A Day Upon the Sogne Fjord.
STALHEIM HOTEL, NORWAY, _September 4, 1902_.
To-day we have spent mostly on the water. We left Laerdalsoeren--the
mouth of the valley of the river Laera--by ship, a tiny ship,
deep-hulled and built to brave the fiercest gales, a boat of eighty to
one hundred tons. Casting off from the little pier at eight o'clock,
we were upon the waters of the majestic Sogne Fjord until after 3 P. M.
This great _fjord_ is the first body of water that I have seen
which to my mind is really a _fjord_, the others along the shores of
which we have journeyed for the past three days, including the last
and least, the Smidal and the Bruce _Fjords_, were only mountain
tarns, what in Norse speech is termed a "_Vand_." While I had read
much of _fjords_, never till to-day have I comprehended their
marvelous grandeur, the overwhelming magnitude of the earth's
convulsions which eons ago cracked open their tremendous depths and
heights. Although their bottoms lie deeper than the bottom of the sea,
(4,000 feet deep in some places), so the Captain tells me, yet up out
of these profound waters rise the gigantic mountains (_fjeld_) five
and six thousand feet into the blue sky, straight up as it were, with
hundreds of cascades and foaming waterfalls, sometimes the tempestuous
tides of veritable rivers, leaping down the black rocks and splashing
into space, and everywhere above them all are the snow-fields, the
eternal snow-fields.
Sometimes when the precipices are sheltered and sun-warmed, their
surface is green with mosses and banded with yellow gorse, and with
white and pink and purple heather, and barred with scarlet and gray
lichens. The waters were so deep, the precipices so sheer that often
our ship sailed not more than twenty or thirty feet distant from them;
the misty spray of the streams dissolving into impalpable dust
hundreds of feet above us, dampening us like rain, or windblown,
flying away in clouds of vaporous smoke.
Here and there along the more open parts of the _fjord_ were bits of
green slope with snug farmsteads, a fishing boat swinging to a tiny
pier or tied to the very house itself. Sometimes, perched on a rocky
shelf, grass-grown and high-up a thousand feet, we would discern a
clinging cabin, and once we espied a grazing cow that seemed to be
hanging in mid air. No patch of land lay anywhere about that was not
dwelt upon, tilled or grazed by some man or beast. The climate of
western Norway is mild and humid, tempered as it is by the Gulf
Stream. These coasts have always been well peopled, sea and soil
yielding abundant living to the hardy Norsk. The _fjords_ are the
public highways and upon their icefree waters vigorous little
steamships ply back and forth busied with incessant traffic through
all the year. Our course led us up many winding arms and watery lanes
to cozy hamlets nestled at the mouth of some verdant _dal_, where we
would lie-to a few minutes to put off and take on passengers and
freight. We also carried the mails. At each stopping-place the ship's
mate would hand out the bags to the waiting official, often an old
man, more generally a rosy-cheeked young woman, and carefully take a
written memorandum of receipt, when bag and maiden and many of the
waiting crowd would disappear. Once or twice the bags were loaded upon
one of the curious two-wheeled carts called _stolkjaerres_ driven by a
husky boy, when cart and horse and boy at once set off at lively
gallop. In winter time sledges and men on _skjis_ replace the handy
_stolkjaerre_, and thus all through the year are the mails efficiently
distributed. The captain tells me that a great proportion of the
letters received and sent are from and to America, where so many of
Norway's most energetic and capable young men are growing rich, and
that a large proportion of these letters received are registered, and
contain cash or money orders remitted to the families at home. What
wonder is it that these thousand white-winged missives, which
continually cross the sea, have made and are now making the ancient
Kingdom almost a Democratic state! At one of these hamlets, Aurland by
name, I caught with my camera a pretty Norwegian lass in full native
costume, such as has been worn from time immemorial by the women of
the Sogne Fjord,--a charming picture.
[Illustration: THE SOGNE FJORD.]
[Illustration: ALONG THE SOGNE FJORD.]
Toward three o'clock we sailed up a shadowy canyon, the Naeroe Fjord,
under mighty overhanging precipices, arriving at Gudvangen, our
voyage's end. Here carriages awaited us and here Ole Mon, who has
sailed with us throughout the day, after having driven us down to the
boat himself and refused all pay, handed us over to the driver of the
best _vogn_ (wagon) of the lot, with evidently very particular
instructions as to our welfare. In fact, H tells me, Ole Mon has spent
the day with his book of recommendation open in his hand, calling the
world's attention to my glowing rhymes, and pointing me out with an
air of profound deference as an illustrious, although to him unknown,
bard. We bid him _farvel_, with real sorrow, and regretted that he
might not have driven us to the very end.
We now went on ten kilometers through a narrow clove, between enormous
heights, passing the Jordalsnut, towering above us, straight up more
than three thousand feet, and straining our necks to peer up at the
foaming torrent of the Kilefos leaping two thousand feet seemingly at
a single bound, and almost wetting us with its flying spray. At one
place the road is diverted, and the immense mountain is scarred from
the very edge of the snows by the marring rifts of a recent avalanche,
which, our driver says, was the most tremendous fall of snow and ice
these parts have ever known. At last we began a steep zigzag ascent,
so sharp that even H relieved the ponies of her weight. We were an
hour in climbing the twelve hundred feet; and found ourselves on a
wide bench overlooking the wild and lovely Naeroedal up which we had
come. The sun was behind us, the half shadows of approaching twilight
were creeping out from each dell and crevice. Upon our left, the gray
peak of the Jordalsnut yet caught the sunshine, as also did the
snow-fields of the Kaldafjeld, almost as lofty upon our right. The
Naeroedal was filling with the mysterious haziness of the northern
eventime. Behind us, commanding this exquisite vista, we found a
monstrous and uncouth edifice, a German enterprise, the Stalheim
Hotel, thrust out upon a rocky platform between two rivers plunging
down on either side. Here we have been given a modern bedroom, fitted
with American-looking oak furniture, have enjoyed a well-cooked German
supper, sat by a blazing wood fire, and shall soon turn off the
electric lights and turn in, to repose on a wire mattress, and be
lulled to sleep by the musical roar of the two great waterfalls.
[Illustration: SUDALS GATE ON THE SOGNE FJORD.]