could be desired. Only second and third-class cars are run on most
of the roads of Sweden, though, by a polite fiction, you can buy a
first-class ticket if you insist upon it. If you are “a fool, a lord, or
an American,” you may possibly do so, in which case you will pay the
combined fare of a second and third-class ticket. The guard will put
you in a second-class compartment just the same as those of your fellow
travelers and paste up on the window the words “First Class.” It is
said that at the same time he sticks his tongue in his cheek and winks
derisively at the brakeman.
I cannot vouch for this fact, for I have never bought a first-class
ticket in Sweden, and I never should, even if I had money “beyond the
dreams of avarice,” as the novelist would say. For the second-class
compartments are entirely comfortable, upholstered in bright plush, with
double windows and ample heat, which each traveler can turn on or off for
himself, a little table on which to put your books and writing materials,
a carafe of fresh water, which is changed several times a day, and a
crystal-clear tumbler. What more can you ask? To be sure your privacy is
more likely to be invaded than if you are a “first-class” snob, and you
may sometimes have as many as three other people in your compartments,
which easily accommodates six. But to see the people and hear them, even
if you cannot understand their tongue, is part of the joy of traveling,
and the Swedish language is so musical with its sing-song rhythm that it
never grates upon the ear, and if one is disposed for a nap it will quite
lull him to sleep.
My friend, ex-Minister Thomas, has so admirably described one inevitable
and absolutely unique Swedish expression that I think I must quote for
you his sprightly account of it. “Should you ever hear two persons
talking in a foreign tongue,” he says, “and are in doubt as to what
nation they belong, just listen. If one or the other does not say ‘ja
så,’ within two minutes, it is proof positive they are not Swedes. There
is the ‘ja så’ (pronounced _ya so_) expressing assent to the views you
are imparting, ‘just so’; the ‘ja så’ of approval and admiration, with
a bow and a smile; the ‘ja så’ of astonishment, wonder, and surprise at
the awful tale you are unfolding. Now the Swede’s eyes and mouth become
circles of amazement, and he draws out his reply, ‘ja so-o-o-o-o-o-o!’
There is the hesitating ‘ja så’ of doubt; the abrupt ‘ja så, ja så!’
twice repeated, which politely informs you that your friend does not
believe a word you are saying; the ‘ja så’ sarcastic, insinuating,
and derogatory; the fierce ‘ja så’ of denial; the enraged ‘ja så,’ as
satisfactory as swearing; the threatening ‘ja så,’ fully equivalent to
‘I’ll punch your head’; and the pleasant, purring, pussycat ‘ja så,’
chiefly used by the fair—a sort of flute _obligato_ accompaniment to your
discourse, which shows that she is listening and pleased, and encourages
you to continue. And other ‘ja sås’ there be, too numerous for mention.
I am inclined to think there is not an emotion of the human soul that
the Swedes cannot express by ‘ja så,’ but the accent and intonation are
different in every case. Each feeling has its own peculiar ‘ja så,’
and there be as many, at least, as there are smells in Cologne, which
number, the most highly educated nostrils give, if I mistake not, as
seventy-three.”
Some other phrases in Swedish are almost equally useful, and if we should
hear a fellow traveler say _lagom_ over and over again we would know
that somebody or something was “just about right,” though we might not
be able to determine from the context whether he was referring to the
scenery, to his wife’s disposition, or to the _frokost_ which he enjoyed
at the last railway station.
Another very useful Swedish word, which it is a pity we cannot introduce
into our English vocabulary, is _syskon_. This is a collective noun,
referring to brothers and sisters alike and embracing all of them that
belong to one family. As “parents” refers to both father and mother, so
_syskon_ means all the brothers and sisters of the family.
However, if I keep on with this rambling philological discussion I shall
not get you to Kiruna, my dear Judicia, even within the thirty-eight
hours which the Swedish time-table allows. I must tell you though that,
since this is a journey of two nights and parts of two days, the “lying
down” accommodations are quite as important as those for sitting up. But
for five crowns additional, or about $1.30, you can secure a comfortable
berth, nicely made up in your compartment, with clean linen.
