RETURN TO NORWAY--SAIL UP THE GULF--APPROACH TO
CHRISTIANIA--ITS APPEARANCE FROM THE WATER--ANECDOTE
OF BERNADOTTE--DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY--THE
FORTRESS--CHARLES THE XIITH--THE CONVICTS--STORY
OF THE CAPTURED CANNON--THE HIGHWAYMAN--PROSPECT
FROM THE MOUNTAINS--THE NORWEGIAN PEASANT GIRL.
Wednesday dawned cloudless; and the round, red Sun rose on our right
hand, and glared through his magnifying lattice, the mist, to see us
come back again to Norway.
The smooth and glassy surface of the tideless Fiord, hemmed in by lofty
mountains, stands forth the grand characteristic of Norway. The
weather-beaten rocks, rising abruptly from the water, have beauty and
boldness on their broad, blank fronts; and how infinite is the
loveliness of innumerable islands, clustered together, bearing
vegetation of all hues and odours!
Whether it were in the air which I breathed, or whether it were caught
from the solemn magnificence of the scenery, the same feeling of
sublimity came over me as when I first saw the land of Norway on my
arrival from England; and, I do not know how to account for the
impression, but during the whole time I remained in Norway, and whenever
I was left alone to wander along its fiords, or over its mountains, I
gave way, as in England, to no extreme sensations of delight or sorrow;
but a consciousness of awe weighed eternally upon my mind, and, released
from the tumultuous passions of joy or dejection, a desire, created as
it were by the visible perception of perfect natural beauty, was ever
present to embody itself with the sights of grandeur that soared and
sank above and below me.
Silently, as if without a breath of wind, the cutter crept up the Gulf,
the beauties of which increased the farther we advanced; the bays--the
vessels glancing among the rocks with their white sails in the sun--the
cultivated patches of land--and the neat wooden farm-houses amid the
desolation of the mountains, were novel and interesting objects. The
great variety of the underwood, and the diversified colours of the
foliage, were beautifully blended with the darker tints of the fir which
grew along the sides, and on the tops, of the high hills; and how well
does their sombre gloom mate with the stern magnificence of the rocks!
On the islands, the birch, the hazel, the alder, and the ash, cast their
shadows over the water, and are there reflected in their minutest
lineaments; nor are their trunks and branches more sharply defined in
the air above, than they are imaged in the watery mirror below, the
transparency of the water in no way yielding to the clearness of the
atmosphere; since, as the abruptly-rising rocks tower proportionally
into the air, their steep, bold sides are plunged perpendicularly into
the sea, and seem to descend till the eye loses them in its green depth.
Here and there the islands are inhabited by peasants; and flocks of
sheep and goats ceased, as the yacht passed them, to browse on the low
herbage which springs beneath the rocky coppice; and before the
cottage-doors half-clad children stood still, and gaped, then called
aloud to fishermen who were hanging out their nets to dry, or setting
them for fish around the shores of their sea-girt homes.
Beyond this, nowhere are seen or heard the sights or sounds of man's
habitation, and, hushed in painful tranquillity and profound solitude,
the interior recesses of the fiord show no signs of life. With all their
storm-beaten antiquity, gaunt and inhospitable, the skeletons of land
rather than the land itself,--the grey and rugged crags--alone appear
between the coppice and the short scanty grass which, ever when the wind
came to breathe gently on our sails, sighed and moaned amid the general
repose.
About twenty miles from Christiania the fiord narrows to two miles, and
holds that breadth up to the city. The town of Christiania is hid by a
small island from the sight of the traveller approaching it by water;
but at a great distance we could, while winding up the fiord, catch a
glimpse of the white houses sleeping in a valley, surrounded by high
mountains. At eight o'clock in the afternoon--for there is not much
night--we dropped anchor off the town.
Christiania stands low; but the land slopes gradually from the shore of
the fiord till it loses itself on the hazy tops of the mountains. When
the sky is partially obscured by masses of clouds, the appearance of
Christiania, seen from the deck of a vessel in the harbour, is very
beautiful; that part of the town, near the water, shining brightly in
the sunlight, while the remoter suburbs, at the back, being canopied by
the heavy vapours that hang around the peaks of the mountains, look
black as night.
