but suddenly breaks out afresh higher up the limb. Unlike a person in an adjoining bed, who shrieked out for fear she should be touched—so sensitive was her flesh—this poor thing had lost all senseof feeling. When I touched her, at the doctor’s request, she could feel nothing.
One blue-eyed girl, with a fair skin and well combed hair, looked well in the face, but the doctor said her body was in a terrible state.
As I walked round the room, I observed another young woman, stretched on a bed in the corner, with dark luxuriant hair—very un-Norwegian in tint—and with peculiarly bright flashing eyes, with which she gazed at me steadfastly.
“Come hither,” said the doctor to me; “shut your eyes, Bergita.”
The poor thing gave a faint smile, and slightly moved her lids; but this was all. She will never shut those eyes again, perhaps, not even in death.
In another bed was a woman with her teeth uncovered and lips apart.
“Now, mother, try and shut your lips.”
A tremulous movement of the lower jaw followed, but the muscles would not work; the disease had destroyed the hinges, and there she lay, mouth open, a spectacle of horror.
In some cases—indeed, very many—when thedisease has seriously set in, it throws a white film over the iris of the eye, the pupil becomes contracted, the ball loses its colour, becomes a whitish mass, and gradually rots out of the socket. Each patient had a religious book by his side, and some sat on the bed or by it reading. They all seemed unrepining at their lot. One poor woman wept tears of gladness when I addressed a word or two of consolation to her. Indeed, the amount of pain felt by these poor sufferers is very small in comparison with what might have been expected from the marks of the fell talons imprinted on their frames. The doctor said they were chiefly carried off at last by hectic fever. Scurvy ointment is used in many cases, frequent cupping in others. One poor woman, with a leg like an elephant’s, so deformed and shapeless was it, declined amputation. And there she will go on, the excessive sensitiveness to pain succeeded by an utter anæsthetic state, and one extremity rotting off after another, till she is left a mere blotched trunk, unless a merciful death relieve her before.
One poor woman had been afflicted for no lessthan fifty years; her parents, if I remember rightly, were free from the malady, but her grandfather and grandmother had suffered from it. But we have seen enough of this melancholy place. It is a satisfaction to know that, at all events, although the disease cannot be cured by medicine or any other remedy, yet as much is done as possible to alleviate its miseries. The surgeon and chaplain are daily in attendance; abundance of active young women—not old gin-drinking harridans—discharge the office of nurses. The diet is much better than these people would obtain at home. I examined the spacious kitchens, and learned that meat is served thrice a-week to the patients, not to mention soups, puddings, &c. It has been asserted that the disease has lately been on the increase in Norway, but this statement is based most likely on insufficient data.
In the rest of Europe, Scotland especially, to judge from all accounts, it was at one time as bad as it is now in this country. Neither was it confined to the lower classes. Robert Bruce died of it. But as it is now almost, if not altogether,exterminated in Scotland, there seems no reason why, if the advice of the Government above-mentioned is followed, it should not also die out in Scandinavia. In other respects, the population is healthy and strong, and not affected by goître or any of the usual mountain complaints.
We now took leave of the doctor; my friend, the German physician, who was specially interested in the effect produced on the sight by the disease, appointed the next day for a microscopic examination of some of the patients’ eyes in early stages of the disorder. It may be as well to state that Professor Danielson has published a work illustrating by plates the progress of the disorder. Inoculation is also about to be tried as a method of cure, it having been used with success in this country in another disease, many symptoms of which, to a non-professional observer at least, are identical in appearance with those above described.
“Farewell!” said the doctor; “I have shown you a sad spectacle. I am sorry I can’t converse with you in your own language. But the next generation will all speak English. It has just beenproposed in the Storthing that, in the middle schools, less Latin shall be taught, and English made a necessary branch of education.”
Before leaving Bergen I visited the museum, under the auspices of the very obliging curator, Dr. Korn.
Here is a specimen of a new kind of starfish (Beryx Borealis), discovered by Asbjörnsen. The only habitat yet known of this animal is the Sörfjord. The Glesner Regalicus was also here. It is found in very deep water, and so rarely that, in three hundred years, only two or three specimens had been met with.
Some embryo whales of different degrees of maturity were also preserved in spirits; specimens of these delicate little monsters are not, I believe, to be found in any other museum of Europe. The Strix Funerea, or Hawk Owl, such as I shot in the Malanger, with its beautiful black and white plumage, was also to be seen. Especially beautiful was the Anas Stellaris from beyond the North Cape.
The usual assortment of old Runic calendarsand other mementoes of ancient days were not wanting: not to mention one of those enigmatical Jette gryde (fairy pots) with which the vulgar have connected all sorts of stories. It is composed of two parts, a mortar-shaped cavity in stone, and in this a loose, round cannon-ball sort, also of stone. Here were evidently cause and effect. A loose stone happening to be brought by the stream into a depression in the rocky bed of the torrent, by the action of water becomes itself round, after the manner of a marble, and makes its resting-place round too. The countenances of people who live continually together are often observed to become like. In the same way the perforated and rounded stones which are formed by trituration in the channels of the brooks on the Scottish borders are still termed, says Scott, by the vulgar, fairy cups and dishes.
Before leaving Bergen, I must not omit to record an incident which really speaks much for the good-nature of these people.
“Will you tell me, sir,” said I, accosting a jolly, bearded gentleman, in the street, “which is the best bookseller in Bergen?”
“Certainly, sir; come this way, I will show you.”
We entered the shop of the bookseller, whose snuffling, sobbing method of talk convinced me at once that he was a Dane. The language is a nerveless, flabby sing-song, gasped out with bated breath. The Norwegian speaks out like a man, and with a pith and marrow in his pronunciation worthy of the rugged power with which one always associates in idea the name of Norway.
The pale bibliopole, after carefully shutting the door, which I had purposely left open—so close and oppressive was the atmosphere of the unventilated shop—fumbled about for a little time, and then discovered that the book I wanted was out of print.
“Oh! never mind,” said the stranger, “I have got a copy, which is very much at your service.”
And in spite of my protestations, this amiable gentleman, whom I afterwards discovered to be Professor C——, an author of some repute, conducted me to his house, placed refreshments beforeme, and compelled me to take the book, the cost of which was considerable. Indeed, all books in Norway are very dear, which may account for the fewness of readers.
Two matters of considerable importance stirred Bergen to its innermost core while I was there. What do you think they were, reader? Gas has been introduced, and to-night is the first night of lighting it. What a number of people are moving about to see it, as we go on board the steamerJupiter, bound for Hamburg. The other incident was productive of no less ferment. Ole Bull, the prince of fiddlers, the Amphion of the American wilds, sick apparently of combining the office of leader of a colony, and musician-in-chief to the new community, has just returned to this, his native place, and is about to give a concert, to inaugurate his assumption of his new office of director of the Bergen Theatre.