THE CAMP.
_August 2._--The Skipper won the toss (he always does, chiefly because
the device on Norwegian coins is 'sorter indifferent like,' and when
Esau has called heads or tails, he looks at it carefully, and gravely
declares it to be the opposite), and was away eight hours wandering
about the mountains without seeing a living creature except two
buzzards, and hardly any 'spoor.' He returned to camp very tired and
rather cross, to find a delicious meal nearly ready cooked by Esau, for
the man whom we ironically call the cook has gone to fetch his horse,
for which we are to pay 1s. 2d. a day as long as we have it. The cook's
wages are to be 2s. 4d. a day, and those of the stalker 3s. 6d. We
consider the latter cheap at that rate. He is a very tall man; very big,
very heavy, and very bearded, and we hire the whole of him for the
trifling sum above stated.
Besides cooking the dinner, Esau had been employed in rigging up the
waggon-sheet as a continuation of the sleeping tent by planting an
upright pole securely in the ground in front of the door, and connecting
its top with the old tent by a birch tree ridge pole: it thus makes a
very convenient place for all our large stores, and gives us much more
room in the tent. We had expected the men to sleep in it, but they
prefer living in a wretched little stone dog-kennel, which looks as if
fleas would swarm in it, and has been built by drovers, or some other
dirty people, for their lodging when they chance to come here: it is
about 200 yards from our tent, and, as the men prefer it, it is very
convenient for us.
The ground that the Skipper tried to-day seemed a first-rate reindeer
fjeld; this means an uneven tract of mountain country, too high for
vegetation, except occasional reindeer flowers and patches of gentian,
but not high enough to be entirely covered with perpetual snow: this
fjeld--where it is not snow--is made of rocks large and small, from the
size of a haystack to that of road metal, some of them firm, but mostly
loose, jagged, and sharp; the winter snow and frost leave them in this
condition by continually splitting and re-splitting them: they are dark
grey in colour, and at a distance look almost black.
What the reindeer can find attractive in such a place, possibly some one
can tell; we cannot. There is apparently nothing for any beasts of the
field to eat up there; but if you do happen to find deer before they see
you, they are certain to be feeding, and Esau thinks they are eating the
rocks; but the Skipper says it cannot be so, and inclines more to the
theory that they feed on their 'young,' like tame rabbits, or possibly
on their own blood, like the pelican of the wilderness. As for the
reindeer flower, which is supposed to be their staff of life, it
averages about half a stalk to the square acre, but possibly it is
possessed of many highly nutritious qualities, and a little of it goes a
long way. Anyhow, they thrive on their food, whatever it may be; they
are always very fat, and uncommonly good to eat when you chance to slay
one.
After dinner we tried all this portion of the lake for fish without
success, and coming back received the awful intelligence from Öla that
there are no fish in any parts of Gjendin except the extreme ends, and
the waterfall where Professor N---- is living. This is a dreadful blow
to us, for we always count upon fishing as our main employment, and fish
as our staple food; and if we cannot get any here we shall have to
leave. At present we have some which we brought with us from Sjödals,
but when they are exhausted there will be a mutiny in this camp unless
sport of some kind presents itself.
_August 3._--A curious accident happened to-day; there was no rain. We
have in vain tried to account for this phenomenon, and can only fall
back on the somewhat unsatisfactory theory that it is all used up. Esau
went after deer on the Rus Vand side, and came back very tired to dinner
without having seen any, but reported fresh tracks; he was full of the
glorious view that the fine day had given him. He had been close above
the Memuru Glacier, which is a very large one, and stretching beyond it
as far as the eye can reach is a sea of snow mountains, most of them
peak-shaped, but some domes or irregular precipices with immense
glaciers lying between them, and here and there the greenish-blue waters
of a lake distantly gleaming in the sunlight.
It is curious to note how the north and east sides of every peak are
torn and ragged, with huge masses of rock riven from them by the action
of the weather, while on the south and west they are comparatively
regular.
The Skipper spent the day in camp, completing the erection of the
outside tent. Our abode is now sumptuous in the extreme, as the new wing
holds all the lumber which formerly blocked up our bedroom. There was
some discussion as to whether we should call it the 'Criterion Annexe,'
until we remembered that there are always policemen about that
celebrated building, and this decided us not to do so.
_August 4._--The Skipper went on to Bes Hö stalking. This is a high
mountain 7,400 feet above sea level. It is close to us, between Gjendin
and Rus Vand, and is one of the dome-shaped species.