As soon as the anchor was let go, we went ashore, as usual, to make
inquiries about salmon; and received as much encouragement as at
Falkenborg and Kongsbacka. The time, however, had not yet quite arrived
when the salmon-fishery commenced; and a few days devoted to Christiania
would not debar us from any amusement attached to the long-desired
sport. We brought several letters of introduction; and, among them, one
to the Viceroy of Christiania; but we did not present our letter to the
old Count, all the information and hospitality we desired being amply
given to us by the British Consul-General.
There is nothing to see in Christiania, the most conspicuous object
being the palace, which stands, like a manufactory, on the top of a
rising piece of ground. It is an enormous pile of building, painted
uniformly white; and I do not believe the interior is more commodious
than the exterior is monotonous and void of architectural taste, since
the late King, Bernadotte, once observed, when he entered it, that he
saw a multitude of rooms, but would be glad to know which apartment he
was to live in.
The same kind of mirrors that I had seen at Copenhagen and Gottenborg
projected outside the windows here, so that no one need move from his
chair to know all that occurs in the street; and this is also an
important exemption, for the casements of nearly all the houses in
Christiania are double, for the purpose of warmth. Large archways lead
to larger yards, into which the houses open, and street-doors are almost
dispensed with. Neither do the buildings ascend to any great altitude,
but two stories are, for the most part, considered the orthodox height.
The shop windows are not gay, and the name and pursuit of their owners
are badly lettered, and in hieroglyphics I could not read.
The largest open place is the market, and that is not so large as
Covent Garden. The streets are a little better paved than those of the
more southern capitals of the North, but are not of greater width than
Coventry Street, or St. Martin's Lane; and, being unlighted by gas, it
is difficult at night, should it prove rainy and dark, to keep out of
the gutters. At the point where four streets meet, you may generally
observe a well, and around this well a knot of idlers, men and women,
congregate and gossip, leaning against its palings; but the respectable
portion of the inhabitants are never to be found in the streets,
although they may be seen, on summer evenings, walking on the terrace of
the fortress.
To one looking from the sea, the fortress is on the left of the town,
and was the first object we caught sight of when sailing up the Fiord.
It is valueless as a place of defence; and I do not think it has been of
any service to the Norwegians, except when Charles XII. attacked
Christiania; and, then the Swedish monarch would have battered the town
to atoms, had not his attention been distracted by wars on the other
frontiers of his kingdom. There is a hill on the right, nearly double
the altitude of that on which the fortress is built; and an enemy,
making himself master of that spot, has the citadel under his feet, and
may amuse himself by rolling stones into the town.
Running parallel with one part of the Fiord, and from the quay to the
castle, is a raised terrace, broad enough to admit of fourteen or
fifteen people walking abreast; and here, on the Sabbath summer's
afternoon all the beauty, youth, and fashion of Christiania resort. It
is sheltered on one side by a row of lime-trees, and, on the other, the
cool air from the waters of the Fiord struggles to refresh the languor
of a sultry evening.
In gangs of two and two, with drab slouch hat and jerkin, having one
side of a darker colour than the other, and reaching half way down the
body, the prisoners are led from their penal den, within this fortress,
to their appointed toil. There were many old men among these culprits;
and their great age rather sought and met with sympathy, than excited
detestation of the crime that had brought them to servitude; and,
perhaps, it would be a wiser enactment of the Norwegian Government to
forego the system of task-work thus publicly, and adopt some other
method of punishment less exposed to the popular eye; for, I believe,
the spectacle of an old man submitted to daily penal labour, and
burdened with clanking chains, is recognised by the public more with a
tendency to sympathise with his fate, than to condemn his crime.
While viewing the fortress, we were shown a large cannon, which was
captured, it is said, by the Norwegians from Charles XII. when he
besieged Christiania; but the real history of the cannon is, that it did
certainly belong to the Swedish army; but, Charles, as I have hinted
before, being obliged to raise the siege of Christiania to march with
his troops elsewhere, many field-pieces, as being too cumbersome to move
with celerity, were abandoned, and, among the number, this cannon was
left on the heights above Christiania. The Norwegians, when Charles and
his army had disappeared, scaled the summit of the hill; and, with much
laudable perseverance, succeeded in removing the huge piece of ordnance
to the fortress; and two sentinels ever keep guard over it, placed in a
conspicuous position over which the Norwegian ensign waves, and point it
out to the stranger as a trophy of the Norwegian army.
