What if in yonder chief, of tattered vest,
Glows the same blood that warmed a Pharaoh’s breast?--
If in the fiery eye, the haughty mien,
The tawny hue of yonder gipsy queen,
Still dwells the light of Cleopatra’s charms,
The winning grace that roused the world to arms--
That called Rome’s legions to a watery grave,
And bound earth’s lord to be a woman’s slave?
DEAN STANLEY’S _Prize Poem, “The Gipsies.”_
THE ELV SŒTER--A MOUNTAINEER--THE YTTERDAL SŒTER--TO MAKE
GRÖD--THE GRÖD STICK--EVENING CONCERT--A WILD NIGHT--THE
WATERFALL--MOUNTAIN GLACIERS--THE LERA ELV--CAMP BY A
GLACIER--NOMADIC HAPPINESS--A GIPSY MÄELSTROM--INSECT LIFE.
The wooden buildings are large and capacious and in good order, and one
portion of the building was surmounted by a cupola, with a large bell to
call the farm people to meals. We noticed two enormous pine-tree logs as
we passed through the yard of the farm. Near a log hut, a short distance
beyond the farm-house, we camped at the edge of the deep, narrow ravine,
in the depth of which we could hear the sound of the river below. Ole
said we could have some reindeer meat, and, going to the farm, we were
shown a cask half full of salted reindeer, in a dark store under a sort
of granary. For one mark we purchased about four pounds weight, without
bone. There was a kind of crate near, with a small gröd span in it, a
sort of barrel for carrying food. We afterwards purchased a rope made of
pigs’ bristles, very light and useful, and nine pounds of barley-meal,
and another mark’s worth of reindeer meat. The whole cost--
_m._ _s._
Rope of pigs’ bristles 2 12
9 lbs. barley meal 1 12
Reindeer meat, about 8 lbs. 2 0
----------
Total $1 1 0
Ole said the reindeer had been killed some time, and when we seemed to
doubt whether it was killed in season, he remarked it occasionally
happened that they were killed by accident. The reindeer hunter came to
our camp when we were having our fried reindeer and tea. He was the son
of the widow of the owner of the farm, and she was then at a sœter. The
reindeer hunter was a tall, spare, active young fellow, fair, with his
hair cut short. He wore a Norwegian cloth cap, a coarse shirt, without
necktie, secured at the neck by a large silver button. His loose
trousers were faced with dark leather, and also the seat; large
Wellington boots of pliable rough leather came up to nearly his knee,
with red leather let into their tops. He had something of the bearing of
Slim-slam, our friend at Laurgaard, and his _tout ensemble_ was
decidedly picturesque. Ole told us he had once been out with some
artists upon the mountains with a tent.
Our gipsies packed up and we left about half-past four o’clock, which
afforded us sufficient time to enter up our notes. Our way is now
through forest scenes, up a rough mountain road. At no very great
distance on our right we had “Raudals Vand,” a large lake, and the
“Blaahö,” and “Hest-bræ-piggene” mountains. Sometimes we were close to
the Lera Elv; at other times our route took us more into the forest.
Often we lingered to make a hasty sketch, and then Esmeralda would wait
on the side of the route lest we should miss the track in the forest. No
hobbenengree could be more careful of the Shorengro of the expedition.
Later in the evening a mizzling rain fell, and at last we crossed the
river through a shallow ford. Near the river, below a lofty mountain, we
reached the Ytterdal Sœter.
The Ytterdal Sœter consisted of a collection of log huts, with a loose
stone-wall paddock behind. Cows, goats, and bristly pigs were scattered
about the trampled ground among the rocks close to the sœter. Down the
steep mountain above we could see a picturesque vand fos. When we came
to the sœter a shepherd’s dog kept up a constant barking which
Mephistopheles did his best to perpetuate until sharply rebuked.
Ole and Noah then went round the house to select a camp ground in the
inclosure. All was damp with drizzling rain, as our gipsies drove the
donkeys through a broken gap in the wall, and pitched our tents in the
corner of the inclosure, near the sœter. Being rather damp we changed
our things, and then decided to have gröd for our aftens-mad. Ole went
to prepare the gröd at the sœter; the rest went to learn the method of
making it. First, he filled the large iron pot of the sœter with water,
to which he added a small quantity of salt, and a little barley-meal;
the water boiled in twelve minutes; then the woman placed the large end
of the short gröd-stick in the boiling water, and kept rapidly swirling
it backwards and forwards between the palms of her hands, whilst Ole
added from time to time barley-meal from the bag, till the proper
consistency was obtained; the pot was taken off the fire in about three
minutes after the water commenced boiling; the gröd was then ready to be
eaten. This, with a large can of milk, was carried to our tents for the
evening’s meal.