The Norwegians call their mountains either 'Tind,' which means a cone,
or 'Hö,' a round top; 'Piggen,' a peak rather more jagged than a Tind;
'Horn,' apparently one steep side and one more gradual; and 'Kampen,'
apparently a rough hill with nothing striking about its shape. Most of
the mountains round here are Tinden, the finest being Memurutind,
Skagastolstind, and Glitretind, the last over 8,000 feet, only surpassed
in height by Galdopiggen, which, though in sight of us, is beyond our
reach.
[Illustration: The Skipper returns to Camp disgusted with life]
From Bes Hö the Skipper got a good view between the storms of Gjendin
lying encircled by its enormous steep black banks of snow-capped
mountains, the whole of its eleven miles of length being visible at
once. Its colour is a creamy greenish blue, caused by the snow-water
which comes straight into the lake by scores of torrents, which collect
it from the various glaciers. The Skipper, who is always bubbling over
with poetic similes, said it looked like a cupful of very blue milk in a
crease of brown paper; but, beautiful as this idea is, who can take any
pleasure in scenery without a little, ever so little, sport to flavour
it withal? Certainly not the Skipper; so he came back from his long
tramp disgusted with life, and longing to find that Esau had played the
fool in his absence, so that he might be able to pick a quarrel with
him. Unfortunately Esau was provokingly amiable, and had been performing
acts of virtue, such as making soup, improving the tent, and swearing at
the cook the whole day, so that the seething volcano of the Skipper's
temper had to content itself without an eruption. We did manage to get
up an approach to a row about the Memuru Glacier, which the Skipper had
visited to-day: he described its beauty and the extraordinary blue of
the ice, where the large crevasses near its lower end gave glimpses of
its real formation--for of course it is covered thickly with snow except
just where it begins to break up. Then he went on to say how curious it
was to think that this huge mass, covering square miles of ground, is
always moving onwards, and that no more powerful agent exists for
altering the arrangement of the earth's crust than that cold, placid
field of ice. Esau said it did _not_ move. He watched it for half an
hour yesterday and it never stirred, and he even pushed it with his
stick without the smallest effect.
It is impossible to argue with a man of that kind.
Tyndall and Geikie being disposed of, we had a discussion in the tent
over the map, with the result that we determined to leave the camp for
four days in charge of Ivar; and we and Öla would go to Gjendesheim, and
live there, and drink beer, and catch fish until the 8th, when we
calculated that John ought to arrive; and we hope by that time some
reindeer will have sought safety from other guns by flying to the
sheltering embrace of our fjeld.
We always do our baking just before bedtime, when the men have gone to
their hutch, and in a permanent camp it soon gets reduced to a
certainty. We prefer milk to water for mixing with the flour, as it
makes the bread crisper and shorter, and it does not matter how sour the
milk is. This is most providential, as we have generally plenty of sour
milk. We send twice a week to Besse Sæter, distant about eight miles,
and the long journey does not agree with the milk, so that it is
generally turned before it arrives here.
Another important article of food is soup, of which we have several
varieties. When made of scaup duck, it is--as already mentioned--called
Skoggaggany soup; but our present brew is 'gipsy soup,' which is made
from potatoes, fishes chopped into small lumps, a square of 'Kopf's
compressed vegetables'--a most invaluable article--and all the bones
from the birds that we happen to be using. We never empty the pot, but
keep adding water and bones as fast as we consume it, and it simmers by
the fire all day. But when times are very bad, and we have no meat, and
are living on fish, our soup is then called 'prairie soup,' and is
composed of every scrap that we can collect--fish-bones; bacon;
potatoes; milk; dandelion, and sorrel; bread, and biscuits: and whenever
it develops any unusual flavour, we look suspiciously round to see if
that boot-lace or candle-end is missing, or if any of the tent-pegs have
been newly whittled. It is always very good, and we call it 'prairie'
because of the dandelion, which is a prairie flower.
There is yet one more kind, known as 'Argonaut soup,' the recipe of
which was introduced from America by the Skipper; but our resources have
never yet been so low that we could not make something better than this.
_Recipe for Argonaut Soup._
Take a pail of water and wash it clean. Then boil it till it is brown on
both sides. Pour in one bean. When the bean begins to worry, prepare it
to simmer. If the soup will not simmer it is too rich, and you must pour
in more water. Dry the water with a towel before you put it in. The
drier the water, the sooner it will brown. Serve hot.