The black porter with his whisk brush is not at all in evidence, for
there is no dust in these trains, at least in winter time, and the white
porter who makes up your bed, who is, I suspect, also a brakeman, is
never seen except night and morning, when he makes and unmakes it. When
you alight you never hear the familiar phrase, “Brush you off, sah?” and
you have to search for your bed-maker if you desire to slip a _kroner_
into his hand—a piece of superogatory generosity which quite surprises
him.
Something over an hour after leaving Stockholm on our journey north we
came to the famous old university city of Upsala, but I could not stop
here if I wished to see the Midday Moon, and shall have to go back at
some future day in order to tell you about this most interesting historic
town in Sweden, the burial place of Gustavus Vasa and the depository of
one of the world’s chief philological treasures, the Codex Argenteus.
The Lapland express leaves Stockholm at 6.30 in the evening, which at
this time of the year is several hours after dark, and it was not until
the next morning, between nine and ten o’clock, that the landscape
became visible; yet the first signs of dawn come wonderfully early in
these northern latitudes, considering how near we are to the land of
perpetual night. By eight o’clock in the morning one has a suspicion
that the sun is somewhere far, far below the horizon. By nine o’clock
the suspicion deepens into a certainty, and by ten o’clock on your side
of the arctic circle, where I found myself early on the morning after
leaving Stockholm, the tiniest rim of the sun may be seen peering above
the horizon, as though uncertain whether it were worth while to go the
rest of the way or not.
I wish I had counted the number of minutes he required to fairly get
above the horizon after showing his first segment. I remember that once
in Iceland I timed the setting sun, and it took him just seven minutes
to sink below the horizon. You remember how in the tropics he plumps
down and up, as we have seen him in South America and in India. For a
shrewd Yankee guess I would say that it takes Phœbus from fifteen to
twenty minutes to really rise and shake out his golden locks in Lapland,
in wintertime.
The day was a short one, at least the daylight day—not more than six
hours in length; but what a glorious day it was! The fairies were at work
while I slept and trimmed every twig and pine needle and every spray
on every bush with thick, white rime. Once in a lifetime one sees such
a sight in America, and then not in its perfection. In Sweden it is an
everyday occurrence, but it is always inexpressibly lovely. So lavish are
these frosty decorations that no humblest stump or fence rail is omitted.
It is no little layer of frost either that you have to examine with the
microscope in order to see its beauties, but a thick and heavy fringe,
often fully two inches deep. Neither is it an evanescent creation, for,
as the low-running sun is not very powerful, it does not melt until well
along toward high noon, and there is no wind to dissipate it.
Even when this glory of the morning frost is gone, the snow still remains
on all the larger branches of the trees, and one misses only the fine
tracery of the frost, which brings out in marvelous black and white the
wonders of this rarely beautiful scene.
The views on this journey are seldom imposing and grand. There are no
Alps, and even our own White Mountains eclipse in majesty anything
that I have seen in northern Sweden. For the most part the landscape
is a peaceful, pastoral one. Little farmhouses with their cluster of
outbuildings abound, the stables for the cattle and the hardy horses
being built as warm as for the hardy men and women. The smoke curls up
straight toward the zenith and hangs like a cloudy pillar over every
chimney. The people who come to the railway stations are healthy and
ruddy. Most of them come on skis, and others with kick-sleds, which they
shove before them, standing upon one runner; often they make marvelously
good time, even with a heavy load on the sled.
These farmhouses look so attractive with their dull red walls and green
roofs that I often wished the train would stop and let me visit them. But
I have seen enough of them to know how they look inside. They are usually
one story high. In the middle is a large living room with two or three
smaller rooms opening out of it. This living room is parlor and dining
room, and sometimes kitchen as well, and not infrequently, if you look
carefully, you will see two little alcoves, one on either side, covered
with a curtain during the day. These, you must know, are the bedrooms, or
bed alcoves. The hole in the wall is just big enough to contain a single
bed, while the baby’s cradle is hung near the mother’s bed, from a rafter
in the ceiling, and a touch of the hand will set it swinging. The walls
are hung with rude but interesting tapestries, made by the housewife
herself and representing Bible scenes, or sometimes more familiar
landscapes. Do you remember how we saw just such a room in Cavalla, the
old Neapolis of St. Paul, and the famous Mahomet Ali’s cradle hanging
from the roof in just that way?