It is usual when the gröd is eaten for each person to have two small
bowls, one containing milk and the other the gröd, and then a spoonful
of gröd is taken and dipped in the milk and so eaten. Our party
afterwards dispensed with two bowls, the gröd and milk being put into
one bowl, which saved trouble, with the same result.
The wooden bowl, and the wooden spoon, and the gröd-stick, which is made
of a small fir sapling taken up by the roots and peeled, and the roots
and stump cut to the length required, we purchased for twelve skillings
next morning from the woman of the Ytterdals Sœter, and they are
represented in the following engraving.
Some of the gröd we reserved for breakfast, and it is considered all the
better after it has been kept for a short time.
Noah informed us at tea that he should let into the pobengree (gip.,
cider) when he reached England, and have a good soak. Gently, Noah, or
there will be none left for anyone else.
The women of the sœter were all lightly dressed, a chemise and a
petticoat being nearly all they had on; They keep about twenty cows, and
make from thirty to forty cheeses in the summer season, which sell for
four marks each. We counted forty-five goats near the sœter. The
woman’s husband was engaged at the harvest in the lower valley.
[Illustration: GRÖD-STICK AND BOWL, LEIRDALEN.]
It was very dark as we went to the sœter, after our evening meal was
concluded. We found three other women there. The room was scrupulously
clean. It is certainly the most comfortable, and cleanly sœter, we met
with during our wanderings; they had a good bedstead, convenient
fire-place, and a very ingenious folding table. It was a curious scene,
as we played our music by the fire-light and watched their interested
countenances. The women were very fair. All mountain races are fond of
music. It would seem as if the quickened instincts of the people, whose
lot is cast so much in mountain scenes, are attuned to harmony with
nature. The women seemed much pleased. The room was dreadfully hot and
we had the door propped open, which was the cause of occasional contests
with a tame goat, who seemed determined to come in. At last we were glad
to escape the heat and went out into a dark, windy, rainy night. It
poured with rain as we got to our tents, yet we did not envy Ole
Rödsheim his night’s rest in the hot room of the sœter; but hot and cold
seemed all the same to Ole; Then the rain came down so heavily it began
to come into our tent, and a trench being now dug round it we soon fell
asleep.
The gröd and some more milk formed our frokost, and saved tea, sugar,
bread and butter. Mixed occasionally with other food it is excellent for
the mountains where you can have fresh milk at the sœters. The nutriment
was quite sufficient for mountain work. A meal of gröd and milk for five
hungry people cost on an average the sum of about sixpence. The cost of
the five kops of milk at the sœter was twenty skillings.[95] The woman
seemed well satisfied with eight skillings for the trouble we had given
her. The two pounds of butter we purchased to take with us cost two
marks more.
Whilst the donkeys were being loaded, taking Zachariah with us, we went
to see the waterfall above the sœter. The torrent dashes from the steep
mountain above, and descends in fleecy clouds to the broken rocks below.
Occasionally, above the continuous sound of the falling waters, we could
hear a rattling roar, as if loose rocks were suddenly dashed about in
the waters far above. Then all subsided into the same constant hum of
the falling torrent. It is picturesque, but quite below comparison with
many we had before seen, especially in Romsdal.
When we returned, and were ready to start, we missed Ole, Noah, and
Esmeralda, who we at last found eating best fladbröd and cheese in the
sœter. It was a present from the woman.
Saying adieu to the women of the sœter, we now left at ten o’clock. The
fir woods had been left behind, and we proceeded up the wild valley of
the Lera from the Ytterdals Sœter.
The Vesle Fjeld and its glaciers were on the right bank of the Lera. One
peak of dark rock rising from glaciers on either side, Ole said had
never been ascended. Ole said Messrs. Boyson and Harrison were much
pleased with the scenery.
At the sœter Ole had found one of Mr. Boyson’s spoons, which had been
left there, and he was going to return it. We were told that at one
place Mr. Boyson had accidentally left a bag containing £30, but of
course in Norway it was perfectly safe, and was afterwards restored
safely to his possession.
The sun became very hot. Esmeralda and Zachariah both rode upon the
baggage of their donkeys. The road now became a more narrow track. All
the donkeys were evidently suffering from the heat. The Puru Rawnee had
fallen once, and the Tarno Rye, after falling with Esmeralda two or
three times, was unloaded, and we halted at some rocks above a waterfall
on the Lera.
It was an exceedingly warm spot, with no shade. The second piece of
reindeer meat was boiled in our kettle, with some potatoes. Though
rather salt, the soup was excellent. Some of the boiled meat and
potatoes were also eaten, and washed down with spring water. After
middags-mad we tried to write our notes, and fell fast asleep. In fact,
we were all disinclined to move, but managed to start about four
o’clock.