Contemplating, as we stood round the cannon, the broad expanse of the
Fiord, and the distant blue mountains dissolving with the sky, a low
building, like a powder magazine, arrested our attention; for numerous
sentinels moved rapidly in every quarter round it, and many brass guns,
ready primed, and bearing an earnest signification, flashed in the
bright beams of the morning sun. In this dungeon, from which Beelzebub
himself could not escape, it seems a notorious highwayman, called Ole,
is confined. During the time he was master of his limbs and liberty, he
struck such terror into the hearts of his countrymen, that he was
imagined an immortal fiend. No prisons could hold him; and the
magistrates were compelled to trust to his forbearance, and not to bolts
and chains; but his depredations, at length, became so glaring, and
increased, year after year, to such magnitude, even to the sacking of
the bank, that, come what might, Ole was arrested. Fearful of his
supernatural strength and devilish craft, his captors deemed no common
dungeon sufficiently secure; and this miserable abode, a pandemonium
above ground, bomb-proof, and proof against every thing else, was
erected for the sole reception of Ole; and, lest he should burst asunder
the stone walls, he is surrounded by alert sentinels and loaded guns,
and here doomed to drag out the rest of his existence.
To the east of the town there is a road, which may be seen girdling a
mountain's barren side, and, following its track a mile, or so, I took
then a narrow foot-path, and, wandering through a forest of firs,
reached a circular green sward where, in the middle, the remnant of some
natural convulsion, a gigantic black stone lay. Seated there, I beheld
the whole city of Christiania crouched at my feet; and, far as the eye
could travel, the mountains rose one over the other, till my vision
ached, and mistook their aspiring peaks for the azure heaven. On the
left hand, serenely sleeping, wound, amid a thousand green islands, the
leaden-hued Fiord, bearing on its quiet surface a fleet of lazy ships,
whose white sails made them look, at distance so remote, like snowy
swans, or froth from neighbouring rapid.
The sun had just sunk behind the mountains when I reached the spot; and,
throwing myself on the grass, I watched its light, like a gold cap,
blazing around the lofty summit of a mountain, rearing itself above the
rest, and not less than forty miles distant to the north of the hill on
which I reclined. The evening was calm as it was clear. The cathedral
bells below had thrice told the approaching third hour before midnight,
when I heard the voice of some one singing, in the monotonous, drawling,
but melodious tone of prayer; and, at last, as the fitful evening zephyr
stirred uneasily, I could distinctly catch the soft intonation of a
female voice; and, whatever woman she was, she sang a sweet and touching
melody.
There was no hut, or building of any kind at hand, so that I was
perplexed to tell whence the voice came. I was not long in doubt. A
young girl, walking quickly, with a light step, and bearing in her hand
a bundle of dried sticks, came forth from the heart of the pine-forest.
The moment she saw me her song ceased, and she stood still.
She wore, sitting rather back upon the head, a crimson cotton skull-cap,
leaving exposed her fair high forehead. A boddice of white linen was
attached from her waist to a dark blue petticoat, hemmed with scarlet
cloth, which descended to her ankle, but not to such undue length as to
conceal her little naked feet, peeping out, like white mice, from
beneath. Her silken, fair hair flowed uncontrolled over her right
shoulder, off which her boddice, though fitting almost close to the
throat, had fallen slightly and left bare; and silver bracelets clasped
her wrists, while the image of the Saviour, carved in ivory, was
suspended from her neck. A gold ring, antiquely moulded, encompassed her
middle finger. She was of the ordinary height of women, and her small
mouth, her short, straight nose, her large, joyous blue eye, joyous
while yet the clear-complexioned, oval face was clouded with surprise,
developed the simplicity, liveliness, and rare beauty of a Norwegian
girl.
She gazed at me, fixedly, free from coyness, with the deliberation of an
innocent heart; and, when she saw my attention was as much devoted to
her, she smiled; and then, often turning round to look back as she went
her way, began to descend the hill towards the town. The shrubs and
filbert-trees soon took her from my sight.