Browne John Ross
The Land of Thor
This was my first experience of a post station, and very pleasant I found it. The inns of Norway are plain, cheap, and comfortable; not very elegant in appearance, but as good in all respects as a plain traveler could desire. I had a capital supper at Lillehammer, consisting of beefsteak, eggs, bread, butter, and coffee – enough to satisfy any reasonable man. The rooms are clean, the beds and bedding neat and comfortable, and the charge for supper, lodging, and breakfast not exceeding an average of about fifty cents. At some of the interior stations I was charged only about twenty-five cents, and in no instance was I imposed upon. The inn-keepers are so generally obliging and good-natured that there is very little difficulty in getting along with them. A few words always sufficed to make my wants understood, and the greatest kindness and alacrity were invariably shown in supplying them. But I anticipate my journey.
After a pleasant night’s rest I arose bright and early; and here, being for the first time thrown completely upon my own resources in the way of language, was obliged to have recourse to my vocabulary to get at the means of asking for breakfast and a horse and cariole. Fancy a lean and hungry man standing before a substantial landlord, trying to spell out a breakfast from his book in some such way as this:
“Jeg vil Spise [I will eat]!”
“Ya, min Herr!” the landlord politely answers.
“Jeg vil Frokost [I will breakfast]!”
“Ya, min Herr;” and the landlord runs off into a perfect labyrinth of birds, fish, eggs, beefsteak, hot cakes, and other luxuries, which the inexperienced traveler is vainly attempting to follow up in his book. In despair, he at length calls out,
“Ja! Ja! – that’s all right! any thing you say, my fine old gentleman!”
At which the landlord scratches his head, for he doesn’t understand precisely what you have selected. Now you take your book, and explain slowly and systematically:
“Kaffee!”
“Ja.”
“Œgg!”
“Ja.”
“Fisk!”
“Ja.”
“Smör og Brod!”
Here the landlord is staggered, and scratches his head again. Smör he gets a glimmering of, but the bread stuns him. You try it in a dozen different ways – broad, breyd, breed, brode, braid. At length a light flashes upon his mind. You want bread! Simple as the word is, and though he pronounces it precisely according to one of your own methods, as you suppose, it is difficult to get the peculiar intonation that renders it intelligible.
“Ja!” And thus you lay the foundation of your breakfast; after which, having progressed so far in the language, there is no great difficulty in asking for a “Heste og Cariole” [a horse and cariole].
A little practice in this way soon enables the traveler to acquire a sufficient knowledge of the language for the ordinary purposes of communication along the road. With a smattering of the German it comes very readily to one who speaks English, being something of a mixture between these two languages. I was really astonished to find how well I could understand it, and make myself understood, in the course of a few days, though candor obliges me to say that if there is any one thing in the world for which nature never intended me it is a linguist.
I was in hopes of finding at Lillehammer a party of tourists bound over the Dovre Fjeld to Trondhjem, of whom I had heard in Christiania. In this I was disappointed. They had started a few days previously. An omnibus was advertised to run as far as Elstad, some thirty-five miles up the valley of Gudbransdalen, which would be so much gained on my route. It seemed, however, that it only ran whenever a sufficient number of passengers offered – so I was obliged to give up that prospect.
CHAPTER XXIX.
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.
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.
CHAPTER XXX.
A NORWEGIAN GIRL
With a crack of the whip that must have astonished the landlord, and caused him some misgivings for the fate of his horse and cariole, I took my departure from Lillehammer. About half a mile beyond the town we (the skydskaarl, myself, horse, and cariole) passed the falls – a roaring torrent of water tumbling down from the mountain side on the right. Several extensive saw-mills are located at this point. The piles of lumber outside, and the familiar sounds of the saws and wheels, reminded me of home. The scene was pretty and picturesque, but rather disfigured by the progress of Norwegian civilization. Passing numerous thriving farms in the full season of harvest, the road winding pleasantly along the hill-side to the right, the foaming waters of the Logen deep down in the valley to the left, we at length reached the entrance of the Gudbransdalen – that beautiful and fertile valley, which stretches all the way up the course of the Logen to the Dovre Fjeld, a distance of a hundred and sixty-eight miles from Lillehammer. It would be an endless task to undertake a description of the beauties of this valley. From station to station it is a continued panorama of dashing waterfalls, towering mountains, green slopes, pine forests overtopping the cliffs, rich and thriving farms, with innumerable log cottages perched up among the cliffs, and wild and rugged defiles through which the road passes, sometimes overhung by shrubbery for miles at a stretch. Flying along the smoothly-graded highway at a rapid rate; independent of all the world except your horse and boy; the bright sunshine glimmering through the trees; the music of the wild waters falling pleasantly on your ear; each turn of the road opening out something rich, new, and strange; the fresh mountain air invigorating every fibre of your frame; renewed youth and health beginning to glow upon your cheeks; digestion performing its functions without a pang or a hint of remonstrance; kind, genial, open-hearted people wherever you stop – is it not an episode in life worth enjoying? The valley of the Logen must surely be a paradise (in summer) for invalids.
