FRAIL BRIDGE ON THE ROAD TO THE VÖRING FOSS.

THE OXONIAN
IN
THELEMARKEN;

OR,

NOTES OF TRAVEL IN SOUTH-WESTERN NORWAY
IN THE SUMMERS OF 1856 AND 1857.

WITH GLANCES AT THE LEGENDARY LORE
OF THAT DISTRICT.

BY
THE REV. FREDERICK METCALFE, M.A.,
FELLOW OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD,
AUTHOR OF
“THE OXONIAN IN NORWAY.”

“Auf den Bergen ist Freiheit; der Hauch der Grüfte,

Steigt nicht hinauf in die schönen Lüfte,

Die Welt is volkommen überall,

Wo der Mensch nicht hinein kömmt mit seiner Qual.”

“Tu nidum servas: ego laudo ruris amœni

Rivos, et musco circumlita saxa, nemusque.”

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1858.

[The right of Translation is reserved.]

LONDON:
SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS,
CHANDOS STREET.

CONTENTS TO VOL. II.

THE OXONIAN IN THELEMARKEN.

CHAPTER I.

Danish custom-house officials—Home sickness—The ladies of Denmark—Ethnological—Sweden and its forests—Influence of climate on Peoples—The French court—Norwegian and Danish pronunciation—The Swiss of the North—An instance of Norwegian slowness—Ingemann, the Walter Scott of Denmark—Hans Christian Andersen—Genius in rags—The level plains of Zealand—Danish cattle—He who moveth his neighbour’s landmark—Beech groves—The tomb of the great Valdemar—The two queens—The Probst of Ringstedt—Wicked King Abel—Mormonism in Jutland—Roeskilde—Its cathedral—The Semiramis of the North—Frederick IV.—Unfortunate Matilda.

Being desirous of proceeding to Copenhagen, I landed at Nyeborg; together with the Dane and his lady.

The steamer across to Korsör will start at four A.M., and so, it being now midnight, we must sleep as fast as we can till then. The politeness of the Danish custom-house officials surpassed everything of the kind I ever encountered from that class. We put up at Schalburg’s hotel. Mine host cozened us. I recommend no traveller to stop at his house of entertainment.

“Morgen-stund giv Guld i Mund,” said the fair Dane to me, quoting a national proverb, as I pointed out to her the distant coast of Zealand, which a few minutes before was indistinctly visible in the grey dawn, now gilded with the sun.

She was quite in ecstasies at the thoughts of setting foot on her dear Zealand, and seeing its level plains of yellow corn and beechen groves, after the granite and gneiss deserts of Lapland and Finmark. Sooth to say, the Danish ladies are not infected with that deadly liveliness which characterizes many of the Norwegians; while, on the other hand, they are devoid of that bland facility and Frenchified superficiality which mark many of the Swedes. How is it that there is such a wide distinction between the Swede and the Norskman? Contrast the frank bluffness of the one; strong, sterling, and earnest, without artifice and grace: and the supple and insinuating manner of the other. The very peasant-girl of Sweden steps like a duchess, and curtsies as if she had been an habitué of Almack’s. Pass over the Borders, as I have done, from Trondjem Fjord through Jemte-land, and at the first Swedish change-house almost, you are among quite a different population, profuse of compliments and civilities which they evidently look upon as all in the day’s work, and very much disposed withal to have a deal with you—to sell you, for instance, one of their grey dog-skin cloaks for one hundred rix dollars. One is reminded, on the one hand, of the sturdy, blundering Halbert Glendinning; and on the other, of the lithesome, adroit Euphuist, Sir Piercie Shaftón. And yet, if we are to believe the antiquarians and ethnologists, both people are of pretty much the same stock: coming from the countries about the Black Sea, two centuries after Christ, when these were overrun by the Romans, and supervening upon the old Gothic or second migration. It may be said that the Norsk character caught some parts of its colouring from the stern, rugged nurse in the embrace of whose mountains their lot has been cast; with the great backbone of primæval rock (Kiölen) splitting Norway in two, and rendering intercourse difficult. So that now you will hear a Norskman talk of Nordenfjelds (north of the mountains), and Söndenfjelds (south of the mountains), as if they were two distinct countries. But then, if the Swedes did live on a flatter country, and one apparently more adapted for the production of the necessaries of life, and so more favourable to the growth of civilization; yet it, too, presented obstacles almost equally insurmountable to the spread of refining arts and tastes.

They also used to talk, not like the Norwegians, of their north of the mountain and south of the mountain, but of their north of the forest (nordenskovs) and south of the forest (söndenskovs), in allusion to the impenetrable forests of Kolmorden and Tiveden, which divided the district about the Mälar Lake from the south and south-west of Sweden. And is it much better now? True, you have the canal that has pierced the country and opened it out to culture and civilization; but even at the present day the climate of Sweden is less mild than that of Norway, and four-sevenths of the whole surface of the country are still covered by forests. In travelling from the Trondjem Fjord to the Gulf of Bothnia, I found myself driving for four consecutive days through one dense forest, with now and then a clearing of some extent; and as for the marshes, they are very extensive and treacherous. One day I saw two cranes not far from the road along which I was driving, and immediately stepped, gun in hand, off the causeway, to try and stalk them. But I was nigh becoming the victim; for at the first step on what looked like a grassy meadow, I plunged deep into a floating morass. A Swede who was my companion luckily seized me before I had played out the part of Curtius without any corresponding results.

The nation which has to fight with a cold climate and such physical geography as this, is not much better situated than the one which in a milder climate has to wring a subsistence from rocks, and which, to advance a mile direct, has to go up and down twain. Like those heroes and pioneers of civilization in the backwoods, they both of them have to clench the teeth, and knit the brow, and stiffen the sinews, if they want to hold their own in the stern fight with nature. And this sort of permanent, self-reliant obduracy which by degrees gets into the blood, is by no means prone to foster those softer graces that bud forth under the warmth of a southern sky and in the lap of a richer soil, where none of the asperities generated by compulsion are requisite, but Dame Nature, with the least coaxing possible, listens to and rewards her suitors.

Why is it, then, that the manners of these two people are so different? People tell me it did not use to be so. The first and great reason, then, appears to be the different governments of the two countries; the absence of liberty and the excessive powers and number of the nobility in the one, and the abundance of liberty and absence of nobles in the other. The influence of rule upon the inhabitants of a country is, in the long run, as mighty as that of breed and blood.

Improbable as it may appear to some, I am inclined to lay great stress on the influence of a French Court. Bernadotte, it is true, was the son of a plebeian, a notary of Pau; but he was a Frenchman, and every Frenchman is versatile, and gifted with external polish, at all events; and his Court was French, and Court influence did its work, penetrating to the very roots of society; so that by degrees the graces of the capital became engrafted on the obsequious spirit already engendered by long servitude among the Swedish population. At Christiania, on the contrary, there is no Court; the nobility are not, and the country is all but a republic. This is, I believe, a part solution of the problem—a “guess at truth.” While on this subject, I may as well refer to the difference between the pronunciation of Danish and Norwegian, though they are at present the same language. The vapid sweetness which your Dane affects in his articulation, is most distasteful after the rough and strenuous tongue of Norway. It is a case of lollipop to wholesome gritty rye-bread. The Dane, especially the Copenhagener, rolls out his words in a most lackadaisical manner, as if he were talking to a child. Mammas and papas will talk thus, we know, to their babies, the language of endearment not being according to the rules of the Queen’s English. At times I thought great big men were going to blubber, and were commiserating their own fate or that of the person addressed, when perhaps they were only asking what time the train started to Copenhagen, or whether the potato sickness had reappeared.

Going to the fore part of the steamer to get some English money turned into Danish, I find two of those Swiss of the North, Dalecarlian girls, on board. They are from Mora, and one is very pretty. The most noticeable feature in their costume is their short petticoats and red stockings. That most sprightly girl, Miss Diana Redshank, will at once perceive whence it is that we borrow the fashion now prevailing in England. As a matter of course, they were artists in hair, and they immediately produced their stock-in-trade—viz., specimens of bracelets, necklaces, and watch-chains, very well worked and very cheap. They have been from home all the summer, and are now working their way back. In winter they weave cloth and attend to the household duties. I bought a hair bracelet for three shillings.

As an instance of Norwegian slowness, I may mention that although the railway is opened from Korsör to Copenhagen, distant three hours, the Norwegian steamer still continues to stop at Nyeborg, on the further side of the Belt, thereby necessitating this trip across, and much additional delay, trouble, and expense.

The novels of Ingemann have made all these places classic ground. The Danes look on him as the Walter Scott of their country. He is now past seventy, and living in repose at the Academy of Sorö. Denmark sets a good example in the reward of literary merit.

Well do I remember, years ago, meeting a goggle-eyed young man, with lanky, dark hair, ungainly figure, and wild countenance, and nails just like filberts, at a table-d’hôte in Germany. All the dinner he rolled about his large eyes in meditation. This was Hans Christian Andersen, now enjoying a European reputation, and holding, with a good stipend, the sinecure of Honorary Professor at the University of Copenhagen. Hitherto he had been candle-snuffer at the metropolitan theatre, but his hidden talents had been perceived, and he was being sent to Italy to improve his taste and get ideas at the public expense.

If we contrast the fate in England and in Denmark of genius in rags, we may be reminded of the märchen, told, if I remember, by Andersen himself, how that once on a time a little dirty duck was ignored by the sleek fat ducks around, when it meets with two swans, who recognised the seemingly dirty little duck, and protected it. Whereupon the astonished youngster happens to see himself in a puddle, and finds that he is a genuine swan.

What a contrast between these flat plains of Zealand, with the whitewashed cottages and farm-houses—the ridge of the thatched roof pinned down with straddles of wood—and the rocky wilds of Norway, its log-houses, red or yellow, with grass-covered roofs, nestling under a vast impending mountain. In Denmark, the highest land is only a few hundred feet above the sea. How immensely large, too, the cows and horses look after the lilliputian breeds of Norway. There being hardly any fences, the poor creatures are generally tethered: yonder peasant girl with the great wooden mallet is in the act of driving in the iron tethering-pin.

No wonder that in a country so open, superstition has had recourse to terrify the movers of their neighbour’s landmarks. Thus the Jack-o’-Lanterns in the isle of Falster are nothing but the souls of dishonest land-measurers running about with flaming measuring-rods, and crying, “Here is the right boundary, from here to here!” Again, near Ebeltoft, there used to live a rich peasant, seemingly a paragon of propriety, a regular church-goer, a most attentive sermon-hearer, one who paid tithes of all he possessed; but somehow, nobody believed in him. And sure enough when he was dead and buried, his voice was often heard at night crying in woful accents, “Boundary here, boundary there!” The people knew the reason why.

Instead of those dark and sombre pine-forests so thoroughly in keeping with the grim, Dantesque grandeur of the Norwegian landscape, or the ghostlike white stems of the birch-trees, the only trees visible are the glossy-foliaged, wide-spreading groves of beech, with now and then an oak.

I descend at Ringstedt to see the tombs of the great Valdemar (King of Denmark), and his two wives, Dagmar of Bohemia, and Berengaria of Portugal. The train, I perceive, is partly freighted with food for the capital, in the shape of sacks full of chickens (only fancy chickens in sacks!) and numbers of live pigs, which a man was watering with a watering-can, as if they had been roses, and would wither with the heat.

