HALLINGDAL ­THE COUNTRY-PEOPLE OF NORWAY.

There are two roads from Laerdalsoren to Christiania, the eastern one passing through the districts of Valders and Hadeland, by way of the Little Miosen Lake and the Randsfjord, while the western, after crossing the Fille Fjeld, descends the long Hallingdal to Ringerike.  In point of scenery there is little difference between them; but as we intended visiting the province of Tellemark, in Southern Norway, we chose the latter.  The valley of the Fille Fjeld, which we entered on leaving Laerdalsoren, is enclosed by wild, barren mountains, more isolated and irregular in their forms than the Hardanger and Dovre Fjelds.  There were occasional precipices and dancing waterfalls, but in general the same tameness and monotony we had found on the Sogne Fjord.  Down the bed of the valley flowed a large rapid stream, clear as crystal, and of a beautiful beryl tint.  The cultivation was scanty; and the potato fields, utterly ruined by disease, tainted the air with sickening effluvia.  The occasional forests on the hill-sides were of fir and birch, while poplar, ash, and linden grew in the valley.  The only fruit-trees I saw were some sour red cherries.

But in the splendour of the day, this unfriendly valley shone like a dell of the Apennines.  Not a cloud disturbed the serenity of the sky; the brown grass and yellow moss on the mountains were painted with sunny gold, and the gloss and sparkle of the foliage equalled that of the Italian ilex and laurel.  On the second stage a new and superb road carried us through the rugged defile of Saltenaaset.  This pass is evidently the effect of some mighty avalanche thousands of ages ago.  The valley is blocked up by tremendous masses of rock, hurled one upon the other in the wildest confusion, while the shattered peaks from which they fell still tower far above.  Threading this chaos in the shadow of the rocks, we looked across the glen upon a braided chain of foam, twisted together at the end into a long white cascade, which dropped into the gulf below.  In another place, a rainbow meteor suddenly flashed across the face of a dark crag, betraying the dusty spray of a fall, else invisible.

On the third stage the road, after mounting a difficult steep, descended into the valley of Borgund, in which stands most probably the most ancient church in Norway.  It is a singular, fantastic structure, bristling with spiky spires and covered with a scale armour of black pitched shingles.  It is certainly of no more recent date than the twelfth century, and possibly of the close of the eleventh.  The architecture shows the Byzantine style in the rounded choir and the arched galleries along the sides, the Gothic in the windows and pointed gables, and the horned ornaments on the roof suggest the pagan temples of the ante-Christian period.  A more grotesque affair could hardly be found in Christendom; it could only be matched among the monstrosities of Chinese art.  With the exception of the church of Hitterdal, in Tellemark, a building of similar date, this is the best preserved of the few antiquities of Norway.  The entire absence of feudal castles is a thing to be noticed.  Serfdom never existed here, and one result of this circumstance, perhaps, is the ease with which institutions of a purely republican stamp have been introduced.

Our road still proceeded up the bottom of a rough barren valley, crossing stony headlands on either side.  At the station of Haug our course turned to the south-east, climbing a slope leading to the plateau of the Fille Fjeld ­a severe pull for our horses in the intense heat.  The birch woods gradually diminished in size until they ceased altogether, and the naked plain stretched before us.  In this upper land the air was delicious and inspiring.  We were more than 3000 feet above the sea, but the summits to the right and left, with their soft gleams of pale gray, lilac and purple hues in the sunshine, and pure blue in shadow, rose to the height of 6000.  The heat of the previous ten days had stripped them bare of snow, and the landscape was drear and monotonous.  The summits of the Norwegian Fjelds have only the charm of wildness and bleakness.  I doubt whether any mountains of equal height exhibit less grandeur in their upper regions.  The most imposing features of Norwegian scenery are its deep valleys, its tremendous gorges with their cataracts, flung like banners from steeps which seem to lean against the very sky, and, most of all, its winding, labyrinthine fjords ­valleys of the sea, in which the phenomena of the valleys of the land are repeated.  I found no scenery in the Bergenstift of so original and impressive a character as that of the Lofoden Isles.

