BY RAIL TO CHRISTIANIA--FARE ON THE ROAD--NORWAY’S CAPITAL--THE
VIKING-SHIP--AN INLAND TOUR.
“Twenty minutes for dinner!” supper, or breakfast, as the case may
be. The conductor on the Swedish or Norwegian railways announces this
important fact to English-speaking travelers in the sign-language.
He spreads out all his fingers and thumbs twice. It speaks volumes
to the hungry man. He jumps from the train to the platform of the
pretty little station. He enters a room where he finds the feast
all spread, but no waiters. Behind a desk in a corner sits a woman
calmly knitting. Her business is only to take the money. The guest’s
business is to help himself. It is fortunate for him if he has been
through the same ordeal before. For that mighty soup-tureen, with a
ladle in it, does not contain soup. It is full of delicious whipped
cream, destined for the strawberries or raspberries which form a mound
by its side. Another tureen, exactly matching it, is the one into
which he should first dip. He should go down deep and stir up the rich
sediment. With a pint of this soup at his disposal it matters less
what he eats afterward. He can have fish, two kinds of meat, various
side-dishes, pastry, cakes, bread, cheese and butter, tea, coffee,
and bottled ale, besides berries and cream (the latter in soup-plates
always) all at discretion. It rests with himself whether he will clear
the board. When he has satisfied his appetite, or eaten out his twenty
minutes, he hands the industrious woman at the desk one krone and a
half--about forty-two cents of American money. She barely looks up from
her work, sweeps the coins into the till, and resumes the clicking of
her needles with an expression of impatience. At first it seems as
if this “self-help” system were extremely liberal on the part of the
caterer. But after trying it a number of times I find that about half
of my twenty minutes is spent in choosing dishes, changing my plates,
knives, forks, and spoons, and these are never handy. It also occurs
to me that I am saving the establishment the expense of a waiter; and,
on the whole, I would prefer to pay a little more, and be helped by
somebody else. These meals, occurring at intervals of a few hours,
pleasantly break the monotony of the long rail-ride from Stockholm to
the Norwegian capital. The scenery is a succession of ponds--full of
lilies--birch-forests and hay-fields. After the first hundred miles of
it one cuddles into the corner of his seat and waits for the conductor
to make the invariable signs at him to rise and eat.
Approaching Christiania and looking from the car-window, I think
I see the British flag everywhere. It is the red and blue of
Norway--resembling at a distance the colors of England. Norway, though
under the same popular king as Sweden, has her own flag. Are those
London policemen at the station? They wear cloth helmets, have their
numbers in metal on their standing coat-collars, carry sheathed clubs,
and only dispel the illusion when they give mild orders in an unknown
tongue. They motion us to go into a room where custom-house officers
are in waiting. For reasons good unto themselves, but incomprehensible
to the traveler coming from Stockholm, the Norwegian authorities put
the baggage through a second inspection. For all I know, the good King
Oscar himself may be obliged to stand this sort of thing every time he
rides from one of his capitals to the other. Though the ceremony seemed
absurd and needless, I determined to spare the officials all possible
trouble. I unbuckled the straps, unlocked the trunks, opened them, took
out the top trays, folded my arms, and awaited developments--strong in
innocence. Great was my astonishment when the custom-house man looked
at me, but not at the trunks, and asked simply, “Clothes?” I nodded,
whereupon he stooped and leisurely replaced the trays, locked and
buckled up the trunks, and chalked them without another word. Before
one could even thank him, he had vanished.
As we rode through the streets to the hotel, the likeness of
Christiania to London was repeated in the yellowish fronts of the
two-story houses and the extreme cleanliness of the streets. What,
therefore, could be a better name for the principal hotel than
“Victoria”? It looks just like one of those great, rambling inns which
are the delight of Americans in the midland counties. It is a labyrinth
of halls, little passages, and stairs. On every landing-place is a
black or white bear or other wild beast artistically mounted. To come
upon one of these at dusk for the first time is startling. Elk-horns,
walrus-tusks, and every imaginable trophy of the chase, are displayed
in nooks and corners. We see at once that this free museum is intended
to please our English friends who come to Norway in the season to hunt
and take in Christiania on the way. We hope they find that all the game
has not already been shot and stuffed for the hotel.
At the royal palaces, both here and at Stockholm, visitors have a free
run of the family rooms. Among themselves, kings, queens, and princes
are just like other people. No well-to-do household among Oscar’s
subjects contains a larger collection of personal photographs and
little souvenirs of relatives and friends than may be seen at any one
of His Majesty’s homes. Only the cabinet-portraits, cheaply framed and
hung on the walls or stuck into card-racks, are those of the Emperor
William, or the Prince of Wales, or the King of Denmark, or some
other sovereign or prince with whom Sweden and Norway are on the best
of terms. Fans, pipes, snuff-boxes, and all sorts of _bric-à-brac_,
which have been presented at Christmas or other times, are displayed
on _étagères_ or under glass. I dare say that the pin-cushions,
antimacassars, and tidies one sees in the more private rooms, are the
gifts and the work of princesses, at the least. It would be hard if
royalty could not act like the commonalty once in a while and enjoy
things which are simple and cheap.
The King has artistic tastes with a strong patriotic bias. He prefers
Norwegian pictures for his Christiania palace. No others are to be seen
there. Some of them are crude, but all show originality, and there
are a few pieces which, by their truthfulness and vigor, would make a
sensation in any _salon_. In front of one of these people spontaneously
collect and stand in horror and wonder. It is an old-fashioned
sea-fight, not one of the modern scientific kind, where the combatants
are at long range and almost invisible to one another. The crafts
engaged are a Viking-ship and a vessel of some power with which the
ancient Norsemen were at war. The former stands high out of water at
bow and stern. The latter is more clumsily built--scow-shaped. The two
are in dead-lock, and the crew of one is boarding the other. Every man
on both sides is wielding an axe, pike, or short sword, and carries a
knife in his teeth. There is a desperate resistance, but the Viking
fellows are surely overmastering their enemies. The deck of the doomed
ship is red with blood, and so is the water all about, as the victims
of the terrible combat sink to their death. One lingers spell-bound
before this picture till a cough from the guide reminds him to move on.