Having a vivid recollection of Ingermann’s best historical tale, Valdemar Seier, it was with no little interest that I entered the church, and stood beside the flag-stones in the choir which marked the place of the King’s sepulture. On the Regal tomb was incised, “Valdemarus Secundus Legislator Danorum.” On either side were stones, with the inscriptions, “Regina Dagmar, prima uxor Valdemari Secundi,” and “Regina Berengaria, secunda uxor Valdemari Secundi.” The real name of Valdemar’s first wife was Margaret, but she is only known to the Dane as little Dagmar, which means “dawning,” or “morning-red.” Her memory is as dear to the people as that of Queen Tyra Dannebod. She was as good as she was beautiful. The name of “Proud Bengard,” on the contrary, is loaded with curses, as one who brought ruin upon the throne and country.

At this moment a gentleman approached me with a courteous bow; he was dressed in ribbed grey and black pantaloons, and a low-crowned hat. I found afterwards that he was a native of Bornholm, and no less a personage than the Probst of Ringstedt; he was very polite and affable, and informed me that these graves were opened not long ago in the presence of his present Majesty of Denmark. Valdemar was three ells long; his countenance was imperfect. Bengard’s face and teeth were in good preservation. Dagmar’s body had apparently been disturbed before.

In the aisle near, he pointed out the monument to Eric Plugpenning, the son of Valdemar. He had the nickname of Plugpenning (Plough-penny), for setting a tax on the plough. He was murdered on a fishing excursion by his brother. The fratricide’s name was not Cain but Abel. There was no luck afterwards about the house; the curse of Atreus and Thyestes rested upon it. Of course, after such an atrocity King Abel “walks,” or more strictly speaking he “rides.” Slain in a morass near the Eyder in 1252, his body was buried in the cathedral of Sleswig. But his spirit found no rest; by night he haunted the church and disturbed the slumbers of the canons; his corpse was consequently exhumed, and buried in a bog near Gottorp, with a stake right through it to keep it down; the peasants will still point out the place. But it was all to no purpose; a huntsman’s horn is often heard at night in the vicinity, and Abel, dark of aspect, is seen scouring away on a small black horse, with a leash of dogs, burning like fire.

Here, then, in Denmark, we see the grand Asgaardsreia of Norway localized, and transferred from the nameless powers of the invisible world to malefactors of earth; while in Germany it assumes the shape of “The Wild Huntsman.”

Returning to the inn, I amused myself till the next train arrived by looking at the Copenhagen paper, from which I learn that twenty pairs were copulerede—married—last week, and that there has been a great meeting of Mormons in the capital. Such has been the effect of the mission of the elders in Jutland, that that portion of Denmark is becoming quite depopulated from emigration to the city of the Salt Lake. There is also a list of gold, silver, and bronze articles lately discovered in the country, and sent to the museum of Copenhagen, with the amount of payments received by each. In the precious metals these are according to weight. One lucky finder gets 72 rix dollars.

By the next train I advance to Roeskilde, which takes its name from the clear perennial spring of St. Roe, which ejects many gallons a minute. Baths and public rooms are established in connexion with it. But it was the Cathedral that drew me to Roeskilde. A brick building, in the plain Gothic of Denmark, it has not much interest in an architectural point of view; but there are monuments here which I felt bound to see. Old Saxo Grammaticus, the chronicler of early Denmark, the interior of whose study is so graphically described by Ingermann in the beginning of Valdemar Seier—he rests under that humble stone. Here, too, is buried in one of the pillars of the choir, Svend Tveskjaeg, the father of Canute the Great, who died at the assize at Gainsborough, in 1014.

Queen Margaret (the Northern Semiramis), who wore the triple crown of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, sleeps behind the altar, under a full-length monument in white marble more than four centuries old. It were well if the Scandinavian idea, now absorbing the minds of thinking men in the North, were to find a more happy realization than in her case—the union, instead of allaying the hostility with which each nation regarded the other, only serving to perpetuate embroilments. Some good kings and great repose here; also some wicked and mean. Among the former, it will suffice to mention Frederick IV., whom the Danes look upon as their greatest monarch. A bronze statue of him by Thorwaldsen is to be found in one of the chapels. In the latter category we unhesitatingly place Christian VII., to whom, in an evil hour, was married our Caroline Matilda, sister of George III., who died at the early age of twenty-three.

“And what do the Danes think now of Matilda?” inquired I of a person of intelligence.

“Oh, they say ‘Stakkels Matilda!’” (unfortunate Matilda), was the touching but decisive reply. So that by the common voice of the people her memory is relieved from the stain cast upon it by those who were bound to protect her, the vile Queen-mother and the good-for-nothing King.

CHAPTER II.

Copenhagen—Children of Amak—Brisk bargaining—Specimens of horn fish—Unlucky dogs—Thorwaldsen’s museum—The Royal Assistenz House—Going, gone—The Ethnographic Museum—An inexorable professor—Lionizes a big-wig—The stone period in Denmark—England’s want of an ethnographical collection—A light struck from the flint in the stag’s head—The gold period—A Scandinavian idol’s cestus—How dead chieftains cheated fashion—Antiquities in gold—Wooden almanacks—Bridal crowns—Scandinavian antiquities peculiarly interesting to Englishmen—Four thousand a year in return for soft sawder—Street scenes in Copenhagen—Thorwaldsen’s colossal statues—Blushes for Oxford and Cambridge—A Danish comedy—Where the warriors rest.

It was late in the evening when the third train of the day whisked us into Copenhagen, where I took up my abode at a quiet hotel near the ramparts.

What a strange place this is. Works of art, and museums superior to anything in Europe, and streets, for the most part very paltry, and infamously paved. Traveller, be on your guard. The trottoirs of granite slab, worn slippery by the perambulating hobnails of those children of Amak, are very treacherous, and if you are supplanted, you will slide into a gutter nearly a foot deep, full of black sludge.

These people are a Dutch colony planted by King Christian II. in the neighbouring island of Amak.

The original female costume, which they still retain, consists of little black coalscuttle Quaker bonnets, very large dark-blue or white aprons, which almost hide their sober-coloured stuff gowns with their red and yellow edgings. Their ruddy faces, at the bottom of the said scuttles, look like hot cinders got there by mistake. Altogether they are a most neat, dapper, and cleanly-looking set of bodies. The men have also their peculiar costume. These people are the purveyors of vegetables for Copenhagen. Yon lady, standing in a little one-horse shay, full of flower-pots and bouquets, is another specimen of the clan, but seemingly one of the upper-crust section. Locomotive shops appear to be the fashion. Near the Church of our Lady are a lot of butchers’ carts drawn up, with meat for sale. They come from the environs of the city. Much life is concentred round the bridge near the palace. In the canal are several little stumpy sailing boats at anchor, crammed full of pots and crockery. These are from Bornholm and Jutland. Near them are some vessels with awnings: these are depôts of cheeses and butter from Sleswig and Holstein.

Look at yon row of women with that amphibious white head-dress spotted brown. In front it looks like a bonnet; behind, it terminates in a kerchief. You are reminded by the mixture of another mongrel, but picturesque article of dress, worn by the Welsh peasant-women, the pais a gwn bach. How they are gabbling to those ladies and housekeeper-looking women, and sparring linguistically about something in the basket. Greek contending with Trojan for the dead body of Achilles.

Their whole stock in trade consists of specimens of “hornfish,” an animal like a sand eel, with long spiky snout, and of a silvery whiteness. They are about two feet long, and twenty skillings the pair. These women are from Helsingör, which is the whereabouts of the said fish. They come from thence every day, if the wind serves; and if it does not, I fancy they manage to come all the same.

Look at these men, too, in the street, sawing and splitting away for dear life, a lot of beech logs at that door. Fuel, I find, is very dear, from seventeen to twenty dollars the fathom.

Alas! for the poor dogs, victims of that terrible fear of hydrophobia which seems to infect continental nations more than England; they are running about with capacious wire muzzles, projecting some inches beyond the smeller, which renders them, it is true, incapable of biting, but also of exchanging those amiable blandishments and courtesies with their kind, so becoming and so natural to them, and forming one of the great solaces of canine existence.

Yonder is Thorwaldsen’s museum, with its yellow ochre walls, and frescoes outside representing the conveyance of his works from Italy hither. But that is shut up to-day, and besides, everybody has read an account of this museum of sculpture. An Englishman is surprised to learn that the sculptor’s body rests, at his own request, under some ivy-covered mould in the quad inside. But the ground, if not consecrated episcopally, is so by the atmosphere of genius around.

Let us just pop into this large building opposite. There is something to be seen here, perhaps, that will give us an insight into Copenhagen life.

“What is this place, sir?”

“This, sir, is the Royal Assistenz Huus.”

“What may that be?”

“It is a place where needy people can have money lent on clothes. It enjoys a monopoly to the exclusion of all private establishments of the kind. If the goods are not redeemed within a twelvemonth, they are sold.”

A sale of this kind, I found, was now going on. Seated at a table, placed upon a sort of dais, were two functionaries, dressed in brown-holland coats, who performed the part of auctioneers. One drawled out the several bids, and another booked the name and offer of the highest bidder, and very hot work it seemed to be; the one and the other kept mopping their foreheads, and presently a Jewish-looking youth, who had been performing the part of jackal, handing up the articles of clothing, and exhibiting them to the buyers, brought the two brown-holland gents a foaming tankard of beer, which being swallowed, the scribe began scribbling, and the other Robins drawling again. A very nice pair of black trousers were now put up: “Better than new; show them round, Ignatius.” A person of clerical appearance seized them, and examined them thoroughly; then a peasant woman got hold of them; she had very dark eyes and a very red pippin-coloured face. A broad scarlet riband, passing under her chin, fastened her lace-bordered cap, while on her crown was a piece of gold cloth. One would have thought that the way in which her countenance was swaddled would have impeded her utterance; but she led off the bidding, and was quickly followed by the motley crowd round the platform. But the clerical-looking customer who had been lying by, now took up the running, and had it easy. He marched off in triumph with his prize, and I feel no doubt that he would preach in them the next Sunday.

Leaving these daws to scramble for the plumes, I passed into another large room, where I saw some nice-looking, respectable persons behind a large counter, examining different articles brought by unfortunates who were hard up. There was none of that mixture of cunning, hardness, and brutality about their demeanour which stamps the officials of the private establishments of the sort in England.

Hence we go to an old clothes establishment of another sort—I mean the Ethnographic Museum. Here you find yourself, as you proceed from chamber to chamber, now tête-à-tête with a Greenland family in their quaint abode; anon you are lower down Europe among the Laplanders, and among other little amusements you behold the get-up of a Lap wizard and his divining drum (quobdas). Hence you proceed eastward, and are now promenading with a Japanese beau in his handsome dress of black silk, now shuddering at the hideous grimaces of a Chinese deity. All this has been recently arranged with extraordinary care, and on scientific principles, by the learned Professor Thomsen.

“Herr Professor,” exclaimed a bearded German, “can’t we see the Museum of Northern Antiquities to-day? I have come all the way from Vienna to see it, and must leave this to-morrow.”

“Unmöglich, mein Herr,” replied the Professor. “To-morrow is the day. If you saw it to-day you would not see the flowers of the collection; and we will not show it without the flowers. The most costly and interesting specimens are locked up, and can’t be opened unless all the attendants are present.”

