V.

Across the Sund to Sweden and Incidents of Travel to Kristiania.

KRISTIANIA, MISSION HOTEL,

PILESTRADIET 27 (ALFHEIM), _August 31, 1902_.

_Hilsen Fra Kristiania!_

Our ancient tavern, the Sleibot, in Elsinore, cared for us most

comfortably. We were given a large room looking out over the waters of

the _Sund_, with wide small-paned casemented windows, and a great

porcelain stove and giant wooden bedstead. For breakfast we had fresh

herring, the fish which will now form the chief diet of Helsinoere for

many a month, and more of the good Danish coffee. The bill for lodging

and breakfast was seven _kroner_ (about $1.90) for us two.

The dear old couple were on hand to see us off, and waved _farvel_ as

we boarded the immense ferryboat which takes on, if needful, an entire

train, but usually only the baggage cars, for through travel to

Swedish and Norwegian points. The boats are long and wide and strong,

and smash their way through the floes of drifting ice the winter

through, for this outlet of the Baltic is rarely frozen solid for any

length of time. The four-miles passage is made in twenty minutes,

and after we got under way, it was not long before even massive

Kronborg faded upon the view, and we were making fast to the pier at

Helsingborg, in Sweden.

[Illustration: KRONBORG.]

In England, owing to the smallness of the tunnels and the present cost

of enlarging them, the railway management is compelled to keep to the

ancient diminutive style of carriage first introduced sixty years ago.

But here, in these northern lands, where railway building is of more

recent date, although the gauge is the same as in Britain, the

carriages are half as large again, and are many of them almost as long

as our American cars, so that the riding in them is much easier than

there. And in Norway I have already seen cars which, except for being

shorter, were exactly like our own.

We traveled first along the sea, then through a flat country. There

were scores of sails upon the Kattegat, a multitude of ships and

barques and brigs, schooners and sloops, and small fishing smacks, and

larger fishing luggers going far out upon the North Sea. There were

also many black hulks in tow of big tugs carrying coal to the Baltic

cities, and steamers bound for English and German ports and even for

America. The waters were alive with the busy traffic.

We passed wide meadows and much grass land. Cows were feeding upon

these fields, red cows mostly, with herders to watch over them. The

cows were tethered each to a separate iron pin sunk in the ground,

all in a single row; and thus they eat their way across an entire

meadow,--an animated mowing machine. Now and then we returned to the

shore of the sea, passing some fishing village nestled along the

rocks, or we rolled through forests of small birches, pines and

spruce.

In the same compartment with ourselves sat a couple of young Germans.

They were much interested in each other. I noticed that the lady's

rings were most of them shining new, and one, a large plain gold ring,

was in look particularly recent and refulgent. H came to the same

conclusion also at about the very same moment. The two were surely a

bridal pair. And they talked German, and looked out across us through

the wide windows as though we were never there. So I spoke to my wife

in good United States, and we agreed that these two were newly wed.

And then the bride's noble face and fine brown eyes appealed to me,

and I declared her to be the loveliest woman I had yet seen this side

the sea. The while she and her _Mann_ still conversed in low, soft

German. But it now seemed to me that they looked out across us with a

kindlier feeling in their eyes and, in a surreptitious way, the German

beauty was peeping at the fine large diamond on H's left hand (the

wedding ring she had already succeeded in making look dull and old).

At Goteborg (Gothenburg) our train drew up for half an hour's wait.

Here that portion of it going to Stockholm would be cut loose from

our own, and another engine would take us to the north. Along with

most of the other passengers the young German and I also got out,

leaving the two ladies in the car. At the counter of the big lunch

room I watched the ever hungry Norsemen stowing away cold fish and

cheese, and was in somewhat of a dilemma what to take, when the German

husband of the lovely bride came up to me in a most friendly way, and

suggested that I would enjoy a certain sort of fish and thin brown

cake, which seemed to be one of the popular objects of attack by the

voracious multitude. And he spoke to me in perfect English of the

educated sort. He had evidently quite understood my flattering

comments upon his bride, and was now my fast friend. I did not show

surprise, but took his hint, and afterward we strolled up and down the

platform, munching our snack, while he told me that he was a

"barrister from Cologne." "Yes, on his wedding trip." He had "learned

English in the German schools," he said, and had "never been in

England or America." His wife, he admitted, "could not speak English,"

but "could read it and understand it when others talked!" He told me

of the German courts, and of his long years of study before he was

admitted to the bar. When they left us a few miles further on, for

their way lay up through the lakes and forests of Sweden, we parted as

old friends, and they promised to visit us if ever they should come

across the sea; our unsuspecting admiration had won their hearts!