In Skansen, a beautiful park near Stockholm, where are preserved things
characteristically Swedish from all parts of the kingdom, one may see
houses of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, built on exactly the
same plan, only that the modern farmhouse is ampler and cleaner and has
many conveniences which the Goth of olden times would have doubtless
considered effeminate luxury. I wonder what he would have said if he
had heard the tinkle of a telephone bell, as he might to-day in many
a Swedish farmhouse, and had been told that way up beyond the Arctic
circle he could speak into a little tube against the wall and be heard
distinctly in Stockholm or Christiania, or Berlin or Paris, for that
matter.
But I am getting ahead of my story, and this railway ride is so
delightful that I cannot bear to have you, any more than myself, lose
a mile of it. Though the scenery for the most part is not majestic, at
times it grows bold and striking. Some hills of considerable size appear
upon the horizon. Charming valleys open up between them, where the
frequency of farmhouses shows that the soil is peculiarly fertile. Wide,
brawling rivers rush to the sea so impetuously that even arctic cold
cannot fetter them. There are hours of such scenery, which satisfy the
desire of the most romantic imagination; yet for the most part there is a
mild and subdued loveliness about the view from our car windows which has
its own peculiar charm and which needs no precipitous cliffs or bleak
mountainsides or cavernous gorges to enhance its beauty.
At last we came to one of the most interesting stations in the world.
It is not very grand, to be sure, and it is half buried in snow, and
you see scarcely a house in the vicinity. But it is exactly on the
arctic circle, and rejoices in the appropriate name of Polcirkeln. I
almost hugged myself as a polar explorer until I looked around at my
comfortable surroundings—luxurious plush seats, a temperature of exactly
68° according to the thermometer in my compartment, the soft glow of the
electric lamp overhead when the early twilight appears.
Someone who has written of these winter days in the far north says: “It
is not the cold and snow that make the northern winter dreary; cold
and snow are invigorating and exhilarating. It is the short days and
leaden skies; the long darkness and the gloom; the perpetual sense of
being pursued by the dark as by a nightmare; the perpetual hurry by
day to accomplish something before the darkness overtakes you; and the
ever-present, unformed, unreasoning, lurking fear, strongest in December,
lest the life-giving sun leave you forever.”
But I must say that I have never felt this depression of spirits in the
far north. For the most part the skies are not leaden, but the long
dawn and the longer twilight paint them with all imaginable colors with
which the rainbow can scarcely vie. Why should one be in a perpetual
hurry in such a land? There are twenty-four hours in the day here as
in the tropics. Most things you can do by electric light as well as
by daylight, and there is plenty of the former, not only on the trains
but in every considerable town. As for the fear that the sun will never
rise again, even if you do not see him for a month he gives you abundant
evidence that he is just below the horizon and that you will soon see his
cheerful face again.
Of course I had three square meals during this arctic day, and even
beyond Polcirkeln in this wilderness of ice and snow the railway
restaurants flow with metaphorical milk and honey. But I have already
described a Swedish railway eating-house, and I will only tell you now
that when I came to pay my modest bill at a restaurant well into Lapland
the pretty cashier, when she saw that I spoke “American,” beamed all over
with delight and exclaimed in rapturous joy: “When did you come over, and
how are all the folks?” In the remaining minutes before the train started
I learned that she had lived for several years in America, where she had
many relatives, and that she had only just returned to her arctic home. I
was glad to inform her that all the folks in America were well, so far as
my knowledge extended. This artless little piece of Americanism amid the
snows of Sweden brightened the journey for many an hour.
And here, dear Judicia, I think I must end the story of one of the most
delightful of travel days. To-morrow I will tell you something of what I
have seen in Kiruna and its wonderful mountain of solid iron.
Faithfully yours,
PHILLIPS.
SIXTH LETTER
In this chapter Phillips describes a day without a sunrise;
his anxiety lest the sun should appear; the wonderful beauties
of sunrise and sunset where the sun never appears; the fitful
glories of the aurora borealis; the daily bombardment of
Kiruna; the great iron mountain from which the bombardment
comes; Luleå, the metropolis of the north, and a Lapp
encampment in winter.