At each station the traveler is furnished with a stunted little boy called the skydskaarl, usually clothed in the cast-off rags of his great-grandfather; his head ornamented by a flaming red night-cap, and his feet either bare or the next thing to it; his hair standing out in every direction like a mop dyed in whitewash and yellow ochre, and his face and hands freckled and sunburned, and not very clean, while his manners are any thing but cultivated. This remarkable boy sits on a board behind the cariole, and drives it back to the station from which it starts. He is regarded somewhat in the light of a high public functionary by his contemporary ragamuffins, having been promoted from the fields or the barn-yard to the honorable position of skydskaarl. His countenance is marked by the lines of premature care and responsibility, but varies in expression according to circumstances. The sum of four cents at the end of an hour’s journey gives it an extremely amiable and intelligent cast. Some boys are constitutionally knowing, and have a quick, sharp look; others again are dull and stolid, as naturally happens wherever there is a variety of boys born of different parents. For the most part, they are exceedingly bright and lively little fellows. Mounted on their seat of honor at the back of the cariole, they greatly enliven the way by whistling and singing, and asking questions in their native tongue, which it is sometimes very difficult to answer when one is not familiar with the language.
I had at Moshuus a communicative little boy, who talked to me incessantly all the way to Holmen without ever discovering, so far as I could perceive, that I did not understand a single word he said. Another, after repeated efforts to draw me out, fell into a fit of moody silence, and from that into a profound slumber, which was only broken off toward the end of our journey by an accident. The cariole struck against a stone and tilted him out on the road. He was a good deal surprised, but said nothing.
Another little fellow, not more than six or seven years of age – a pretty fair-haired child – was sent with me over a very wild and broken stage of the journey. He was newly dressed in a suit of gray frieze with brass buttons, and was evidently a shining light at home. On the road a dog ran out from the bushes and barked at us. The poor little skydskaarl was frantic with terror, and cried so lustily that I had to take him into the cariole, and put him under my legs to keep him from going into fits. He bellowed all the way to the next station, where I endeavored to make the inn-keeper understand that it was cruel to send so small a boy on such a hazardous journey. The man laughed and said “Ja! he is too little!” which was all I could get out of him. I felt unhappy about this poor child all day.
On another occasion I had a bright, lively little fellow about twelve years of age, who was so pleased to find that I was an American that he stopped every body on the road to tell them this important piece of news, so that it took me about three hours to go a distance of seven or eight miles. There was a light of intelligence in the boy’s face that enabled me to comprehend him almost by instinct, and the quickness with which he caught at my half-formed words, and gathered my meaning when I told him of the wonders of California, were really surprising. This boy was a natural genius. He will leave his mountain home some day or other and make a leading citizen of the United States. Already he was eager to dash out upon the world and see some of its novelties and wonders.
At Laurgaard I was favored with a small urchin who must have been modeled upon one of Hogarth’s pictures. He was a fixed laugh all over. His mouth, nose, ears, eyes, hair, and chin were all turned up in a broad grin. Even the elbows of his coat and the knees of his trowsers were wide open with ill-concealed laughter. He laughed when he saw me, and laughed more than ever when he heard me “tale Norsk.” There was something uncommonly amusing to this little shaver in the cut of a man’s jib who could not speak good Norwegian. All the way up the hill he whistled, sang lively snatches of song, joked with the horse, and when the horse nickered laughed a young horse-laugh to keep him company. It did me good to see the rascal so cheery. I gave him an extra shilling at Braendhagen for his lively spirit, at which he grinned all over wider than ever, put the small change in his pocket, and with his red night-cap in one hand made a dodge of his head at me, as if snapping at a fly, and then held out his spare hand to give me a shake. Of course I shook hands with him.
Shaking hands with small boys, however, is nothing uncommon in Norway. Every boy on the entire route shook hands with me. Whenever I settled the fare the skydskaarl invariably pulled off his cap, or, if he had none, gave a pull at the most prominent bunch of hair, and holding forth a flipper, more or less like a lump of raw beef, required me, by all the laws of politeness, to give it a shake. The simplicity with which they did this, and the awkward kindliness of their manner, as they wished me a pleasant trip, always formed an agreeable episode in the day’s travel. I have shaken a greater variety of boys’ hands in Norway – of every size, kind, and quality, fat, lean, clean, and dirty, dry and wet – than ever I shook all over the world before. Notwithstanding the amount of water in the country, I must have carried away from Trondhjem about a quarter of a pound of the native soil. Between the contortions of body and limb acquired by a brief residence in Paris, the battering out of several hats against my knee in the process of bowing throughout the cities of Germany, and the shaking of various boys’ hands on my trip through Norway, I consider that my politeness now qualifies me for any society.