Mephistopheles was in high spirits. Noah was very lively, which soon
ended in a disagreement with Esmeralda. We had to quiet the contending
parties. The offence charged against Noah we noted down, and it was a
serious one. In a surreptitious manner Noah had possessed himself of his
sister’s cloak, which he had tried on, with an attempted imitation of
her _distingué_ style of stepping over the rough banks of the Lera Elv.
In Noah’s clumsy imitation of his sister’s movements, which were just
the reverse of clumsy, he contrived to poke a hole through the Alpine
cloak. We say no more, only we refer the reader to a paragraph of the
short extracts from Prœsten Sundt’s work, in our Appendix, and, as there
described, we feared similar results.
At about seven o’clock we encamped. The donkeys had done better in the
cool of the evening; it was decided that they had quite enough to carry,
without the addition of extra weight, especially over the rough and
stony route before us. Adhering firmly to this resolve, unless for the
purpose of crossing some river, the animals enjoyed this immunity for
the rest of our wanderings. The part of the valley where we had halted
for the night was very wild; there was very little verdure, except some
low stunted bushes, moss, and heath. Ole and the gipsies gathered heath
enough to make a fire for tea. The tents were pitched exactly opposite
the “Smörstab Bræen” (Butter glacier). We contemplated with interest an
outline of sharp dark peaks rising before us. Close to us, on the east
side of the Lera Elv, extended the glacier of the “Blaabræen.” Beyond we
could see the Tverbottenhornene. A short distance from our camp we found
a deserted cabin occasionally used by reindeer hunters.
It is with much pleasure we are able to say that Noah and Esmeralda were
not prevented, by results similar to those described in the paragraph
referred to in the Appendix, from appearing at tea.
There was something so _hors de voyage ordinaire_ in our wandering
existence, so charming in the freshness of wild nature, so free from
conventional restraint, lingering in regions not yet spoilt by so-called
art, and disfigured by man’s attempts at civilisation. All was so
silent, as we looked from our camp fire in delighted contemplation of
the great glacier of the “Smörstab,” and the sharp-peaked mountains
separating us, as it were, from other worlds. We had escaped for a time,
the thousand and one cares, which beset us on every side in dense
populations, and had left far behind those scenes, and voluptuous lures,
which the poet saith
Meek Peace was ever wont to shun.
Tea was cleared away by our energetic hobbinengree. We often silently
congratulated ourselves that the tea service was of tin, such was the
rapidity with which they sometimes vanished into her kettle bag.
Mr. Rödsheim, as the gipsies generally called Ole, commenced the
manufacture of birchwood cruppers for our animals, in anticipation of
steep mountain ways, and he also engaged his time on some hobbles of the
same wood, which we wished to take to England. Then, as night came fast
upon us, Ole selected his bed between two large rocks; with our spade he
made with rough sods a sort of turf coffin, about a foot deep, over
which he placed a large mass of heath roots, and moss which he had
peeled off the ground, the moss being turned downwards; then our
waterproof was placed over all. When his bed was ready, he proposed that
we should start at five o’clock the next morning.
[Illustration: NORWEGIAN BIRCHWOOD CRUPPER.]
“I shan’t get up at five o’clock!” shouted Esmeralda, in a shrill voice,
which nearly broke the drum of Ole’s right ear. “I don’t care; I shan’t
get up to please anybody!”
Noah and Zachariah looked at one another, as much as to say, “Dawdy!
she’s up; may our good shorengero land safely on the other side.”
“The next day’s journey is a long one,” suggested Ole, slowly
recovering; and we promptly decided for half-past five. Ole screwed
himself into his turf coffin, and, wrapping his head in his woollen
shawl, we laid the waterproof over him, and he was comfortable for the
night.
“Well,” said we to Esmeralda, being determined to maintain discipline,
“you shall please yourself, but remember we move on in good time
to-morrow.” Our hobbenengree was at once a study, which would have made
the fortune of an artist.
For a time we wrote up our notes, till the shadows of night descended on
the dark peaks, and a chill air came from the Smörstab glacier, when we
retired to rest.
Our sleep the next morning was disturbed by Ole asking for matches and
paper to light a fire. Very shortly we joined him. “Now,
Zachariah!’--vand! vand!” Zachariah and Noah were soon up. We had only
made eight miles yesterday, and it was a long day’s journey to reach the
Utladal Stöl. The morning was windy, with a heavy dew, but we could see
the sun creeping down the opposite mountain peaks, promising a hot day.
Tea was soon ready; a tin of potted meat was opened, and spread upon
slices of bread. All four commenced breakfast with a good appetite.
When Esmeralda found that we did not attempt to disturb her, it is
wonderful how quick she appeared, and the tents were immediately after
packed up. Our camp was about 4,000 feet above the level of the sea. We
observed some cow-dung flies and spiders in our tent before it was
packed up.
The rugged peaks of the Tverbottenhornene (signifying peaks of the pass
from one valley to another) rose before us. What a line of dark peaks!
The scenery of this valley is extremely wild.