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