“Mais, Mons. Professeur,” put in a French savan.

“C’est impossible,” replied the Professor, shrugging up his shoulders.

“Could not we just have a little peep at it, sir?” here asked some of my fair countrywomen, in wheedling accents.

“I am very sorry, ladies, but this is not the day, you know. I shall be most happy to explain all to-morrow, at four o’clock,” was the reply of the polyglot Professor.

It would be well if the curators of museums in England would have the example of Professor Thomsen before their eyes. There is no end to his civility to the public, and to his labours in the departments of science committed to his care. Speaking most of the European languages, he may be seen, his Jove-like, grizzled head towering above the rest, listening to the questions of the curious crowd, and explaining to each in their own tongue in which they were born the meaning of the divers objects of art and science stored up in this palace. Next day, I found him engaged in lionizing a big-wig; at least, so I concluded, when I perceived that, on either breast, he wore a silver star of the bigness of a dahlia flower of the first magnitude; while his coat, studded with gold buttons, was further illustrated by a green velvet collar. Subsequently I learned, what I, indeed, guessed, that he was a Russian grandee on his travels. He is the owner of one of the best antiquarian collections in Europe. Professor Thomsen, not to be outdone, likewise exhibited four orders. While the Muscovite examined the various curiosities of the stone,[1] the bronze, and the iron period, I heard him talking with the air of a man whose mind was thoroughly made up about the three several migrations from the Caucasus of the Celts, Goths, and Sclavonians.

An Englishman, when he sees this wonderful collection, cannot but be struck with astonishment, on the one hand, at the industry and tact of Professor Thomsen, who has been the main instrument in its formation; and with shame and regret, on the other, that Great Britain has no collection of strictly national antiquities at all to be compared with it; and, what is more, it is daily being increased. The sub-curator, Mr. C. Steinhauer, informed me, that already, this year, he had received and added to the museum one hundred and twenty different batches of national antiquities, some believed to date as far back as before the Christian era. And then, the specimens are so admirably arranged, that you may really learn something from them as to the state of civilization prevailing in Scandinavia at very remote periods: the collection being a connected running commentary or history, such as you will meet with nowhere else. Observe this oak coffin, pronounced to be not less than two thousand years old; and those pieces of woollen cloth of the same date. Look at that skeleton of a stag’s head, discovered in the peat.

“There is nothing in that,” says an Hibernian, fresh from Dublin. “Did you ever see the great fossil elk in Trinity College Museum?”

Ay! but there is something more interesting about this stag’s head, nevertheless. Examine it closely. Imbedded in the bone of the jaw, see, there is a flint arrow-head; the bow that sped that arrow must have been pulled by a nervous arm. This “stag that from the hunter’s aim had taken some hurt,” perhaps retreated into a sequestered bog to languish, and sunk, by his weight, into the bituminous peat, and was thus embalmed by nature as a monument of a very early and rude period.

Presently we get among the gold ornaments. There the Irishman is completely “shut up.” “The Museum of Trinity College,” and “Museum of the Royal Irish Academy,” are beaten hollow. Nay, to leave no room for boasting, facsimiles of the gold head and neck ornaments in Dublin are actually placed here side by side with those discovered in Denmark. The weight of some of the armlets and necklets is astonishing. Here is a great gold ring, big enough for the waist; but it has no division, like the armlets, to enable the wearer to expand it, and fit it to the body; moreover, the inner side presents a sharp edge, such as would inconvenience a human wearer.

“That,” said Professor Thomsen, seeing our difficulty, “must have been the waistband of an idol; which, as there was no necessity for taking it off, must have been soldered fast together, after it had once encircled the form of the image.[2]”

“What can be the meaning of these pigmy ornaments and arms?” said I.

“Why, that is very curious. You know the ancient Scandinavian chieftain was buried with his sword and his trinkets. This was found to be expensive, but still the tyrant fashion was inflexible on the subject; so, to comply with her rules, and let the chief have his properties with him in the grave, miniature swords, &c., were made, and buried with him; just in the same way as some of your ladies of fashion, though they have killed their goose, will still keep it; in other words, though their diamonds are in the hands of the Jews, still love to glitter about in paste.”

“Cunning people those old Vikings,” thought I.

“Yes,” continued our obliging informant, “and look at these,” pointing to what looked like balls of gold. “They are weights gilt all over. The reason why they were gilt was the more easily to detect any loss of weight, which a dishonest merchant, had discovery not been certain, might otherwise have contrived to inflict on them.” Those mighty wind-instruments, six feet long, are the war-horns (Luren) of the bronze period; under these coats of mail throbbed the bosoms of some valorous freebooters handed down to fame by Snorro. “Look here,” continued he, “these pieces of thick gold and silver wire were used for money in the same way as later the links of a chain were used for that purpose. Here is a curious gold medal of Constantine, most likely used as a military decoration. The reverse has no impress on it.” This reminded me of the buttons and other ornaments in Thelemarken, which are exact copies of fashions in use hundreds of years ago. Here again are some Bezants, coins minted at Byzantium, which were either brought over by the ships of the Vikings, or were carried up the Volga to Novgorod, a place founded by the Northmen, and so on to Scandinavia, by the merchants and mercenary soldiers who in early times flocked to the East. Gotland used to be a gathering-place for those who thus passed to and fro, and to this Wisby owes its former greatness. Many of these articles of value were probably buried by the owner on setting out upon some fresh expedition from which he never returned, and their discovery has been due to the plough or the spade, while others have been unearthed from the barrows and cromlechs. Here, again, are some primstavs, or old Scandinavian wooden calendars. You see they are of two sorts—one straight, like the one I picked up in Thelemarken, while another is in the shape of an elongated ellipse. If you compare them, you will now find how much they differed, not only in shape, but also in the signs made to betoken the different days in the calendar. “You have heard of our Queen Dagmar. Here is a beautiful enamelled cross of Byzantine workmanship which she once wore around her neck. You have travelled in Norway? Wait a moment,” continued the voluble Professor, as he directed an attendant to open a massive escritoir. “You are aware, sir, that it is the custom in Norway and Sweden for brides to wear a crown. I thought that, before the old custom died, I would secure a memento of it. I had very great difficulty, the peasants were so loth to part with them, but at last I succeeded, and behold the result, sir. That crown is from Iceland, that from Sweden, and that from Norway. It is three hundred years old. That fact I have on the best authority. It used to be lent out far and near for a fixed sum, and, computing the weddings it attended at one hundred per annum, which is very moderate, it must have encircled the heads of thirty thousand brides on their wedding-day. Very curious, Excellence!” he continued, giving the Russian grandee a sly poke in the ribs.

The idea seemed to amuse the old gentleman of the stars and green velvet collar wonderfully.

“Sapperlot! Potztannsend noch ein mal!” he ejaculated, with great animation, while the antiquarian dust seemed to roll from his eyes, and they gleamed up uncommonly.

In the same case I observed more than one hundred Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian spoons of quaint shape, though they were nearly all of what we call the Apostle type.

But we must take leave of the museum with the remark that, to see it thoroughly, would require a great many visits. To an Englishman, whose country was so long intimately connected with Scandinavia,—and which has most likely undergone pretty nearly the same vicissitudes of civilization and occupancy as Scandinavia itself—this collection must be intensely interesting, especially when examined by the light thrown upon it by Worsaae and others.

Indeed, if England wishes to know the facts of her Scandinavian period, it is to these people that she must look for information.

“Ten per cent. for my money!” That, alas! is too often an Englishman’s motto now-a-days; “and I can’t get that by troubling my head about King Olaf or Canute.”

While I write this I am reminded of an agreeable, good-looking young Briton whom I met here; he is a physician making four thousand a-year by administering doses of soft sawder. Thrown by circumstances early on the world, he has not had the opportunity of acquiring ideas or knowledge out of the treadmill of his profession. He is just fresh from Norway, through which he has shot like a rocket, being pressed for time.

“How beautiful the rivers are there,” he observed; “so rapid. By-the-bye, though, your river at Oxford must be something like them. The poet says, ‘Isis rolling rapidly!’”

Leaving the museum, I dined at the great restaurant’s of Copenhagen, Jomfru Henkel’s, in the Ostergade; it was too crowded for comfort. Dinner is à la carte.

Some convicts were mending the roadway in one of the streets; their jackets were half black, half yellow, trousers ditto, only that where the jacket was black, the inexpressibles were yellow on the same side, and vice versâ. Their legs were heavily chained. Many carriages were assembled round the church of the Holy Ghost; I found it was a wedding. All European nations, I believe, but the English, choose the afternoon for the ceremony.

Thorwaldsen’s colossal statues in white marble of our Saviour and his Apostles which adorn the Frue Kirke, are too well known to need description.

At the Christianborg, or Palace of King Christian, the lions that caught my attention first were the three literal ones in massive silver, which always figure at the enthronization of the Danish monarchs. Next to them I observed the metaphorical lions, viz., the sword of Gustavus Adolphus, the cup in which Peter the Great used to take his matutinal dram, the portrait of the unhappy Matilda, and of the wretched Christian VII.

Blush Oxford and Cambridge, when you know that on the walls of this palace, side by side with the freedom of the City of London and the Goldsmiths’ Company (but the London citizens are of course not very particular in these matters), hang your diplomas of D.C.L., engrossed on white satin, conferred upon this precious specimen of a husband and king.

That evening I went to see a comedy of Holberg’s at the theatre, Jacob von Tybö by name. It seemed to create immense fun, which was not to be wondered at, for the piece contained a rap at the German customs, and braggadocio style of that people in vogue here some hundred years ago. The taste for that sort of thing, as may readily be imagined, no longer exists here. Roars of laughter accompanied every hit at Tuskland. The two Roskilds and Madame Pfister acquitted themselves well. The temperature of the building was as nearly as possible that of the Black Hole of Calcutta, as far as I was able to judge by my own feelings compared with the historical account of that delectable place. A lady next me told me that they had long talked of an improved building.

Next day I visited the Seamen’s Burial Ground, where, clustering about an elevated mound, are the graves of the Danish sailors who fell in 1807. I observed an inscription in marble overgrown with ivy:—

Kranz som Fadrelandet gav,

Den visner ei paa falden Krieger’s Grav.

The chaplet which their fatherland once gave

Shall never fade on fallen warrior’s grave.

True to the motto, the monuments are decked every Saturday with fresh flowers. Fuchsias were also growing in great numbers about. The different spaces of ground are let for a hundred years; if the lease is not renewed then, I presume the Company will enter upon the premises. There were traces about, I observed, of English whittlers. Our countrymen seem to remember the command of the augur to Tarquinius, “cut boldly,” and the King cut through.

CHAPTER III.

The celebrated Three Crowns Battery—Hamlet’s grave—The Sound and its dues—To Fredericksborg—Iceland ponies—Denmark an equine paradise—From Copenhagen to Kiel—Tidemann, the Norwegian painter—Pictures at Düsseldorf—The boiling of the porridge—Düsseldorf theatricals—Memorial of Dutch courage—Young heroes—An attempt to describe the Dutch language—The Amsterdam canals—Half-and-half in Holland—Want of elbow-room—A New Jerusalem—A sketch for Juvenal—The museum of Dutch paintings—Magna Charta of Dutch independence—Jan Steen’s picture of the fête of Saint Nicholas—Dutch art in the 17th century—To Zaandam—Traces of Peter the Great—Easy travelling—What the reeds seemed to whisper.