Every one should see this remarkable painting before or after paying
a visit to the special wonder of Christiania. It is the fortune of
that city to own something which is unique in archæology. This is a
practically perfect specimen of the Viking-ships with which the fierce
sea-robbers of the North made their descents on the English and French
coasts eight hundred or a thousand years ago. It was recently dug out
of a burial-mound of blue clay, where it formed the sepulchre of the
chief who owned and commanded it. The surrounding earth had preserving
qualities; and so the wood-work of the ship, the iron bolts, part of
the iron anchor, some of the cordage, bits of the sail, spears, swords,
and shields were recovered in good order. The remains of the interred
hero had evidently been removed for some purpose in the distant past,
as there were traces of a hole through the mound and then through the
wooden tent-like inclosure where the body had been placed. The hull is
beautifully modeled--about seventy-two feet long, fifteen and a half
feet broad, and three and a half feet deep inside. There are holes for
thirty-two oars, many of which were found within the hull. They are of
various lengths from eighteen feet downward. The helm is attached by
a rope to the right side of the vessel near the stern-post. Pieces of
the single mast--which carried a square sail--are shown, but its height
is unknown. The general shape of the ship reminds one of a Venetian
gondola, than which nothing could be better designed for speed and
offensive qualities. The crew, from the elevated position, fore and
aft, could easily jump down to the vessels they were assailing; and
they could, by the same arrangement, more surely repel boarders. It
takes but little imagination to people this black, rakish hull with the
original pirates standing erect and prepared to leap on their prey,
and in their midst some fair-bearded giant whom they adored and would
follow to the death. Such a ship as this may have witnessed such scenes
of bloodshed as are depicted on that canvas in the King’s palace.
Fiords, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, snow-mountains, soft, rounded hills
alternating with low but savage precipices, cultivated and peaceful
valleys--these are characteristics of the scenery in Eastern Norway.
We desired to take an easy trip into the interior, admitting us to
the heart of the country, with the minimum sacrifice of comfort. The
problem was how to get a good miniature impression of the natural
features of this region in four days? Fortunately, there was (and
still is, I hope) a man in Christiania able to solve this problem to
the entire satisfaction of the anxious inquirer. His name is Bennett.
He cashes your drafts, he outlines your excursions, he furnishes you
with carriages, horses, and drivers, he sells you books, carved wood,
old Norwegian silver, and other curios; he is universal purveyor and
everybody’s friend. I went to Bennett and laid my wishes before him.
Would he be good enough to plan a little outing, say of four days,
warranted to afford some slight idea of picturesque Norway?
The worthy man listened to the request with as much apparent interest
as if I had been the first person who had ever asked him that familiar
question. Squaring off at a sheet of paper, he rapidly drew the
skeleton of a trip which was at once adopted on his recommendation.
Luckily, he had a carriage on hand, which was just the thing for the
bad weather then threatening. It was a stout four-wheeler, with a
high seat for the driver and a hood which came forward like that of
the old-fashioned chaise, and a thick leather apron for the further
protection of the inmates. There was a spare seat for the hand-bags and
shawls, and a roomy box in the rear for extra harness and a small trunk
if required. But we proposed to dispense with any luggage larger than a
valise. Everything that Bennett suggested I at once agreed to.
Presently he said, “Of course, you want a guide, to speak the language,
and save you trouble?”
“Never, Bennett, never!” said I, calmly but firmly. There is something
more unpleasant than the worst of rains in the idea of having a
man constantly perched before one, cutting off what little view
he might have, and showing him things he does not want to see. I
remembered bitterly some of my experiences in Switzerland and Russia,
and determined to abandon the trip rather than take along such an
incumbrance.
Bennett smiled sweetly, and shrugged his broad shoulders. “As you
please,” said he. “Perhaps you can manage to get along with a copious
phrase-book, giving the Norwegian and English in parallel columns, you
know. I have a fine pocket-edition cheap.”
“Never, Bennett, never!” I repeated. “I just happened to look into one
of those phrase-books this morning. The reader is told to consult the
rules for pronunciation of Norwegian words, and be sure to apply them
carefully; otherwise he would not be understood by the natives. I tried
it on the word _skyds_ (English, ‘posting’). May I drop dead if it
wasn’t pronounced _shoss_! No, Bennett, no! I will never have anything
to do with a language like that!”
He laughed pleasantly again, like one who is accustomed to dealing with
highly eccentric persons. “And pray, sir, what will you do?”
“Bennett,” said I, “have you, or could you get for me, two or perhaps
three pounds of the copper coins _öre_--pronounced _ouray_, I believe?”
“I have a barrel of ’em at your disposal.”
“But I want only enough to fill up my outside pockets. And could you
supply me with twenty or thirty notes of one krone each?”
“I understand,” said he, “and I am sure it will work. There is no
language like ready money, after all. But it is the last that most
people think of trying.”
It took but a few minutes to cash a draft on my bankers in London. I
received enough copper _öre_ packed in small _rouleaux_ to fill two
pockets, and stuffed my wallet with single paper kroner. Then I knew I
was prepared for any emergency arising from ignorance of the Norwegian
tongue. Besides these smaller resources, there was a due provision of
larger currency which can never come amiss.