HOW THEY TRAVEL IN NORWAY.
Nothing can be more characteristic of Norwegian seclusion from the
world than the rude means of inland communication between the
principal cities. Here was a public highway between two of the most
important sea-ports in the country--Christiania and Trondhjem--without
as much as a stage to carry passengers. Every traveler has to depend
upon his own vehicle, or upon such rude and casual modes of conveyance
as he can find at the stations by the wayside. I asked the reason of
this backward state of things, and was informed that the amount of
travel is insufficient to support any regular stage line. The season
for tourists lasts only about three months, and during the remainder
of the year very few strangers have occasion to pass over the roads.
In winter--which, of course, lasts very long in this latitude--the
whole country is covered with snow, and sledges are altogether used,
both for purposes of traveling and the transportation of merchandise
from the sea-board. The products of the country--such as logs, spars,
and boards--are prepared during these months for rafting down the
rivers during the spring floods. Once, as I was told, an enterprising
Englishman had started a regular stage-line from Christiania to
Trondhjem, in consequence of the repeated complaints of the traveling
public, who objected to the delays to which they were subject; but he
was soon obliged to discontinue it for want of patronage. When
travelers had a convenient way of getting over, they grumbled at being
hurried through, and preferred taking the usual conveyances of the
country, which afforded them an opportunity of enjoying the scenery
and stopping wherever they pleased. People did not come all the way to
Norway, they said, to fly through it without seeing any of its wonders
and beauties. There was some philosophy in this, as well as a touch of
human nature. It reminded me of the Frenchman in Paris who lived to be
eighty years of age without ever leaving the city; when the king, for
the sake of experiment, positively forbid him from doing so during the
remainder of his life. The poor fellow was immediately seized with an
inordinate desire to see something of the outside world, and
petitioned so hard for the privilege of leaving the city that the
king, unable to resist his importunities, granted him the privilege,
after which the man was perfectly satisfied, and remained in Paris to
the day of his death.
By reference to a copy of the laws on the subject of post-travel,
which I had procured in Christiania from a Mr. Bennett, I discovered
that the system is singularly complicated and hazardous, as well as a
little curious in some of its details. The stations are situated along
the road about every eight or ten miles (counted in Norwegian by so
many hours). Nothing that we could call a village is to be seen in any
part of the interior, unless the few straggling farm-houses
occasionally huddled together, with a church in the centre, may be
considered in that light. The stations usually stand alone, in some
isolated spot on the wayside, and consist of a little log or frame
tavern, a long shambling stable, innumerable odds and ends of cribs,
store-houses, and outbuildings, forming a kind of court or
stable-yard; a rickety medley of old carts and carioles lying about
basking in the sun; a number of old white-headed men smoking their
pipes, and leathery-faced women on household duties intent, with a
score or so of little cotton-headed children running about over the
manure pile in the neighborhood of the barn, to keep the pigs company;
here and there a strapping lout of a boy swinging on a gate and
whistling for his own amusement; while cows, sheep, goats, chickens,
and other domestic animals and birds browse, nibble, and peck all over
the yard in such a lazy and rural manner as would delight an artist.
This is the ordinary Norwegian station.
[Illustration: STATION-HOUSE, LOGEN VALLEY.]
There is always a good room for the traveler, and plenty of excellent
homely fare to eat. At some few places along the route the
station-houses aspire to the style and dignity of hotels, but they are
not always the best or most comfortable. Then there are "fast" and
"slow" stations--so called in the book of laws. At the fast stations
the traveler can procure a horse and cariole without delay--fifteen
minutes being the legal limit. At the slow stations he must wait till
the neighborhood, for a distance of three or four miles perhaps, is
searched for a horse--sometimes for both horse and cariole. If he
chooses to incur the expense he can send forward a _Forbad_, or notice
in advance, requiring horses to be ready at each station at a
specified time; but if he is not there according to notice, he must
pay so much per hour for the delay. A day-book is kept at each of
these post-houses, in which the traveler must enter his name, stating
the time of his arrival and departure, where he came from, his
destination, how many horses he requires, etc. In this formidable book
he may also specify any complaint he has to make against the
station-holder, boy, horse, cariole, or any body, animal, or thing
that maltreats him, cheats him, or in any way misuses him on the
journey; but he must take care to have the inn-keeper or some such
disinterested person as a witness in his behalf, so that when the
matter comes before the Amtmand, or grand tribunal of justice, it may
be fairly considered and disposed of according to law. When the
inn-keeper, station-holder, posting-master, alderman, or other proper
functionary on the premises, fails to present this book and require
the traveler to sign his name in it, he (the arrant violator of laws)
is fined; but the traveler need not flatter himself that the rule does
not work both ways, for he also is fined if he refuses or
intentionally neglects to write his name in the said book. The number
of horses to be kept at fast stations is fixed by law, and no traveler
is to be detained more than a quarter of an hour, unless in certain
cases, when he may be detained half an hour. At a slow station he must
not be detained over three hours--such is the utmost stretch of the
law. Think of that, ye Gothamites, who complain if you are detained
any where on the face of the earth three minutes--only detained three
hours every eight or ten miles! But for delay occasioned by any
insuperable impediment, says the Norwegian law-book--such as a storm
at sea, or too great a distance between the inns--no liability is
incurred on either side. A Philadelphia lawyer could drive
six-and-thirty coaches-and-four, all abreast, through such a law as
that, and then leave room enough for a Stockton wagon and mule-team
on each side. Who is to judge of the weather or the distance between
the inns? When the traveler holds the reins he is responsible for the
horse, but when the post-boy does the holding, he, the said boy, is
the responsible party. Should any post-horse be ill treated or
overdriven when the traveler holds the reins, so that, in the language
of the law, "the station-holder, inn-keeper, or two men at the next
station can perceive this to be the case, the traveler shall pay for
the injury according to the estimation of these men, and he shall not
be allowed to be sent on until the payment is made." The traveler pays
all tolls and ferry charges. "When the road is very hilly, or is in
out-of-the-way districts where there are but few horses in proportion
to the travel, and the distance between the stations is unusually
long, or under other circumstances where the burden on the people
obligated to find horses is evidently very oppressive, etc.," "it may
be ordered by the king, after a declaration to that effect has been
procured by the authorities, that payment for posting may be reckoned
according to a greater distance, in proportion to the circumstances,
as far as double the actual distance."
