A Day Upon the Rand Fjord and Along the Etna Elv--To Frydenlund--Ole
Mon Our Driver.
FRYDENLUND, NORGE, _September 1, 1902_.
We left Kristiania about seven o'clock this morning and drove six
kilometers to Grefsen, a suburb where the new railway comes in, which
will ultimately connect the capital with Bergen on the west coast.
Grefsen is up on the hills back of the city. The cars of the train we
traveled in were long like our own and also set on trucks, the
compartments being commodious, like the one we rode in from
Helsingborg.
We traversed a country of spruce forests, rapid streams, small lakes
and green valleys; with red-roofed farmsteads, cattle, sheep and
horses in the meadows, and yellowing fields of oats and rye, just now
being reaped; where men were driving the machines and women raking the
fallen grain, all a beautiful, fertile, well-populated land with big
men, big women, rosy and well set up, usually yellow-haired and
blue-eyed.
About ten o'clock we arrived at Roikenvik, on the Rand Fjord, a sheet
of dark blue water about two miles wide and thirty or forty long, with
high, fir-clad mountains on either hand; with green slopes dotted
with farm buildings, and occasional hamlets where stopped our tiny
steamboat, the Oscar II. This _fjord_ is more beautiful than a
Scottish _loch_, for here the mountains are heavily timbered with fir
to their very summits, while the hills of Scotland are bare and bleak.
We sat contentedly upon the upper deck inhaling the keen, fresh air,
watching the picturesque panorama and noting the passengers crowded
upon the forward deck below. They were chiefly farmers getting on and
off, intelligent, self-respecting, well-appearing men, and full of
good humor. One old gentleman with snowy whiskers, who resembled an
ancient mariner, which I verily believe he was, seemed to hold the
center of attention and many and loud were the shouts which his quaint
jests brought forth. He evidently delivered a lecture upon my big
American valise, pointing to it and explaining its excellent make, and
his remarks were apparently to the credit of the owner, and of America
whence it came.
Just before the bell summoned us to dinner in the after cabin, I
noticed a skiff rowing toward us, one of the three men in it waving
his hat eagerly to our Captain, who immediately stopped the boat until
they drew beside us, when two of them, clean-cut, rosy-faced, young
six-footers, came up, hand over hand, on a rope which was lowered to
them. They were born sailors, like all Norwegians. I snapped my kodak
as their skiff drew near us, and the first news the Captain gave
them was to apprise them of that fact. They appeared to be greatly
flattered by the attention. They laughed and bowed and looked at me as
much as to say, "How much we should like a copy of the photograph, if
we knew enough English to ask for it," but they were too diffident to
make the suggestion through their Captain friend.
[Illustration: THE OLD SALT.]
With the Captain himself, I became well acquainted; an alert man of
affairs, who had knocked about the world on Norwegian ships and
visited the greater ports of the United States. He gave me an
interesting account of Norse feeling at the time of the outbreak of
the Spanish war, saying to me, "I am from Bergen. I am a sailor like
the rest of our people, and with about a thousand more of my fellow
countrymen I went over at that time to New York. I was boatswain on
the warship--and I served through the Spanish war. When we heard that
there was likely to be trouble and got a hint that you wanted seamen,
I gathered the men together and we went over and enlisted and others
followed. Yes, there were several thousands of us, altogether, on your
American warships, ready to give up our lives for the great Republic.
Next to Norway, your great, free country, where already live half of
the Norwegian race, lies closest to our hearts. We were ready to give
up our lives for the stars and stripes. When the war was over most of
us came back again. In the summer time I am captain of this boat, in
the winter seasons I go out upon the sea. If America ever needs us
again we are ready to help her. We Norwegians will fight for America
whenever she calls."
Then he spoke of Norway and the growing irritation of the Norwegian
people against the assumptions of Sweden. "It is true that the Swedes
are our kin, but we have never liked them. The Norwegians are
democrats. We have manhood suffrage, and each man is equal before the
law. In Sweden, there is a nobility who are privileged, and while the
Swedish people submit to the aristocrats running the Government over
there, we Norwegians will never permit them to run us. If it were not
for fear of Russia, we would fall apart, but the Russian bear is
hungry. If he dared he would eat us up. If it were not for England he
would devour Sweden now, and then there would be no hope for Norway.
The Russian Czar wants our harbors, our great _fjords_, as havens for
his fleets, and he would like to fill his ships with Norwegian seamen.
So we fret and growl at Sweden, but we can't afford really to have
trouble with her any more than she can afford to fall out with us. We
must stand together if we are to maintain our national independence,
but nevertheless, we are full of fear for the future. I am
apprehensive that the bear will some day satisfy his hunger. France
will hold down Germany, who just now claims to be our friend also.
England will be bought off by Russian promises in some other quarter
of the world, and then, we shall be at the mercy of the Czar. God help
us when that day comes! Those of us who can will fly to America, all
except those who die upon these mountains. The Russians may finally
take Norway, but it will then be a devastated and depeopled land.
America is our foster mother. Our young men go to her. We are always
ready to fight for her!"
[Illustration: OLE MON.]
As I looked into his strong blue eyes, which gazed straight at me, I
felt that the man meant everything he said, and was expressing not
alone his personal sentiment, but also the feeling of the sturdy,
seafaring people of whom he was so fit a type, and I wondered what the
Spaniard would have thought if he had known when he sent his fleets
across the sea--fleets deserted by the Scotch engineers who, in times
of peace, had kept their engines clean--that the United States could
call at need, not merely upon its own immense population, but might
equally rely upon the greatest seafaring folk of all the world to fill
her fighting ships.