The name of the steamer which took me past the celebrated Three Crowns Battery, and along to the pretty low shores of Zealand to Elsineur (Helsingör), was the Ophelia, fare three marks. In the Marielyst Gardens, which overhang the famed Castle of Kronborg, is a Mordan’s-pencil-case-shaped pillar of dirty granite, miscalled “Hamlet’s grave.” Yankees often resort here, and pluck leaves from the lime-trees overhanging the mausoleum, for the purpose of conveyance to their own country.

But this is not the only point of interest for Brother Jonathan. Look at the Sound yonder, refulgent in the light of the evening sun, with the numberless vessels brought up for the night, having been warned by the bristling cannon to stop, and pay toll. I don’t wonder that those scheming, go-ahead people, object to the institution altogether—albeit the proceeds are a vital question for Denmark. On the steamer, I fell into conversation with a Danish pilot about this matter. I found that he, like others of his countrymen, was very slow to acknowledge that ships are forced to stop opposite the castle. He said that only ships bound to Russia do so, because the Czar insists on their having their papers viséd by the Danish authorities before they are permitted to enter his ports.[3]

Finding there was no public conveyance to Fredericksborg, which I purposed visiting, I must fain hire a one-horse vehicle at the Post. It was a sort of mail phaeton, of the most cumbrous and unwieldy description—I don’t know how much dearer than in Norway—so slow, too. On the road we pass the romantic lake of Gurre, the scene of King Valdemar’s nightly hunt. Some storks remind the traveller of Holland. Right glad I was when we at length jogged over divers drawbridges spanning very green moats, and through sundry gates, and emerged upon a large square, facing the main entrance to the castle.

The private apartments, I found, were, by a recent regulation, invisible, as his Majesty has taken to living a good deal here. But I was shown the chapel, in which all the monarchs of Denmark are crowned, gorgeous with silver, ebony, and ivory; and the Riddersaal over it, one hundred and sixty feet long, with its elaborate ceiling, and many portraits: and, marvellous to relate, the custodian would have nothing for his trouble but thanks. In the stable were several little Iceland ponies, which looked like a cross between the Norsk and Shetland races. They were fat and sleek, and, no doubt, have an easy time of it; indeed, Denmark is a sort of equine paradise. What well-to-do fellows those four strapping brown horses were that somnambulized with the diligence that conveyed us to Copenhagen. That their slumbrous equanimity might not be disturbed, the very traces were padded, and, instead of collars, they wore broad soft chest-straps. The driver told me they cost three hundred and fifty dollars each. That flat road, passing through numerous beech-woods was four and a-half Danish miles long, equal to twenty English, and took us more than four hours to accomplish.

Bidding adieu to Copenhagen, I returned by rail to Korsör, and embarked in the night-boat Skirner, from thence to Kiel. As the name of the vessel, like almost every one in Scandinavia, is drawn from the old Northern mythology, I shall borrow from the same source for an emblem of the stifling state of the atmosphere in the cabin. “A regular Muspelheim!” said I to a Dane, as I pantingly look round before turning in, and saw every vent closed. A fog retarded our progress, and it was not till late the next afternoon that I found myself in Hamburg. Some few hours later I was under the roof of mine host of the “Three Crowns,” at Düsseldorf, where I purposed paying a visit to Tidemann, the Norwegian painter. Unfortunately, he was not returned from his summer travels, so that I could not deliver to him the greeting I had brought him from his friends in the Far North. His most recent work, which I had heard much of, the “Wounded Bear-hunter returning Home, having bagged his prey,” was also away, having been purchased by the King of Sweden. At the Institute, however, I saw several sketches and paintings by this master.

Anna Gulsvig is evidently the original of the “Grandmother telling Stories.”

Bagge’s “Landscape in Valders,” and Nordenberg’s “Dalecarlian Scenes,” brought back for a moment the land I had quitted to my mind and vision. “The Mother teaching her Children,” and “The Boiling of the Porridge,” also by Tidemann, proclaim him to be the Teniers of Norway. Though while he catches the national traits, he manages to represent them without vulgarity. But perhaps this lies in the nature of the thing. The heavy-built Dutchman anchored on his square flat island of mud can’t possibly have any of that rugged elevation of mind, or romance of sentiment, that would belong to the child of the mountain and lake.

The school of Düsseldorf—if such it can be called—has turned out some great artists, e.g., Kaulbach and Cornelius; but the place has never been itself since it lost its magnificent collection of pictures, which now grace the Pinacothek at Munich.

As I sipped a cup of coffee in the evening, I read a most grandiloquent account of the prospects of the Düsseldorf Theatre for the ensuing winter. The first lover was perfection, while the tragedy queen was “unübertrefflich” (not to be surpassed). The part of tender mother and matron was also about to be taken by a lady of no mean theatrical pretensions. This self-complacency of the inhabitants of the smaller cities is quite delightful.

On board the steamer to Emmerich was a family of French Jews, busily engaged, not in looking about them, but in calculating their expenses, though dressed in the pink of fashion.

Here I am at Amsterdam. In the Grand Place is a monument in memory of Dutch bravery and obstinacy evinced in the fight with Belgium. This has only just been erected, with great fêtes and rejoicings. Well, to be sure! this reminds me of the Munich obelisk, in memory of those luckless thirty thousand Bavarians who swelled Napoleon’s expedition to Russia, and died in the cause of his insatiable ambition. “Auch sie starben für das Vaterland” is the motto.

V. Ruyter and V. Speke are both monumented in the adjoining church. The former, who died at Syracuse from a wound, is described in the inscription as “Immensi tremor Oceani,” and owing all to God, “et virtuti suæ.”

The warlike spirit of Young Amsterdam seems to be effectually excited just now. As I passed through the Exchange at a quarter to five P.M., the merchants were gone, and in their room was an obstreperous crowd of gamins, armed “with sword and pistol,” like Billy Taylor’s true love (only they were sham), and thumping their drums, and the drums thumping the roof, and the roof and the drum together reverberating against the drum of my ear till I was fairly stunned. “Where are the police?” thought I, escaping from the hubbub with feelings akin to what must have been those of Hogarth’s enraged musician, or of a modern London householder, fond of quiet, with the Italian organ-grinders rending the air of his street. Dutch is German in the Somersetshire dialect; so I managed to comprehend, without much difficulty, the short instructions of the passers-by as to my route to various objects of interest. By-the-bye, here is the house of Admiral de Ruyter, next to the Norwegian Consulate. Over the door I see there is his bust in stone.

As I pass along the canals, it puzzles me to think how the Dutchman can live by, nay, revel in the proximity of these seething tanks of beastliness and corruption. That notion about the pernicious effects of inhaling sewage effluvia must be a myth, after all, and the sanitary commission a regular job. Indeed, I always thought so, after a conversation I once had with a fellow in London, the very picture of rude health, who told me he got his living by mudlarking and catching rats in the sewers, for which there was always a brisk demand at Oxford and Cambridge, in term time. Look at these jolly Amsterdamers. I verily believe it would be the death of them if you separated them from their stinking canals, or transported them to some airy situation, with a turbulent river hurrying past. Custom is second nature, and that has doubtless much to do with it: but the nature of the liquids poured down the inner man perhaps fortifies Mynheer against the evil effects of the semi-solid liquid of the canals. Just after breakfast I went into the shop of the celebrated Wijnand Fockink, the Justerini and Brooks of Amsterdam, to purchase a case of liqueurs, when I heard a squabby-shaped Dutchman ask for a glass of half-and-half. It is astonishing, I thought with myself, how English tastes and habits are gaining ground everywhere. Of course he means porter and ale mixed. The attendant supplied him with the article he wanted, and it was bolted at a gulp.

Dutch half-and-half, reader, is a dram of raw gin and curaçoa, in equal portions.

What a crowd of people, to be sure. “Holland is over-peopled,” said a tradesman to me. “Why, sir, you can have a good clerk for 20l. per annum. The land is ready to stifle with the close packing.”

“Yes,” said I, “so it appears. That operation going on under the bridge is a fit emblem of the tightness of your population.”

As I spoke, I pointed to a man, or rather several men, engaged in a national occupation: packing herrings in barrels. How closely they were fitted, rammed and crammed, and then a top was put on the receptacle, and so on, ad infinitum.

We are now in the Jewish quarter. “Our people,” as the Israelites are wont to call themselves, formerly looked on Amsterdam as a kind of New Jerusalem. Indeed, they are a very important and numerous part of the population. The usual amount of dirt and finery, young lustrous eyes, and old dingy clothes, black beards and red beards, small infants and big hook noses, are jumbled about the shop-doors and in the crowded thoroughfares. Here are some fair peasant girls, Frieslanders, I should think, or from beyond the Y, judging by their helmet-shaped head-dresses of gold and silver plates, with the little fringe of lace drawn across the forehead, just over the eyebrows, the very same that Gerard Dow and Teniers have placed before us. If they were not Dutch women, and belonged to a very wide-awake race, I should tremble for them, as they go staring and sauntering about in rustic simplicity, for fear of that lynx-eyed Fagan with the Satyr nose and leering eye fastened upon them, who is clearly just the man to help to despoil them of their gold and silver, or something more precious still, in the way of his trade.

As we walk through the streets, the chimes, that ever and anon ring out from the old belfries, remind us that we are in the Low Countries; and if that were not sufficient, the showers of water on this bright sunny day descending from the house-sides, after being syringed against them by some industrious abigail, make the fact disagreeably apparent to the passer-by. This will prepare me for my visit to Broek; not that there is so much to be seen there—and Albert Smith has brought the place bodily before us—but if one left it out, all one’s friends that had been there would aver, with the greatest possible emphasis and solemnity, that I had omitted seeing the wonder of Holland. So I shall do it, if all be well.

Here is the Trippenhuus, or Museum of Dutch paintings, situated, of course, on a canal. Van der Helst’s picture of the “Burgher Guard met to celebrate the Treaty of Münster”—the Magna Charta of Dutch independence, pronounced by Sir Joshua to be the finest of its kind in the world—of course claims my first attention. The three fingers held up, emblematic of the Trinity, is the continental equivalent to the English taking Testament in hand upon swearing an oath. But as everybody that has visited Amsterdam knows all about this picture, and those two of Rembrandt’s, the “Night-watch,” and that other of the “Guild of Cloth Merchants,” this mention of them will suffice.

That picture is Jan Steen’s “Fête of St. Nicholas,” a national festival in Holland. The saint is supposed to come down the chimney, and shower bonbons on the good children, while he does not forget to bring a rod for the naughty child’s back.

De Ruyter is also here, with his flashing eye, contracted brow, and dark hair. While, of course, the collection is not devoid of some of Vandervelde’s pictures of Holland’s naval victories when Holland was a great nation.

There must have been great genius and great wealth in this country wherewith to reward it, in the seventeenth century. In this very town were born Van Dyk, Van Huysum, and Du Jardin; in Leyden, G. Douw, Metzu, W. Mieris, Rembrandt, and J. Steen. Utrecht had its Bol and Hondekoeter; while Haarlem, which was never more than a provincial town with 48,000 inhabitants, produced a Berghem, a Hugtenberg, a Ruysdael, a Van der Helst, and a Wouvermans.