KIRUNA, January 14.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
I wonder if, when you were a girl, you were as much fascinated by
Bayard Taylor’s travel books as I was. Did you read _Views Afoot_, and
especially did you gloat over his _Northern Travels_? If you did, you
remember how when he got up toward the borders of the arctic circle,
though he did not get nearly as far north as Kiruna, he went out of
his hotel door one morning and found that the thermometer had sunk to
forty degrees below zero. Do you remember with what a sort of rapture
he recorded this fact, as though he had now actually reached the land
of the aurora borealis, and how he seemed to revel in every degree that
the mercury sank? I will not be sure of the exact degree of cold that so
rejoiced his soul, for I have not read my Bayard Taylor for many a year,
but I was conscious of an experience something like his when I went out
on the crisp, frosty streets of Kiruna this morning and watched for the
sun which I devoutly hoped would not rise.
By nine o’clock the sky had begun to glow faintly. I wandered about the
streets, keeping my eye on the eastern horizon as earnestly as a good
Mohammedan faces toward Mecca. Moment by moment the glow, which was at
first barely discernible, deepened, and the fleecy clouds grew rosy.
Evidently something was doing just below the horizon; but very, very
gradually the dawn came on. By ten o’clock the sky was blushing like a
modest damsel in the presence of her lover, but still the Lord of Day
did not appear. Ten minutes after ten, twenty minutes after, half-past
ten! It seemed as though the sun must break above the horizon line at
any moment, but still he delayed his coming, while all along the east,
and far up toward the zenith, the sky was flushed with such a light, it
seemed to me, as never was on sea or shore.
Twenty minutes of eleven, and still he did not appear; ten minutes of
eleven, and I could see that the sunrise glories were a trifle dimmed,
and a little to the north the beginning of the glorious pageant that
attends the setting sun. Eleven o’clock came, and I was sure of it. The
sun was setting and not rising. Though the skies were all aflame, and
sunset mingled with the dawn, it was very evident that old Sol would not
show his face in Kiruna to-day. Hurrah! I have got beyond the sunrise. I
am in the land of the Midday Moon!
And why is it not as notable a thing to see a day without a sunrise as to
see a day without a sunset? Why do not people travel to northern Sweden
or Norway to see the Midday Moon, as well as the Midnight Sun? I venture
to say that the phenomena of midwinter are even more glorious than those
of midsummer. I cannot imagine that one would see any such wonderful sky
tints in summer as in winter. For hours the sun’s beams played upon the
feathery clouds of pale blue sky and constantly changed them from glory
to glory.
At one time the brilliant tints predominated and the splashes of golden
color lighting up the white snow put even Turner’s pictures to the
blush. After many minutes these fiery colors changed to exquisite green
and blue, and broken, opalescent hues adorned the clouds. Then a red
gleam showed under one dark blue cloud. The sun seemed to summon all
its strength for one last burst of glory, and the western sky, which I
thought had passed its acme, glowed once more with a deep red, as though
some vast furnace were throwing its hidden light upon the clouds. For
more than four hours this wonderful display lasted, as sunrise faded into
sunset, and it was not until nearly three o’clock this afternoon that the
last beam of day had entirely faded.
But the beauty of the scene did not consist altogether in the glorious
colors of the sunset. All the accessories have made it forever memorable.
As I walked to the top of a little eminence near Kiruna, the stillness
could almost be felt. A dog barking half a mile away was distinctly
audible. The axes of the workmen whom I left building a log-house as I
tramped on through the snow and climbed the hillside made a melodious
tapping, which could be heard as far as the dog’s bark.
The trees everywhere were loaded with their beautiful burden of snow.
The pines and birches seemed in the dim light of the setting sun to have
blossomed out like cherry trees in May. The mercury registered only a
little below zero, or perhaps some forty degrees of frost, according to
Celsius, by whose thermometers the Swedes swear, for I have found no such
cold weather as that in which Bayard Taylor revelled. But the zero air
was so dry and still that the ordinary clothes which I found necessary
and none too much for Boston east winds were entirely sufficient.