[Illustration: KARL JOHANS GADE, KRISTIANIA.]

About 4 P. M., we dined at the small station of Ed, our first example

of Swedish railway dinner-serving on an elaborate scale. The train was

a long one. There were many passengers. The fish and cheese consumed

at Gothenburg was long since shaken down. We were genuinely hungry.

But when the train came to a stop there was no rush to the restaurant,

nor attempt of every man to get ahead of the one in front of him. The

passengers took their leisure to get out, and walked deliberately

toward the big eating room. The food was set upon a long central

table. There were hot soups, hot boiled fowl, hot meats, an abundance

of victuals, cold and salt. There were piles of plates, of napkins and

of knives and forks. Everyone helped himself, and ate standing or

carried his food to a little table and sat at ease. This latter plan

we followed. Rule: Eat all you will, drink as much beer as you desire,

take your own time, the train will wait, and when you are quite

satisfied pay a single _kroner_ (twenty-seven cents). There is no

watching to see how much you may consume. You eat your fill, you pay

the modest charge, you go your deliberate way. However slow you may be

the train will wait!

We now traversed a barren country of marshy flats; with skimp timber,

chiefly small birch and spruce. Toward dusk it was raining hard. The

long twilight had fairly begun when we crossed the Swedish border and

a few miles beyond stopped at Fredrikshald, where is a famous fortress

against the Swedes, besieging which, King Charles XII was killed.

Here a customs' officer walked rapidly through the car, asked a few

questions and passed us on. Our trunks had been marked "through" from

Helsinoere, so we had no care for them until we should arrive in

Kristiania. But that there should be still maintained a customs' line

between the sister kingdoms of Norway and Sweden, which are ruled by a

common King, may perhaps surprise the stranger unacquainted with the

peculiar and somewhat strained relations ever existing between these

kindred peoples.

[Illustration: VEGETABLE MARKET, KRISTIANIA.]

For many hundreds of years (since 1380) Norway had been a province of

Denmark. Her language and that of the Dane had grown to be almost the

same, the same when written and printed, and differing only when

pronounced. But in 1814, the selfish powers of the Holy Alliance

handed over Norway to the Swedish crown as punishment to Denmark for

being Napoleon's friend, and threatened to enforce their arbitrary act

by war. So Norway yielded to brute force, and accepted the sovereignty

of Napoleon's treacherous Marshal Bernadotte, the Swedish King, but

she yielded nothing more, and to this day has preserved and yet

jealously maintains her own independent Parliament, her own postal

system, her own separate currency and her Custom Houses along the

Swedish line. And you never hear a Norwegian speak of any other than

of the "King of Sweden." "He is not our King," they say, "we have

none." "We are ruled by the King of Sweden, but Norway has no King."

Cunning Russia, it is said, cleverly spends many _rubles_ in order

that this independent spirit shall be kept awake, and the war force of

Sweden thereby be so much weakened. Russia might even to this day be

able to nourish into war this ancient feud between the kindred breeds,

if it were not that in her greed of power she has shown the cloven

foot. The horror of her monstrous tyranny in Finland already finds

echo among the Norwegian mountains. "We are getting together," a

Norwegian said to me. "We have got to get together, however jealous we

may be of one another. We must, or else the Russian bear will hug us

to our death, even as now he is cracking the ribs of helpless

Finland." And when I suggested that little Denmark should be taken

within the pale, and a common Scandinavian Republic be revived in more

than ancient force to face the world, he declared that already a

movement toward this end was set afoot, and only needed a favorable

opportunity to become a living fact.