In proof of the sharpness of the Amsterdamers, I may mention that most of the diamonds of Europe are cut here.

Next day, I took the steamer to Zaandam, metamorphosed by us into Saardam, pretty much on the same principle, I suppose, that an English beefsteak becomes in the mouths of the French a “biftek.” The tumble-down board-house, with red tile roof, built by the semi-savage Peter, in 1632, will last all the longer for having been put in a brick-case by one of the imperial Russian family. I always look on Peter’s shipwright adventures, under the name of Master Baas, as a great exaggeration. He perhaps wanted to make his subjects take up the art, but he never had any serious thoughts of carpentering himself. He only was here three days, and, as the veracious old lady who showed the place told me, he built this house himself, so what time had he for the dockyards? When some of your great folks go to the Foundling Hospital, and eat the plum-pudding on Christmas-day, or visit Woolwich and taste the dietary, and seem to like it very much, that is just such another make-believe.

“Nothing is too little for a great man,” was the inscription on the marble slab over the chimney-piece, placed there by the very hand of Alexander I. of Russia. In the room are two cupboards, in one of which Peter kept his victuals, while the other was his dormitory. If Peter slept in that cupboard, and if he shut the door of it, all I have to say is, the ventilation must have been very deficient, and how he ever survived it is a wonder. The whole hut is comprised in two rooms. In the other room are two pictures of the Czar. In the one, presented in ’56 by Prince Demidoff, the Czar, while at work, axe in hand, is supposed to have received unwelcome intelligence from Muscovy, and is dictating a dispatch to his secretary. The finely chiselled features, pale complexion, and air of refinement, here fathered on this ruffian, never belonged to him. The other picture, presented by the munificent and patriotic M. Van der Hoof, is infinitely more to the purpose, and shows you the man as he really was, and in short, as he appears in a contemporary portrait at the Rosenborg Slot. Thick, sensual lips—the very lips to give an unchaste kiss, or suck up strong waters—contracted brow, bushy eyebrows, coarse, dark hair and moustache—that is the real man. He wears broad loose breeches reaching to the knee, and on the table is a glass of grog to refresh him at his work.

Ten minutes sufficed for me to take the whole thing in, and to get back in time for the returning steamer, otherwise I should have been stranded on this mud island for some hours, and there is nought else to see but a picture in the church of the terrible inundation; the ship-building days of Zaandam having long since gone by, and passed to other places.

By this economy of time I shall be enabled to take the afternoon treckshuit to Broek. A ferry-boat carries us over the Y from Amsterdam, a distance of two or three hundred yards, to Buiksloot, the starting-place of the treckshuit, when, to my surprise, each passenger gives an extra gratuity to the boatman. This shows to what lengths the fee-system may go. And yet Englishmen persist in introducing it into Norway, where hitherto it has been unknown. Entering into the little den called cabin, I settled down and looked around me. On the table were the Lares, to wit, a brass candlestick, beyond it a brass stand about a foot high, with a pair of snuffers on it, and then two brasiers containing charcoal, the whole shining wonderfully bright. Opposite me, sitting on the puffy cushions, was a substantial-looking peasant, immensely stout and broad sterned, dressed in a dark jacket and very wide velveteen trousers. He wore a large gold seal, about the size and shape of a half-pound packet of moist sugar, and a double gold brooch, connected by a chain. As the boat seemed a long time in starting, I emerged again from this odd little shop to ascertain the cause of the delay, when I found to my surprise that we were already under way. So noiselessly was the operation effected, that I was not aware of it. Dragged by a horse, on which sat a sleepy lad, singing a sleepy song, the boat glided mutely along. The only sound beside the drone of the boy was the rustling of the reeds, which seemed to whisper, “What an ass you are for coming along this route. You, who have just come from the land of the mountain and the flood, to paddle about among these frogs.” Really, the whole affair is desperately slow, and there is nothing in the world to see but numerous windmills, with their thatched roof and sides, whose labour it is to drain the large green meadows lying some feet below us, on which numerous herds of cows are feeding.

CHAPTER IV.

Broek—A Dutchman’s idea of Paradise—A toy-house for real people—Cannon-ball cheeses—An artist’s flirtation—John Bull abroad—All the fun of the fair—A popular refreshment—Morals in Amsterdam—The Zoological Gardens—Bed and Breakfast—Paul Potter’s bull—Rotterdam.

I was not sorry when the captain, who of course received a fee for himself besides the fare, called out “Broek!” The stagnation of water, and sound, and life in general, on a Dutch canal, is positively oppressive to the feelings; it would have been quite a relief to have had a little shindy among the passengers and the crew, such as gave a variety to the canal voyage of Horace to Brundusium.

To enliven matters, supposing we tell you a tale about Broek, which I of course ferreted out of a drowsy Dutch chronicle, but which the ill-natured Smelfungus says has been already told by Washington Irvine. In former times, the people of the place were sadly negligent of their spiritual duties, and turned a very deaf ear to the exhortations of the clergyman. A new parson at last arrived, who beholding all the people given to idolatry in the shape of washing, washing, washing all the day long, and apparently thinking of nothing else, hit upon a new scheme for reforming them. He bid them be righteous and fear God, and then they should get to Paradise, and he described what joys should be theirs in that abode of bliss. This was the old tale, and the congregation were on the point of subsiding into their usual sleep.

“The abode of bliss,” continued the preacher, “and cleanliness, and everlasting washing.” The Dutchmen opened their eyes. “Yes,” proceeded the preacher; “the joys of earth shall to the good be continued in heaven. You will be occupied in washing, and scrubbing, and cleaning, and in cleaning, and washing, and scrubbing, for ever and ever, amen.”

He had hit the right chord; the parson became popular, the church filled, and a great reformation was wrought in Broek.

Sauntering along the Grand Canal, from which, as from a backbone, ribbed out divers lesser canals, I entered, at the bidding of an old lady, one of the houses of the place, with the date of 1612 over it. Of course its floor was swept and garnished, and the little pan of lighted turf was burning in the fireplace; and there was the usual amount of china vases, and knickknacks of all descriptions scattered about to make up a show. And then she showed me the bed like a berth, which smelt very fusty, and the door, which is never opened except at a burial or bridal. After this, I walked into a little warehouse adjoining, all painted and prim, and saw eight thousand cannon-ball-shaped cheeses in a row, value one dollar a piece, each with a red skin, like a very young infant’s. This colour is obtained, I understand, by immersing them in a decoction of Bordeaux grape husks, which are imported from France for the purpose. I next went to the bridge over the canal, and tried to sketch the avenue of dwarf-like trees and the row of toy-houses, and the old man brushing away two or three leaves that had fallen on the sward. At this moment came by a buxom girl in the genuine costume of the place, who exclaimed, “Lauk, he’s sketching!” (in Dutch) and stood immovable before me, and so of course I proceeded incontinently to sketch her in the foreground, she keeping quite still, and then coming and peeping over my shoulder, to see how she looked on paper.

Finding it was late, I hurried back to catch the return boat, faster, I should think, than anybody ever ventured before to go in Broek; at least, I judged so from the looks of sleepy astonishment and almost displeasure which seemed to gather on the Lotos-eater-like countenances of the citizens I met. As it was, I just saved the boat, and am now again gliding smoothly back to Amsterdam.

As I look through the windows of the cabin, I perceive a few golden plover and stints basking listlessly among the reeds, undisturbed by our transit. This time, however, there was more bustle on board. There were two foreigners who were very full of talk, and who, though they were speaking to a Dutchman in French, I knew at once to be English. As I finished up my sketch, I heard one of these gentlemen say, “Ah! I am an Englishman; you would not have thought it, but so it is. Few English speak French with a correct accent, but I, maw (moi?); jabbeta seese ann ong France, solemong pour parlay lar lang, ay maw jay parl parfaitmong biong.” I differed from him. It has seldom been my lot to hear French spoken worse. John Bull abroad is certainly a curiosity.

That evening I sallied out to see the Kirmess, or great annual fair. Its chief scene was round the statue of Rembrandt, in the heart of the city. Hogarth’s “Southwark Fair” would give but a faint idea of the state of things. There was the usual amount of wild beasts and giants; there was a pumpkin of a woman and her own brother, as thin as if he were training to get up the inside of a gas-pipe, to be seen inside one show, and their faithful portraits outside on a canvas, painted after the school of Sir Peter Paul Rubens. A mechanical theatre from Bamberg was apparently doing an immense trade under the auspices of an unmistakable Jewish family, who appeared from time to time on the platform. Close by was a picture of Sebastopol, which professed to have arrived from London. But the undiscerning public seemed to care very little about it; it was in vain that they were summoned to advance to the ticket-office by the sound of fife and drum—one could almost imagine, that the person of rueful and despairing aspect who was waiting for the people to ascend the parapet, had been spending some weeks in the trenches before the devoted city. The crowds, that surged about in serried masses, had their wants well seen to in the refreshment way. One favourite esculent was brown smoked eels, weighing perhaps half a pound each, and placed in large heaps on neat-looking stalls, kept by neat-looking people. The eels were stretched out full length as stiff as pokers, and I saw several respectable looking sight-seers solacing themselves with a fish of the sort.

But the most popular refreshment remains to be mentioned. Ranged along the street, in a compact row, were a number of gaudily painted temples; in front of each sat the priestess. Mostly, she was young and pretty, but here and there, blowsy and obese. By her side was a large bright copper caldron, steaming with a white hasty-pudding-looking substance. In front of her was a fire, over which was a broad square plate of iron, studded with small holes like a bagatelle-board. The female held in her hand a wand, or rather a long iron spoon, which she dabbed into the caldron, and then delivered a portion of the contents into the little holes above-mentioned. This required great adroitness; but custom appeared to have brought her to the pinnacle of her art, and she hardly ever missed her mark. In a second or two, the hasty-pudding became transformed into a sort of small pancake, and was whipped out of its locus in quo by a light-fingered acolyte of the male sex. I observed that behind the priestess were sundry little alcoves, shaded by bright-coloured curtains; in these might be seen loving pairs, feasting on the handiworks of the lady of the spoon. The repast was simple, and was soon dispatched, for a constant succession of votaries kept entering and issuing from the alcoves. If I was correctly informed, it would have been possible to have got as high as the top button of your waistcoat for the small sum of a few stivers.

I was sorry to hear that this national festival—a sort of Dutch carnival, which is visited by all classes—is ruinous to what is left of morals in Amsterdam.

Before leaving the city, I must not omit to mention the Zoological Gardens. If you wish to find them, you must ask for the “Artis;” that is the name it is known by to every gamin and fisherman in Amsterdam. The Dutch are very classical, and the inscription over the entrance is, “Naturæ artis magistra.” Half-a-dozen other public places go by Latin names. Thus, the Royal Institution of Literature and Art is called “Felix Meritis,” from the first words of a legend on the front of the building.

Next day, I take leave of my room in the hotel, with its odd French-shaped beds, closed in by heavy green stuff curtains, and great projecting chimney-piece. In my bill, the charge for bed tacitly includes that for breakfast; these two items being, seemingly, considered by the Dutch all one thing. Cheese appears to be invariably eaten by the natives with their morning coffee, which is kept hot by a little spirit-lamp under the coffee-pot.

After this, I stopped at Shravenhagen (the Hague), to see Paul Potter’s Bull. On the Sunday, attended a Calvinistic place of worship, where I was horrified to behold the irreverent way in which the male part of the congregation, who looked not unlike your unpleasant political dissenter at a church-rate meeting, gossiped with their hats on their heads until the entrance of the clergyman.