It must not be understood, however, that I was always favored with the society of little boys. At one of the stations, which, for obvious reasons, it would be indiscreet to name, there was no boy visible except the ragamuffin who had accompanied me. He, of course, was obliged to return with the horse and cariole. Three white-headed old men were sitting on a log near the stable basking in the sun, and gossiping pleasantly about by-gone times or the affairs of state, I could not understand which. Each of these venerable worthies wore a red night-cap, which in this country answers likewise for a day-cap, and smoked a massive wooden pipe. It was a very pleasant picture of rural content. As I approached they nodded a smiling “God Aften!” and rose to unharness the horse. An elderly lady, of very neat appearance and pleasing expression, came to the door and bade me a kindly welcome. Then the three old men all began to talk to me together, and when they said what they had to say about the fine weather, and the road, and the quality of the horse, and whatever else came into their antiquated heads, they led the horse off to the stable and proceeded to get me a fresh one. While they were doing that the elderly lady went back into the house and called aloud for some person within. Presently a fine buxom young girl, about seventeen years of age, made her appearance at the door. I flattered myself she wore rather a pleased expression when she saw me; but that might have been the customary cast of her features, or vanity on my part. At all events, there was a glowing bloom in her cheeks, and a penetrating brilliancy in her large blue eyes, wonderfully fascinating to one who had not recently looked upon any thing very attractive in the line of female loveliness. She was certainly a model of rustic beauty – I had rarely seen her equal in any country. Nothing could be more lithe and graceful than her form, which was advantageously set off by a tight bodice and a very scanty petticoat. A pair of red woolen stockings conspicuously displayed the fine contour of her – ankles I suppose is the conventional expression, though I mean a great deal more than that. As she sprang down the steps with a light and elastic bound, and took hold of the horse, which by this time the three old men were fumbling at to harness in the cariole, I unconsciously thought of Diana Vernon. She had all the daring grace and delicacy of the Scotch heroine – only in a rustic way. Seizing the horse by the bridle, she backed him up in a jiffy between the shafts of the cariole, and pushing the old gray-heads aside with a merry laugh, proceeded to arrange the harness. Having paid the boy who had come over from the last station, and put my name and destination in the day-book, according to law, I refreshed myself by a glass of ale, and then came out to see if all was ready. The girl nodded to me smilingly to get in and be off.
I looked around for the boy who was to accompany me. Nobody in the shape of a boy was to be seen. The three old men had returned to their log by the stable, and now sat smoking their pipes and gossiping as usual, and the good-natured old landlady stood smiling and nodding in the doorway. Who was to take charge of the cariole? that was the question. Was I to go alone? Suppose I should miss the road and get lost in some awful wilderness? However, these questions were too much for my limited vocabulary of Norsk on the spur of the moment. So I mounted the cariole, resolved to abide whatever fate Providence might have in store for me. The girl put the reins in my hand and off I started, wondering why these good people left me to travel alone. I thought that they would naturally feel some solicitude about their property. Scarcely was I under way, when, with a bound like a deer, the girl was up on the cariole behind, hanging on to the back of the seat with both hands. Perfectly aghast with astonishment, I pulled the reins and stopped. “What!” I exclaimed, in the best Norsk I could muster, “is the Jomfru going with me?” “Ja!” answered the laughing damsel, in a merry, ringing voice – “Ja! Ja! Jeg vil vise de Veien!– I will show you the way!”
Here was a predicament! A handsome young girl going to take charge of me through a perfectly wild and unknown country! I turned to the old lady at the door with something of a remonstrating expression, no doubt, for I felt confused and alarmed. How the deuce was I, a solitary and inexperienced traveler from California, to defend myself against such eyes, such blooming cheeks, such honeyed lips and pearly teeth as these, to say nothing of a form all grace and ability, a voice that was the very essence of melody, and the fascinating smiles and blandishments of this wild young creature! It was enough to puzzle and confound any man of ordinary susceptibility, much less one who had a natural terror of the female sex. But I suppose it was all right. The old lady nodded approvingly; and the three old men smoked their pipes, and, touching their red night-caps, bid me —Farrel! meget god reise!– a pleasant trip! So, without more ado, I cracked the whip, and off we started. It was not my fault, that was certain. My conscience was clear of any bad intentions.
We were soon out of sight of the station, and then came a steep hill. While the pony was pulling and tugging with all his might, the girl bounced off, landing like a wood-nymph about six feet in the rear of the cariole; when, with strides that perfectly astonished me, she began to march up the hill, singing a lively Norwegian ditty as she sprang over the ruts and ridges of the road. I halted in amazement. This would never do. Respect for the gentler sex would not permit me to ride up the hill while so lovely a creature was taking it on foot. Governed by those high principles of gallantry, augmented and cultivated by long residence in California, I jumped out of the cariole, and with persuasive eloquence begged the fair damsel to get in and drive up the hill on my account; that I greatly preferred walking; the exercise was congenial – I liked it. At this she looked astonished, if not suspicious. I fancied she was not used to that species of homage. At all events, she stoutly declined getting in; and since it was impossible for me to ride under the circumstances, I walked by her side to the top of the hill. A coolness was evidently growing up between us, for she never spoke a word all the way; and I was too busy trying to keep the horse in the middle of the road and save my breath to make any farther attempts at conversation.