After three and a half hours' sail--about thirty miles--we came to the
end of the _fjord_ at Odnaes, where was awaiting us a true Norwegian
carriage, a sort of _landau_ or _trille_ with two bob-maned Norwegian
ponies, in curious harness with collar and hames thrusting high above
the neck. We had dined on the boat; we had only a valise, a hand-bag
and our sea-rugs. We were soon in the carriage and began our first
day's drive, a journey of fifty-four kilometers (thirty-two miles),
before night.
Our driver was presented to us as "Ole Mon;" and the English-speaking
owner of the carriage informed us that Ole ("Olie") Mon spoke
fluently our tongue. He was a sturdily built, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed
man some forty years of age with a gray moustache and smooth,
weather-beaten face. He drove these tourists' carriages in summer, he
said; in the winter he took to the sea. We soon discovered his English
to be limited to a few simple phrases, while when he ran to the end of
his vocabulary he never hesitated to put in a fit Norwegian word. He
was proud of his acquaintance with the foreign tongue, and delighted
to exercise his knowledge of it. His chief concern in life was to take
care of the ponies. He continually talked to them as though they were
his boys, and at any excuse for a stop, always had nosebags filled
with oat meal ready to slip on and give them a lunch. The ponies are
not over eight or ten hands high, but are powerfully muscled, and they
are as sleek and tame as kittens. We believe that we have a treasure
in Ole Mon, and I expect to learn much from him about the country we
traverse, for he is glib to talk.
The road was superb, the scenery magnificent. We followed a deep
fertile valley, along a roaring river, the Etna Elv--recent rains
having filled the streams brim full--with high fir-clad mountains
rising sheer on either hand. We climbed gradually for quite twenty
miles, meeting and passing many curious two-wheeled carts, drawn by a
single horse, called _stolkjaerres_, in which the driver sits behind
the passenger, and about four o'clock we halted at Tomlevolden, a
rambling farmstead where Ole Mon put the nosebags on the ponies and
we rested until the bags were emptied.
Here, we visited a dairy cow barn,--a large airy building finished in
planed lumber, with long rows of stalls where the cows face each
other, standing on raised floors and with a wide middle aisle where
the feeders pass down between. So scrupulously clean was it that each
day it must be washed out and scrubbed. In one end stood a big stone
furnace, a sort of oven, to keep the cattle warm through the dark cold
winter time, and fresh spring water was piped to a little trough set
at each stall.
Some years ago, having spent the night at a West Virginia mountain
farm, in middle winter, I looked out of the window in the morning and
beheld the family cow with about a foot of snow piled on her back and
belly-deep in an icy drift. I remarked, "It has snowed some in the
night." Mine host replied that "he reckoned it had." And then talking
of the snow, I told him that I had seen snow eight feet deep way up in
Canada. He looked at me incredulously and inquired, "Say, what mought
the cows do in such snow as that." Would that I might show him and his
like this Norwegian cow barn!
Then we went on till 7 P. M., when we reached the famous Sanatorium of
Tonsaasen, almost at the summit of the long grade, a spacious wooden
hotel overlooking a profound _dal_, down which plunges a cascade.
The hotel is kept by a big, bustling woman who speaks perfect cockney
English, and who tells us she has "lived in Lonnon, although a native
Norwegian." She wears a large white apron and a white lace cap, and
she has received H in most motherly fashion. Indeed, our coming has
greatly piqued her curiosity. She has asked us many questions and has
taken H aside and inquired confidentially whether I am not a deserting
soldier, and whether she is not eloping with me! She is evidently
alert for military scandal, and was sorely disappointed and half
incredulous when H declared that she and I were really man and wife.
The truth is, Norway is become the retreat for so many runaway
couples, recreant husbands and truant wives, that the good people of
these caravansaries are quite ready to add you to the list of shady
episodes. Even when I boldly wrote several postal cards to America and
handed them to mine hostess to mail, I felt sure that after she had
carefully read them she would scarcely yet believe our tale.
Here we were given a bounteous supper of eggs, coffee, milk, cream,
chicken, hare, trout, five sorts of cheese, and big hot rolls, and all
for thirty-five cents each. The ponies were also fed again, and at
eight o'clock we moved on twelve miles further, crossing the divide
and rolling down into the valley of the Baegna Elv in the long
twilight, and then brilliant starlight, coming at last to a typical
Norwegian inn, at Frydenlund, not far from the lovely Aurdals Vand.
This is the main road in winter between Bergen and Kristiania, and is
then more traveled by sleighs and sledges than even now by carriages.
All along the way there are frequent inns and post-houses.
To-morrow we start at eight o'clock, and go on sixty-one miles more.
[Illustration: FEEDING THE PONIES, TOMLEVOLDEN.]
[Illustration: CHURCH OF VESTRE SLIDRE.]
Our inn is a roomy farmhouse where "entertainment is kept," even as it
used to be along the stage-traversed turnpikes of old Virginia, and
adjoining it are extensive barns and stables. There seemed to be many
travelers staying the night. We are really at an important point, for
here two state highways separate, the one over which we have come
leading to Odnaes, and the other diverging southward toward Lake
Spirillen and the country known as the Valders, continuing on straight
through to Kristiania. The house is painted white, and has about it an
air quite like a farmstead in New England or New York. We were
expected when we arrived. Word of our coming had been telephoned from
Tonsaasen, and also from Kristiania. A large bedroom on the second
story is given us. The floor is painted yellow and strips of rag
carpet are laid beside the narrow bedsteads, where we sleep under
eider down. I am writing by the light of a home-made candle. It is
late, the silence of the night is unbroken save by the ticking of the
tall clock on the staircase landing outside my door, and the
occasional neighing of a horse or lowing of a cow. It is the silence
of the contented country-side.