Next day, I found myself at Rotterdam. The steamer for London managed, near Helvoetsluys, to break the floats of her paddle-wheel; the engine could not be worked; and as there was a heavy sea and strong wind blowing on-shore, we should soon have been there, had not another steamer come to our assistance, and towed us back into a place of safety. After repairing damages, we proceeded on our voyage, and eventually arrived unharmed in London.

CHAPTER V.

Oxford in the Long Vacation—The rats make such a strife—A case for Lesbia—Interview between a hermit and a novice—The ruling passion—Blighted hopes—Norwegian windows—Tortoise-shell soup—After dinner—Christiansand again—Ferry on the Torrisdal river—Plain records of English travellers—Salmonia—The bridal crown—A bridal procession—Hymen, O Hymenæe!—A ripe Ogress—The head cook at a Norwegian marriage—God-fearing people—To Sætersdal—Neck or nothing—Lilies and lilies—The Dutch myrtle.

I was sitting in my rooms, about the end of the month of July, 1857, having been dragged perforce, by various necessary avocations, into the solitude of the Oxford Long Vacation; not a soul in this college, or, in short, in any college. “A decided case of ‘Last Rose of Summer,’” mused I. “Those rats or mice, too, in the cupboard, what a clattering and squeaking they keep up, lamenting, probably, the death of one of their companions in the trap this morning; but, nevertheless, they are not a bit intimidated, for it is hunger that makes them valiant.” The proverb, “Hungry as a church mouse,” fits a college mouse in Long Vacation exactly. The supplies are entirely stopped with the departure of the men: no remnants of cold chicken, or bread-and-butter, no candles. It is not surprising, then, they have all found me out.

I positively go to bed in fear and trembling, lest they should make a nocturnal attack.

Each hole and cranny they explore,

Each crook and corner of the chamber;

They hurry-skurry round the floor,

And o’er the books and sermons clamber.

The fate of that worthy Bishop Hatto stares me in the face. If they did not spare so exalted a personage, what will become of me? And as for keeping a cat, no, that may not be. I am not a Whittington. They are a treacherous race, and purr, and fawn, and play the villain—quadrupedal Nena Sahibs. I always hated them, and still more so since an incident I witnessed one year in Norway.

On the newly-mown grass before the cottage where I was staying, a lot of little redpoles—the sparrows of those high latitudes—were very busily engaged picking up their honest livelihood, and making cheerful remarks to one another on the brightness of the weather and the flavour of the hay-seeds. Intently examining their motions through my glass, I had paid no heed to a cat which seemed rolling about carelessly on the lawn. Suddenly, I perceived that it had imperceptibly edged nearer and nearer to the pretty little birds, and was gliding, snake-like, towards them. I tapped at the window lustily, and screamed out in hopes of alarming my friends; but it was too late; they flew up, the cat sprung up aloft likewise, caught a poor little fellow in mid-air, and was away with it and out of sight in a moment.

At vobis male sit, catis dolorum

Plenis, qui omnia bella devoratis!

Tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis!

O factum malé! o miselle passer!

Norway! and why am I not there? It is too late this year to think of it. I must write to that friend, and say I can’t keep my promise, and join him thither. No, I must be content with a little trout-fishing in Wales or Scotland. At this moment a tap is heard at the door. An ingenuous youth, undergraduate of St. Sapientia College, and resident in the neighbourhood, had brought a letter of introduction from a common friend, begging me, as one deep in the mysteries of Norwegian travelling, to give the bearer some information respecting that country, as he thought of taking a month’s trip thither.

As I pulled out Munck’s map, chalked out a route for the youth, and gave him a little practical advice on the subject, a regular spasm came across me. Iö was never plagued by that malicious gadfly, or “tsetse,” so much as I was for the rest of the day by an irresistible desire to be off to the old country. The steamer was to start in three days. On the third day I stood on board of her, in the highest possible spirits. The ingenuous youth was also there; but high hope was not the expression on his countenance. Most wofully he approached me. To make assurance doubly sure, and secure a good berth, he had left home the day before. On arriving at the terminus, his box was not to be found—the box with all his traps, and the 50l. in it. He had sent telegrams, or telegraphemes, to the four ends of Great Britain for the missing box; but it was not forthcoming. In a few hours we weighed anchor. The expectant visitor was left behind, and as there was no vessel to Norway for the next fortnight, the chances were that his trip thither would not take place. The above facts will serve as a warning to young travellers.

As daylight peered through the small porthole in the morning, I found that we had no less than eight people in our cabin, and that the porthole was shut, although it was smooth water.

“What an atmosphere,” said an Englishman, in an adjoining berth. “I have opened that porthole two or three times in the night; but that fat, drum-bellied Norwegian there, who seems as fond of hot, stifling air as a melon, has shut it again.”

“What can you expect of the people of a country,” replied I, “where the windows are often not made to open?”

A tall, gentlemanly-looking man, who stood before the looking-glass, and had just brushed his glossy wig into a peak like Mr. Pecksniff, here turned round and said, in Norwegian-English—

“I do assure you, sir, that the Norwegian windows will open.”

“Yes, in the towns; but frequently in the country not. I have been there a good deal, and I speak from experience.”

I find that our friend, who is very communicative, was in London in the days of the Prince Regent—yes, and he once dined with him at the London Tavern, at a dinner given in aid of foreigners in distress: the ticket cost 10l. He remembers perfectly well how, on another occasion, a tortoise-shell, all alive, was carried round London in a cart, with a notice that it would be made into tortoise-shell soup on a certain day. He dined, and the soup was super-excellent.

Consul ——, for I found that he had attained that distinction—was well acquainted with all the resorts of London. Worxall pleased him much. He had even learned to box. He had also something to say about the war with the Swedes, led on by Karl Johann, in which he took part.

After dinner we divert ourselves by observing the sleeping countenance of the obese Norwegian who was so fond of carbonic acid gas, assume all sorts of colours,—livid, red, yellow,—not from repletion, though this might well have been the case, but from the light of the painted glass overhead, which transferred its chameleon hues to his physiognomy.

Here I am, once more plunging into the heart of Norway in the national vehicle, the carriole; up hills, down hills, across stony morasses, through sandy pine forests. We landed this afternoon at Christiansand, and I am now seven miles north of it, and standing by the side of the magnificent Torrisdal river, waiting for the great unwieldy ferry-boat to come over. The stream is strong and broad, and there is only one man working the craft; but, by taking advantage of a back stream on the other side, and one on this, he has actually accomplished the passage with little trouble, and hit the landing-place to an inch.

On the other side, three or four carrioles, some of them double ones, are just descending the steep hill, and I have to wait till they get down to the waterside, in consequence of the narrowness of the road. One of the strangers, with a broad gold band round his cap, turns out to be the British consul. He is returning with a party of ladies and gentlemen from a pic-nic at the Vigelandsfoss, about three miles from this, where the river makes a fine fall.

That evening we stop at the Verwalter’s (Bailiff’s), close by the falls. I have no salmon-rod, but Mr. C——, an Englishman, who has come up with me to sketch the foss, and try for a salmon, obtains leave, as a great favour, to fish in the pools for one dollar a day, and a dollar to each of the boatmen. The solitary grilse that he succeeded in catching during the next day cost him therefore some fifteen shillings. The charges are an infallible sign that Englishmen have been here.

As in the Tweed, the take of salmon in these southern rivers has fallen off terribly. In Mandal river, a little to the westward, the fishing in the last twenty years has become one-tenth of what it was. Here, where 1600 fish used to be taken yearly, 200 only are caught. But at Boen, in the Topdal river, which, like this, enters the sea at Christiansand, no decrease is observable. For the last ten years the average yield of the salmon fishery there has been 2733 fish per annum. In this state of things, the services of Mr. Hetting, the person deputed by the Norwegian Government to travel about the country and teach the inhabitants the method of artificially breeding salmon and other fish, have been had recourse to. Near this, breeding-places have been constructed under his auspices.

Extensive saw-mills are erected all about this place; and it is probable that the dust, which is known to bother the salmon by clogging their gills, may have diminished their productiveness, or driven them elsewhere. The vast volume of water which here descends, is cut into two distinct falls; but a third fall, a few hundred yards above, excels them in height and grandeur.

While eating my breakfast, an old dame comes in with a large basket and mysterious looks. Her mission is one of great importance—viz., to hire the bridal crown belonging to the mistress of the house, for a wedding, which will take place at the neighbouring church this afternoon. She gets the article, and pays one dollar for the use of it. Hearing that the bridal cortège will sweep by at five o’clock, P.M., on its way from the church, I determined to defer my journey northwards till it had passed.

At that hour, the cry of “They come! they come!” saluted my ears. Pencil or pen of Teniers or Fielding, would that you were mine, so that I might do justice to what I saw. Down the steep hill leading to the house there came, at a slow pace, first a carriole, with that important functionary, the Kiögemester, standing on the board behind, and, like a Hansom cabman, holding the reins over the head of the bridesmaid, a fat old lady, with a voluminous pile of white upon her head, supposed to be a cap. Next came a cart, containing two spruce young maidens, who wore caps of dark check with broad strings of red satin riband, in shape a cross between those worn by the buy-a-broom girls and the present fashionable bonnet, which does not cover the head of English ladies. Their jackets were of dark blue cloth, and skirt of the same material and colour, with a narrow scarlet edging, similar to that worn by peasant women in parts of Wales. Over the jacket was a coloured shawl, the ends crossed at the waist, and pinned tight. Add to this a large pink apron, and in their hands a white kerchief, after the manner of Scotch girls, on their way to kirk. After these came a carriole, with four little boys and girls clustered upon it.

But the climax is now reached. The next vehicle, a cart, contains the chief actors in the show, the bride and bridegroom, who are people of slender means. He is evidently somewhat the worse, or better, for liquor, and is dressed in the short blue seaman’s jacket and trousers, which have become common in Norway wherever the old national costume has disappeared. The bride—oh! all ye little loves, lave the point of my pen in couleur de rose, that I may describe meetly this mature votary of Venus. There she sat like an image of the goddess Cybele; on her head a turret of pasteboard, covered with red cloth, with flamboyant mouldings of spangles, beads, and gold lace; miserable counterfeit of the fine old Norwegian bridal crown of silver gilt! Nodding over the turret was a plume of manifold feathers—ostrich, peacock, chicken, mixed with artificial flowers; from behind it streamed a cataract of ribands of some fifteen different tints and patterns. Her plain yellow physiognomy was unrelieved by a single lock of hair.

“It is not the fashion,” explained a female bystander, “for the bride to disclose any hair. It must on this occasion be all tucked in out of sight.”

This ripe ogress of half a century was further dressed in a red skirt with gold belt, a jacket of black brocade, over which was a cuirass of scarlet cloth shining resplendently in front with the national ornament, the Sölje, a circular silver-gilt brooch, three inches in diameter, with some twenty gilded spoon-baits (fishermen will understand me) hung on to its rim. Frippery of divers sorts hung about her person. On each shoulder was an epaulet or bunch of white gauze bows, while the other ends of her arms were adorned by ruffles and white gloves.