At 11 P. M. we arrived at Kristiania in a pouring rain, and at General

C's recommendation, came to this curious and comfortable hotel. Like

many other hotels in Norway, it is kept by women, and seems to be much

patronized by substantial Norwegians of the nicer sort. It is on the

top floor of a tall building, and you pass up and down in a rapid

modern elevator. It is kept as clean as a pin, and the beds we sleep

in are the softest, freshest in mattress and linen we have seen this

side the sea. We have also passed beyond the latitude of blankets

and are come to the zone of eider down. Coverlets, light, buoyant, and

delightfully warm now keep us from the cold, and in our narrow

bedsteads we sleep the slumber of contented innocence. We have a large

well-furnished chamber, all for two _kroner_ per day (fifty-four

cents). When we entered the long, light breakfast hall this morning,

we saw a single table running the length of the room, a white cloth

upon it, and ranged up and down, a multitude of cheeses big and

little, cow cheese and goat cheese, and many sorts of cold meat, beef

and pork and mutton, and cold fish and salt fish. And there were piles

of cold sliced bread and English "biscuits" (crackers). The coffee, or

milk if you wish it, is brought in, and in our case so are fresh

soft-boiled eggs. A group of evidently English folk near us had a

special pot of Dundee marmalade. The Norwegians take simply their

coffee or milk, with cheese and cold fish and the cold bread. Our

breakfast cost us twenty cents apiece.

[Illustration: KRISTIANIA, A VIEW OF THE CITY.]

To-day the city is washed delightfully clean, the heavy rain of the

night having cleared streets and atmosphere of every particle of dust

and grime. We have driven all about in an open victoria. It is a

splendid town, containing some two hundred thousand inhabitants. It

lies chiefly upon a sloping hillside with a deep harbor at its feet.

Like Copenhagen, it is the capital of its country, and the seat of the

Norwegian Government, of the Supreme Law Courts, and of the Storthing

or National Congress or Parliament. At the end of the wide Karl

Johans Gade stands the "Palace of the Swedish King," a sombre edifice,

now rarely occupied. Kristiania is also the literary and art center of

the Norse people. Here Ibsen lives, here Bjoernstjoerne Bjoernsen

would live, if Swedish intolerance did not drive him into France. The

types of men and women we see upon the streets are the finest we have

met since coming over sea. Tall and well-built, light-haired and

blue-eyed, the men carry themselves with great dignity. The women are,

many of them, tall, their backs straight, not the curved English spine

and stooping shoulders. All have good chins, alert and initiative. The

Norwegians are the pick of the Scandinavian peoples. They are the sons

and daughters of the old Viking breeds which led the race. They are

to-day giving our northwestern states a population able, fearless and

progressive, no finer immigration coming to our shores. Senators and

Governors of their stock are already making distinguished mark in

American affairs.

It was not long before we perceived that in Kristiania, as in

Copenhagen, we were also very close to the great Republic; except

that, perhaps, here we discovered a keener sympathy with American

feeling, a closer touch with the American spirit.

Those Norwegians whom we have met speak good United States, not modern

English. You hear none of the English sing-song flutter of the voice,

none of its suppression of the full-sounded consonant, but the

even, clear, precise accent and intonation of the well-taught

American mouth. And our friends tell us that it is much easier for

them to learn to speak the American tongue than to master the often

extraordinary inflexion of spoken English as pronounced in Britain. I

am gaining a great respect for these Scandinavian and Norwegian

peoples. They are among the finest of the races of the European world.

[Illustration: OUR NORWEGIAN TRAIN.]

We have driven not merely through the beautiful city and its parks,

and beheld the wide view to be had from the tower at its highest

point, but we have also visited the ancient Viking ship, many years

ago discovered and dug out of the sands along the sea, a measured

model of which was so boldly sailed across the Atlantic, and floated

on Lake Michigan, at Chicago, in 1892.

At this time, however, we are but birds of passage in Kristiania. We

may not linger to become more intimately acquainted with the noble

town; we are arranging for a ten days' journey by boat and carriage

through the _fjords_ and mountain valleys, and region of the mighty

snow-fields and glaciers of western Norway. We must now go on, and

postpone any intimate knowledge of the city until another day.

H is quite ready for this trip. She wears a corduroy shirt waist of

deep purple shade, and has brought with her one of those short,

simply-cut walking-skirts, of heavy cloth. A natty toque sets off her

head. She is fitly clad. And my eyes are not the only ones that note

this fact, as I observed to-day when, to avoid a shower, we sought

shelter under the pillared portico of the Storthing's fine edifice in

the central square. As we stood there, waiting for the rain to cease,

I noticed a small, fair-haired, quietly-dressed woman intently staring

at the skirt. Each hem and tuck and fold and crease and gore she

studied with the steadfast eye of the connoisseur. And so absorbed did

she become that she grew quite oblivious of our knowledge of her

interest. Around and around she circled, until at last we left her

still taking mental notes. Some other woman in Kristiania, we are

quite sure, will soon be wearing a duplicate of this well made costume

from New York.

[Illustration: ALONG THE ETNA ELV.]

[Illustration: HAILING OUR STEAMER, THE RAND FJORD.]