As I came down the hill, the workmen were still busy on their log house
in the deepening twilight. A Yankee in a white slouch hat must be a
rarity in these altitudes in winter, but they did not pause in their work
or exhibit any curiosity at the sight of an outlander. Perhaps their
natures partake of the largeness and solitude of their great forests and
snow fields, and they are not moved by the curiosity which affects other
mortals. After watching them for a few moments, I left them fitting their
logs together without nails or spikes, sawing and cutting with bare hands
in this zero weather as though it were balmy June.
But even when the last ray of the setting sun (which had never risen)
had faded away, the glories of the Arctic night did not disappear.
Indeed they had but just begun, for the aurora borealis began to shoot
out its wavy lines of fire in the northern sky. Higher and higher the
waves mounted toward the zenith, until they arched overhead. Palpitating
like a living thing, the white would change to green, and the green to a
reddish glow, and all the time the streamers that seemed to be shooting
up as from a mighty volcano on either side of the North Pole waved and
wavered like banners in the wind; now being folded in upon themselves,
then flaunted out to their full width, as though Erebus himself were
blowing upon them.
But the interests of Kiruna are not altogether centered in the far
horizon. At half-past eight in the morning, and again at half-past four
in the afternoon, I was startled by a series of tremendous explosions.
They could not be thunderclaps, for there were few clouds in the sky and
not the slightest indication of a storm.
Over and over again the thundering volleys rolled, and as I looked
toward the west I could see a vivid flash in the darkness preceding the
thunderclap by some seconds. And yet the flash and the thunder did not
seem to come from the sky, but from a massive hill, which bulked dimly
against the horizon, across an intervening valley. You have already
guessed what the bombardment was. It came from the mighty iron mountain
of Kiruna and was the explosion of the dynamite charges which every
morning and every afternoon are set off to loosen the ore. More like a
rapid-fire Gatling gun perhaps than like thunderclaps the explosions
became, after the first few shots, and from various parts of the
mountain, high up and low down, and to the right and the left, one could
see the dull flashes and hear the reverberating roar, scores of shots
every minute, until perhaps two hundred had been fired.
This iron mountain accounts for a lot of things in this part of the
world. This was the magnet which drew the railway, the most northerly
railway on the face of the earth, up so far through the dreary Lapland
wilds. Do not suppose for a moment that the Swedes were so philanthropic
as to build the road for the sake of a few Americans who wanted to see
the Midday Moon or the Midnight Sun (for you must know that you can see
his Majesty from the top of Kiruna’s iron mountain all day long if you
happen to be there any day during the latter part of June). No, it was
this great loadstone mountain that compelled the thrifty Swedes to build
a railway through the snow a thousand miles north of Stockholm. Their
enterprise was well repaid, for this mountain is from fifty to sixty per
cent solid iron, and the best iron in the world.
From Kiruna it is transported nearly one hundred miles farther north to
Narvik, across the Norwegian border, where there is an ice-free port all
the year round, and where great ships are constantly waiting within its
quiet fjord to transport sections of Kiruna’s iron mountain to New York
and Philadelphia and London and Hamburg and Boston. There is another iron
hill some five or six miles from Kiruna, from which the ore is shipped
by overhead electric skids to Kiruna and thence transported by rail to
Narvik. Indeed it is said by geologists that all the hills about this
little Arctic metropolis are full of iron, and they are not likely to be
exhausted for a thousand years to come.
Kiruna reminds me of a hustling American town more than any other that
I have seen in this part of the world. It is only fourteen years old,
and yet it has ten thousand inhabitants; hundreds of well-built houses;
a good electric tramway, which carries the miners back and forth from
the works on the mountain to their homes in the little city; four fine
schoolhouses, and a big church with a huge bell tower, situated at some
little distance from the sanctuary.
Let us not plume ourselves on the thought that we have all the enterprise
in the world, or lay the flattering unction to our souls that no one else
can build a city in a decade, for here is one with all the conveniences
and comforts and many of the luxuries of life; and if we go another
hundred miles farther north we shall find a still larger town, less
than twelve years old, with good blocks of stores, large residences,
and splendid wharves, to which the commerce of the world pays tribute;
for Narvik, where the sun does not rise for a month or six weeks in
wintertime, is even younger than Kiruna. To-morrow I intend to go to
Luleå (pronounce it _Luleo_, for the little circle over the _a_ gives it
the _o_ sound), and I will finish this arctic letter there.
LULEÅ ON THE BALTIC.