As this wonderful procession halted in front of the door, the gallant Kiögemester advanced and lifted the bride in his arms out of her vehicle. As she mounted the door-steps, a decanter of brandy in hand, all wreathed in smiles and streamers, flowers and feathers, I bowed with great reverence, which evidently gratified her vanity.

“I’ll tell you what she reminds me of,” said my English companion, who had left his profitless fishing to see the sight, “a Tyrolese cow coming home garlanded from the châlet. No doubt this procession would look rather ridiculous in Hyde Park, but here, in this wild outlandish country, do you know, with the sombre pine-trees and the grey rocks, and wild rushing river, it does not strike me as so contemptible. She is tricked out in all the finery she can lay her hands on, and in that she is only doing the same as her sex the world over, from the belle savage of Central Africa to Queen Victoria herself.”

The Kiögemester (head cook)—not that he attends to the cooking department, whatever he might have done in former days—is a very ancient institution on this occasion. He is the soul of the whole festival. Without him everything would be in disorder or at a stand-still. Bowing to the procession, he is also bowed down by the weight of his responsibility. In his single self he is supposed to combine, at first-rate weddings, the offices of master of the ceremonies, chief butler, speechifier, jester, precentor, and, above all, of peace-maker. His activity as chief butler often calls forth a corresponding degree of activity as an assuager of broils. The baton which he frequently wields is shaped like the ancient fool’s bauble. If he is a proficient in his art he will, like Mr. Robson, shine in the comic as well as the serious department, alternating original jests with solemn apophthegms. But the race is dying out. The majority are mere second-hand performers. The real adepts in the science give an éclat to the whole proceedings, and are consequently much in request, being sent for from long distances.

By-the-bye, I must not omit to mention that on the left arm of the bride hung a red shawl, just like that on the arm of the Spanish bull-fighter, whose province it is to give the coup de grace to the devoted bull. From the manner in which she displayed it, I fancy it must have been an essential item in her toilette. Hearing no pipe and tabor, or, more strictly speaking, no fiddle, the almost invariable accompaniment of these pageants, I inquired the reason.

“They are gudfrygtig folk (God-fearing people); they will have nothing to do with such vanities,” was the answer.

There seemed to me, however, to be some contradiction between this “God-fearing” scrupulosity and the size of the bride’s person. It struck me, as I saw the stalwart master of the ceremonies exerting all his strength to lift her into the cart again, that it was high time she was married.

At this moment up drives a gentleman dressed in black, with dark rat-taily hair shading his sallow complexion, and a very large nose bridged by a huge pair of silver spectacles, the centre arch of which was wrapped with black riband, that it might not press too much on the keystone. This is the parson who has tied the fatal noose, and is now wending his way homewards to his secluded manse.

Bidding adieu to my companion, who purposed driving round the coast, I now set off to the station, Mosby, to join the main route to Sætersdal, one of the wildest, poorest, and most primitive valleys of Norway, which I’m bent on exploring. On the road I once or twice narrowly escape coming into collision with the carriole of a young peasant who has been at the wedding. Mad with brandy, he keeps passing and repassing me at full gallop. The sagacious horse—I won’t call him brute, a term much more applicable to his master—makes up by his circumspection for his driver’s want of it. He seems to be perfectly aware of the state of things, and, while goaded into a break-neck pace, dexterously avoids the dangers.

Oak—a rare sight to me in this country—aspen (asp), sycamore (lön), hazel, juniper, bracken, fringe the sides of the road northward. Now and then a group of white “wand-like” lilies (Tjorn-blom) rises from some silent tarn (in Old Norsk, Tjorn), looking very small indeed after those huge fellows I have left reposing in the arms of the Isis at Oxford. Their moonlight-coloured chalice is well-known to be a favourite haunt of the tiny water-elves, so I suppose the Scandinavian ones are tinier than their sisters of Great Britain.

Nor must I omit to mention the quantities of Dutch myrtle, or sweet gale (pors), with which the swampy grounds abound. It possesses strong narcotic qualities, and is put in some districts into the beer, while, elsewhere, a decoction of it is sprinkled about the houses to intimidate the fleas, who have a great horror of it. Lyng (lüng), some of it white, and that of a peculiar kind, which I have never seen before, also clings to the sides of the high grounds, while strawberries and raspberries of excellent taste are not wanting.

CHAPTER VI.

A dreary station—Strange bed-fellows—Broadsides—Comfortable proverb—Skarp England—Interesting particulars—A hospitable Norwegian Foged—Foster-children—The great bear-hunter—A terrible Bruin—Forty winks—The great Vennefoss—A temperance lamentation—More bear talk—Grey legs—Monosyllabic conversation—Trout fished from the briny deep—A warning to the beaux of St. James’s-street—Thieves’ cave—A novelette for the Adelphi.

I stop for the night at the dreary station of Homsmoen. By a singular economy in household furniture, the cornice of the uncurtained state-bed is made to serve as a shelf, and all the crockery, together with the other household gods or goods of the establishment, are perched thereon, threatening to fall upon me if I made the slightest movement, so that my feelings, and those of Damocles, must have been not unlike; and when I did get to sleep, my slumbers were suddenly disturbed by the creeping of a mouse or rat, not “behind the arras,” for the wooden walls were bare, but under my pillow. Gracious goodness! is it my destiny then to fall a prey to these wretches? Notwithstanding, I soon dozed off to sleep again, muttering to myself something about “Coctilibus muris,” and “dead for a ducat.”

In the morning, when the peasant-wife brings me coffee, I tell her of the muscipular disturbances of the past night. She replies, with much sang froid, “O ja, de pleie at holde sig da” (Oh yes, they are in the habit of being there), i.e., in the loose bed-straw.

While sipping my coffee, I read a printed address hung upon the wall, wherein “a simple Norwegian, of humble estate,” urges his countrymen not to drink brandy. A second notice is an explanation of infant baptism. This is evidently to counteract the doctrines of the clergyman Lammers, who, as I have mentioned elsewhere, has founded an antipædobaptist sect. Indeed, I see in the papers advertisements of half-a-dozen works that have lately appeared on the subject. Another specimen of this wall-literature was a collection of Norwegian proverbs, one of which might perhaps serve to reconcile an explorer in this country to indifferent accommodation. “The poor man’s house is his palace.” Another proverb rebuked pride, in the following manner:—“Dust is still dust, although it rise to heaven.”

Next day we pass a solitary farmstead, which my attendant informs me is called Skarp England (i.e., scanty, not deep-soiled, meadow-land). Were it not for those Angles, the generally reputed godfathers of England, one would almost be inclined to derive the name of our country from that green, meadow (eng) like appearance which must have caught the attention of the immigrant Jutes and Saxons. At least, such is the surmise of Professor Radix.

“And what road is that?” I asked, pointing to a very unmacadamized byway through the forest.

“It is called Prest-vei (the Priest’s-way), because that is the road the clergyman has to take to get to one of his distant churches.”

“Gee up!” said I to the horse, a young one, and unused to his work, adding a slight flip with the whip (Svöbe), a compliment which the colt returned by lashing out with his heels.

“Hilloa, Erik! this won’t do; it’s quite dangerous.”

“Oh no, he has no back shoes; he won’t hurt you—except,” he afterwards added, “out of fun he should happen to strike a little higher.”

The ill-omened shriek of a couple of jays which crossed the road diverted my attention, and I asked their Norwegian name, which I found to be “skov-shur” (wood-magpie) in these parts.

As we skirt the western bank of the Kile Fjord, a fresh-water lake, a dozen miles long, and abounding in fish (meget fiskerig), the man points to me a spot on the further shore where the Torrisdal River, after flowing through the lake, debouches by a succession of falls in its course to Vigeland and the sea at Christiansand.

At every station the question is, “Are you going up to the copper works?” These are at Valle, a long way up the valley. They have been discontinued some years, but, it is said, are now likely to be re-opened.

At Ketilsaa I am recommended to call on the Foged of the district, a fine, hearty sexagenarian, who gave me much valuable information respecting this singular valley and its inhabitants; besides which, what I especially valued under the circumstances, he set before me capital home-brewed beer, port wine, Trondjem’s aquavit, not to mention speil aeg (poached eggs) and bear ham. Bear flesh is the best travel of all, say the Greenlanders, so I did not spare the last. The superstitions and tales about Huldra and fairies (here called jügere) are, the Foged tells me, dying out hereabout, though not higher up the valley.

His foster-son,[4] a jolly-looking gentleman, sends off a messenger to see if his own horse is near at hand, in order that I may not be detained by waiting for one at the neighbouring station, Fahret. But the pony is somewhere in the forest, so that his benevolent designs cannot be realized. Altogether, I have never visited any house in Norway where intelligence, manliness, and good-nature seemed so thoroughly at home as at the Foged’s.

The station-master, Ole Gundarson Fahret, manages to get me a relay in one hour; in the interval we have a palaver.

“There was once an Englishman here,” said he, “who went out bear-hunting with the greatest bear-shooter of these parts, Nils Olsen Breistöl; but they did not happen on one. Breistöl has shot fifteen bears.”

“How does he manage to find them in the trackless forest?”

“Why he is continually about, and he knows of a great many bears’ winter-lairs (Björn-hi); and when the bear is asleep, he goes and pokes him out.”

“But is it not dangerous?”

“Sometimes. There was a great bear who was well known for fifty miles round, for he was as grey as a wolf, and lame of one leg, having been injured, it was thought, in a fight with a stallion. He killed a number of horses; and great rewards were offered to the killer of him. The people in Mandal, to the west, offered thirty dollars; he had been very destructive down there. Well, Breistöl found out where he lay one winter, and went up with another man. Out he comes, and tries to make off. They are always ræd (frightened) at first, when they are surprised in their lair. But Breistöl sent a ball into him (this Norsk Mudjekeewis, by-the-bye, makes his own rifles), and the bear stopped short, and rushed at him. Just at this moment, however, he got another bullet from the other man, which stopped him. After waiting for a moment, he turned round, and charged at the new aggressor, who dodged behind a tree; meanwhile, Breistöl had loaded, and gave him another ball; and so they kept firing and dodging; and it actually took fifteen balls to kill him, he was so big and strong. The last time they fired, they came close to him, and shot two bullets into his head, only making one hole; then he died. The usual reward from the Government is five dollars, but Breistöl got fifteen. The Mandal people, when they heard the great grey bear was dead, gave him nothing. Fand (fiend)! but he was immensely big (uhyr stor), so fat and fleshy.”

“And how long does the bear sleep in winter?” I inquired.

“He goes in about Sanct Michael’s-tid, and comes out at the beginning of April.”

“And how many bears are there in one hole?”

“Only one; unless the female has young late in the autumn. A man in these parts once found an old he-bear (Manden), with a she-bear, and three young cubs, all in one hole. I think there are as many bears as ever there were in the country. There was a lad up in the forest, five years ago; a bear struck at him, but missed him, only getting his cap, which stuck on the end of his claws. This seemed to frighten the brute, and he made off. The little boy didn’t know what a danger he had escaped; he began to cry for the loss of his cap, and wanted to go after it. Now that did not happen by chance. V Herre Gud har Hannd i slig (God our master has a hand in such like things). We have a proverb, that the bear has ten men’s strength, and the wit of twelve; but that’s neither here nor there. Björnen kan vaere meget staerk, men han faa ikke Magt at draebe mennesker, Mnaar Han ikke tillade det. (The bear may be very strong, but he has not the power to kill men unless He permits it.”)