In addition to all these formidable regulations--against which it
seems to me it would be impossible for any ordinary man to
contend--the tariff fixes the price of posting for fast and slow
stations in the country, the only difficulty being to find where the
towns are after you get into them, or to know at what stage of the
journey you leave them. The Amtmand, by letter to all the authorities,
likewise requires the tariff to be hung conspicuously in all the inns;
which tariff, says the law, "is altered according to the rise and fall
of provisions."
When I came to study out all this, and consider the duties and
obligations imposed on me as a traveler going a journey of three or
four hundred miles; that I was to be subject to contingencies and
liabilities depending upon the elements both by land and sea; that
serious responsibilities fell upon me if I held the reins of the
post-horse, and probably heavy risks of life and limb if the post-boy
held them; that the inn-keeper, station-holder, alderman, or two men
chosen miscellaneously from the ranks of society, were to judge of
damages that might be inflicted upon the horse; that I must register
my name in a day-book, and enter formal complaints against the
authorities on the way about every ten miles; that the tariff might
rise and fall five hundred times during the journey, for aught I knew,
according to the rise and fall of provisions or the pleasure of the
Amtmand; that conspiracies might be entered into against me to make me
pay for all the lame, halt, blind, and spavined horses in the country,
and my liberty restrained in some desolate region of the mountains;
that I could not speak a dozen words of the language, and had no other
means of personal defense against imposition than a small pen-knife
and the natural ferocity of my countenance--when all these
considerations occurred to me, I confess they made me hesitate a
little before launching out from Lillehammer.
However, the landlord of the post, a jolly and good-natured old
gentleman, relieved my apprehensions by providing such a breakfast of
coffee, eggs, beefsteak, fish, and bread, that my sunken spirits were
soon thoroughly aroused, and I felt equal to any emergency. When I
looked out on the bright hill-sides, and saw the sun glistening on the
dewy sod, and heard the post-boys in the yard whistling merrily to the
horses, I was prepared to face the great Amtmand itself. In a little
while the horse and cariole designed for my use were brought up before
the door, and the landlord informed me that all was "_fertig_."
Now, was there ever such a vehicle for a full-grown man to travel in?
A little thing, with a body like the end of a canoe, perched up on two
long shafts, with a pair of wheels in the rear; no springs, and only a
few straps of leather for a harness; a board behind for the
skydskaarl, or post-boy, to sit upon; and a horse not bigger than a
large mountain goat to drag me over the road! It was positively
absurd. After enjoying the spectacle for a moment, and making a
hurried sketch of it, wondering what manner of man had first contrived
such a vehicle, I bounced in, and stretched my legs out on each side,
bracing my feet against a pair of iron catches, made expressly for
that purpose. Fortunately, I am a capital driver. If nature ever
intended me for any one profession above all others, it must have been
for a stage-driver. I have driven buggies, wagons, and carts in
California hundreds of miles, and never yet killed any body. Like the
Irishman, I can drive within two inches of a precipice without going
over. Usually, however, I let the horse take his own way, which, after
all, is the grand secret of skillful driving.
My baggage consisted of a knapsack containing two shirts and an extra
pair of stockings, a sketch-book and some pencils, and such other
trifling knick-knacks as a tourist usually requires in this country. I
carried no more outside clothing than what common decency required: a
rough hunting-coat, a pair of stout cloth pantaloons, and an old pair
of boots--which is as much as any traveler needs on a Norwegian tour,
though it is highly recommended by an English writer that every
traveler should provide himself with two suits of clothes, a
Mackintosh, a portable desk, an India-rubber pillow, a few blankets,
an opera-glass, a musquito-net, a thermometer, some dried beef, and a
dozen boxes of sardines, besides a stock of white bread, and two
bottles of English pickles.