In which proper sentiment I of course acquiesced, and took leave of the intelligent Schusskaffer.

My attendant on the next stage, Ole Michelsen Vennefoss, derived his last name from the great cataract on the Otterelv, near which he lives. It is now choked up with timber. But all this, he tells me, will move in the autumn, when the water rises; although, in the north of the country, the rivers at that time get smaller and smaller, and, in winter time, with the ice that covers them, occupy but a small part of the accustomed bed.

A few years ago, a friend of his had a narrow escape at these falls: the boat he was in turned over just above the descent, and he disappeared from view; down hurried the boat, and providentially was not smashed to pieces. At the bottom of the fall it caught against a rock, and righted again, and up bobbed the drowned man, having been under the boat all the time. His friends managed to save him.

On the road we overtake a man driving, who offers me schnaps in an excited manner.

“Ah,” said Ole, mournfully, “he has been to the By, and bought some brantviin; they never can resist the temptation. When he gets home, there will be a Selskab (party). People for miles round know where he has been, and they will come and hear the news, and drink themselves drunk.”

Ole is one of the so-called Lesere, or Norwegian Methodists, disciples of Hauge, whose son is the clergyman of a parish near here. They may often be detected by their drawling way of speaking.

“Well, Ole,” said I, “did you ever see any of these bears they talk so much about?”

“Yes, that I have. I saw the old lame bear that Breistöl shot. I was up at the stöl (châlet) four years ago come next week, with my two sisters. We were sitting outside the building, just about this time of the evening, when it was getting dusk; all of a sudden, the horse came galloping to us as hard as ever he could tear. I knew at once it was a bear; and, sure enough, close behind him, came the beast rushing out of the wood. We all raised a great noise and shouting, on which the bear stopped, and ran away. Poor blacky had a narrow escape; he bears the marks of the bear’s claws on his hind quarters. I could put my four fingers in them.”

Quite so, hummed I—

The sable score of fingers four

Remain on that horse impressed.

“But what do the bears eat, when they can’t get cattle?”

“Grass, and berries, and ants (myren).”

“But don’t the ants sting him?”

“Oh! no; no such thing. A friend of mine saw a bear come to one of those great ant-hills you have passed in the woods. He put out his tongue, and laid it on the ant-hill till it was covered with ants, and then slipped it back into his mouth. They can’t hurt him, his tongue is too thick-skinned for that.”

“Does the bear eat anything in winter?”

“Nothing, I believe. I have seen one or two that were killed then; their stomach was as empty as empty—wanted no cleaning at all. I think that’s the reason they are such cowards then. I have always more pluck when my stomach is full. Hav’n’t you?”

It struck me that there are many others besides the artless Norwegian who, if they chose, must confess to a similar weakness.

“But the wolves (ulven) don’t go to sleep in winter; what do they eat?”

“Ulven?—what’s that?”

“I mean Graa-been (grey-legs).”

“Ah! you mean Skrüb.[5] In winter they steal what they can, and, when hard pressed, they devour a particular sort of clay. That’s well known; it’s plain to see from their skarn (dung.)”

Ole further tells me that a pair of eagles build in a tall tree about a mile from his house. The young ones have just flown; he had not time to take them, although there is a reward of half-a-dollar a-head. Fancy a native of the British Isles suffering an eagle to hatch, and fly off with its brood in quiet.

“Hvor skal de ligge inat?” (where shall you lie to-night?) he inquired, as we proceeded.

“I don’t think I shall go further than Guldsmedoen, to-night,” I replied.

“There is no accommodation at all at the station,” he said; “but at Senum, close by, you can get a night’s lodging.”

It was dark when we arrived at Senum, which lay down a break-neck side-path, where the man had to lead the horse. On our tapping at the door, a female popped her head out of a window, but said nothing. After a pause, my man says “Quells,” literally, whiling, or resting-time. This was an abbreviation for “godt quell” (good evening). “Quells” was the monosyllabic reply of the still small voice at the porthole.

“Tak for senast” (thanks for the last), was my guide’s next observation.

“Tak for senast,” the other responded from above.

The ice being now somewhat broken, the treble of “the two voices” inquired—

“What man is that with you?”

“A foreigner, who wants a night’s lodging.”

Before long, the farmer and his wife were busy upstairs preparing a couch for me, with the greatest possible goodwill; nor would they hear of Ole returning home that night, so he, too, obtained sleeping quarters somewhere in the establishment.

I find, what the darkness had prevented me from seeing, that this house is situated at the southern end of the Aarfjord, a lake of nearly forty miles in length. Mine host has this evening caught a lot of fine trout in the lake with the nets. They are already in salt—everything is salted in this country—but I order two or three fat fellows out of the brine, and into some fresh water against the morning, when they prove excellent. So red and fat! The people here say they are better than salmon.

Rain being the order of the next day, I post up my journal. In the afternoon I resume my journey by the road on the further side of the lake. Until very lately a carriage road was unknown here. The Fogderi, or Bailewick, in which we now are, is called Robygd: a reminiscence, it is said, of the days not long since over, when the sole means of locomotion up the valley (bygd) was to row (roe). The vehicle being a common cart, with no seat, a bag is stuffed with heather for me to sit on; and this acts as a buffer to break the force of the bumps which the new-made road and the springless cart kept giving each other, while, in reality, it was I that came in for the brunt of the pommelling. The Norwegian driver sat on the hard edge of the cart, regardless of the shocks, and as tough apparently as the birch-wood of which the latter was composed. It won’t do for a person who is at all made-up to risk a journey in Sætersdal: he would infallibly go to pieces, and the false teeth be strewed about the path after the manner of those of the serpent or dragon sown by Jason on the Champ de Mars. Armed men rose from the earth on that occasion, and something of the kind took place now. Don’t start, reader, it was only in story.

“Look at that hole,” said my attendant, pointing to an opening half-way up the limestone cliff, surrounded by trees and bushes. “That is the——”

“Cave of the Dragon?” interrupted I, abstractedly.

“The Tyve Helle (thieves’ cave), which goes in one hundred feet deep. For a long time they were the terror of all Sætersdal. The only way to the platform in front of the cave was by a ladder. One of their band, who pretended to be a Tulling (idiot), used to go begging at the farm-houses, and spying how the ground lay.

“On one occasion they carried off along with some cattle the girl who tended them. Poor soul! she could not escape, they kept such a sharp watch on her. The captain of the band meanwhile wanted to marry her; she pretended to like the idea, and the day before that fixed for the wedding asked leave just to go down to the farm where she used to live and steal the silver Brudestads (bridal ornaments), which were kept there. The thieves gave her leave;—they could dispense with the parson, but not with this. But first they made her swear she would not speak to a soul at the house. At midnight, Asjer, as she was called, arrived at her former home, to the astonishment of the good folks. She at once proceeded to take a piece of white linen, a scrap of red home-spun cloth, and a pair of shears. This done, she went to the chimney-corner and told the pinewood-beam, ‘I have been stolen by robbers; they live in a cave in the forest, I will cut little bits of red cloth on the road to it; to-morrow the captain marries me. To-night, when they are all drunk and asleep, I will hang out the piece of white cloth.’ Without exchanging a word with the inmates, she then set off back. The master of the house and a few friends collected, and followed her track. At night-fall they saw the flag waved from the mouth of the cave. In they rushed upon the thieves, who, unable to escape, threw themselves over the precipice. The captain, suspecting her to be the author of the surprise, seized her by the apron as he dashed over the ledge, determined that she should die with him. But the leader of the bonders, a ready-witted fellow, cut her apron-strings with his knife, just in the nick of time, so that she was saved; and the robber, in his fall, took nothing with him but her apron.”

CHAPTER VII.

A wolf trap—The heather—Game and game-preserves—An optical delusion—Sumptuous entertainment—Visit to a Norwegian store-room—Petticoats—Curious picture of the Crucifixion—Fjord scenery—How the priest Brun was lost—A Sætersdal manse—Frightfully hospitable—Eider-down quilts—Costume of a Norwegian waiting-maid—The tartan in Norway—An ethnological inquiry—Personal characteristics—The sect of the Haugians—Nomad life in the far Norwegian valleys—Trug—Memorials of the Vikings—Female Bruin in a rage—How bears dispose of intruders—Mercantile marine of Norway—The Bad-hus—How to cook brigands—Winter clothing.

Close by Langerack we pass a wolf-trap (baas), formed on the principle of our box-trap, for catching rats, only that the material is thick pine-boles fastened side by side. More than one wolf and lynx have been caged here.

The heather still continues plentiful; I particularly note this, as in the more northerly parts of the country, e.g., about Jerkin, this beautiful vestiture of the rocks and moors is seldom seen, except in very little bits. What a pity that none of our British grouse proper (Tetrao Scoticus) return the visit of the Norwegian ptarmigan to Scotland, and found a colony in these parts; they would escape at all events those systematic traffickers in ornithological blood, by whom these unfortunates are bought and sold as per advertisement. Blackcock and capercailzie, as usual, are to be found in the lower woods, and ptarmigan higher up. About here there are no trees of large size remaining; the best have long since been cut down and floated to the sea. It would do a nurseryman’s heart good to see the groups of hardy little firs, self-sown, sprouting up in every crevice with an exuberance of health and strength, and asserting their right to a hearing among the soughing branches of their taller neighbours, who rise patronizingly above them. The seed falling upon stony ground does not fail to come up, notwithstanding, and bring forth fruit a hundred-fold and more.

The valley here, which has been opening ever since I left Vennefoss, continues to improve in looks; it is now almost filled by the Fjord, and appears to come to an end some distance higher up, by the intervention of a block of mountains; but if there be any truth in the map, this is an optical delusion, the valley running up direct northward, nearly one hundred and fifty miles from Christiansand, and reaching a height at Bykle of nearly two thousand feet above the sea.

At the clean and comfortable station of Langerack I light upon a treasure in the shape of a dozen or two of hens’ eggs; very small indeed, it is true, as they were not quite so big as a bantam’s. Six of these I immediately take, and an old lady, with exceedingly short petticoats, commences frying them, while I grind the coffee which she has just roasted.

After a goodly entertainment, for part of which I was indebted to my own wallet, I go with her to the Stabur, or store-room, where, with evident pride and pleasure, she shows me all her valuables; conspicuous among these was a full set of bridal costume, minus the crown, which was let out. The bridal belt was of yellow leather, and covered with silver-gilt ornaments, all of the same pattern, to each of which is suspended a small bracteate of the same metal, which jingles with every step of the bride. What particularly attracted my attention were the three woollen petticoats worn by the bride one over the other. The first is of a dingy white colour, and is, in fact, the same as the every-day dress of the females. The second is of blue cloth, with red and green stripes round the bottom. The third, which is worn outermost, is of scarlet, with gold and green edging. Of course if these were all of the same length the under-ones would not be visible; and thus the object of wearing such a heap of clothes—love of display—would be defeated; so, while the undermost is long, the next is less so, and the next shorter still. Each one is very heavy, so the weight of the three together must be great indeed. The whole reminds one of harlequin at a country fair. But, while he comes on unwieldily and shabbily dressed, and as he takes off one coat and waistcoat after another grows smarter and smarter, and at last fines down into a gay harlequin, the Norwegian bride, by a contrary process, grows smarter and smarter with each article of clothing that she assumes.