The day was Sunday, and we, of course, expect to see some evidence of it in the appearance of the people.  Yet, during the whole day, we found but one clean person ­the hostess of an inn on the summit of Fille Fjeld, where we stopped to bait our horses.  She was a young fresh-faced woman, in the first year of her wifehood, and her snowy chemise and tidy petticoat made her shine like a star among the dirty and frowzy creatures in the kitchen.  I should not forget a boy, who was washing his face in a brook as we passed; but he was young, and didn’t know any better.  Otherwise the people lounged about the houses, or sat on the rocks in the sun, filthy, and something else, to judge from certain signs.  At Haug, forgetting that it was a fast station, where there is no tilsigelse (money for ordering horses) to be paid, I handed the usual sum to the landlady, saying:  “This is for tilsigelse.”  “It is quite right,” said she, pocketing the coin.

Skirting an azure lake, we crossed the highest part of the pass, nearly four thousand feet above the sea, and descended a naked valley to the inn of Bjoberg.  The landlord received us very cordially; and as the inn promised tolerable accommodation, he easily persuaded us to stop there for the night.  His wife wore a frightful costume, which we afterwards found to prevail throughout all Hemsedal and Hallingdal.  It consisted simply of a band across the shoulders, above the breasts, passing around the arms and over the back of the neck, with an immense baggy, dangling skirt hanging therefrom to the ancles.  Whether she was fat or lean, straight or crooked, symmetrical or deformed, it was impossible to discern, except when the wind blew.  The only thing to be said in favour of such a costume is, that it does not impede the development and expansion of the body in any direction.  Hence I would strongly recommend its adoption to the advocates of reform in feminine dress at home.  There is certainly none of that weight upon the hips, of which they complain in the fashionable costume.  It is far more baggy, loose, and hideous than the Bloomer, with the additional advantage of making all ages and styles of beauty equally repulsive, while on the score of health and convenience, there is still less to be said against it.  Do not stop at half-way measures, oh, fair reformers!

It seems incredible that, in a pastoral country like Norway, it should be almost impossible to procure sweet milk and good butter.  The cattle are of good quality, there is no better grass in the world; and the only explanation of the fact is to be found in the general want of cleanliness, especially among the inhabitants of the mountain districts, which are devoted to pasturage alone.  Knowing this, one wonders the less to see no measures taken for a supply of water in the richer grain-growing valleys, where it is so easily procurable.  At Bjoberg, for instance, there was a stream of delicious water flowing down the hill, close beside the inn, and four bored pine-trunks would have brought it to the very door; but, instead of that, the landlady whirled off to the stream in her revolving dress, to wash the dishes, or to bring us half a pint to wash ourselves.  We found water much more abundant the previous winter in Swedish Lapland.

Leaving Bjoberg betimes, we drove rapidly down Hemsedal, enjoying the pure delicious airs of the upper fjeld.  The scenery was bleak and grey; and even the soft pencil of the morning sun failed to impart any charm to it, except the nameless fascination of utter solitude and silence.  The valley descends so gradually that we had driven two Norsk miles before the fir-forests in its bed began to creep up the mountain-sides.  During the second stage we passed the remarkable peak of Saaten, on the opposite side of the valley ­the end or cape of a long projecting ridge, terminating in a scarped cliff, from the very summit of which fell a cascade from three to four hundred feet in height.  Where the water came from, it was impossible to guess, unless there were a large deposit of snow in the rear; for the mountains fell away behind Saaten, and the jagged, cleft headland rose alone above the valley.  It was a strange and fantastic feature of the landscape, and, to me, a new form in the repertory of mountain aspects.

We now drove, through fir-woods balmy with warm resinous odours, to Ekre, where we had ordered breakfast by forbud.  The morning air had given us a healthy appetite; but our spirits sank when the only person at the station, a stupid girl of twenty, dressed in the same bulging, hideous sack, informed us that nothing was to be had.  After some persuasion she promised us coffee, cheese, and bread, which came in due time; but with the best will we found it impossible to eat anything.  The butter was rather black than yellow, the cheese as detestable to the taste as to the smell, the bread made apparently of saw-dust, with a slight mixture of oat-bran, and the coffee muddy dregs, with some sour cream in a cup, and sugar-candy which appeared to have been sucked and then dropped in the ashes.  The original colour of the girl’s hands was barely to be distinguished through their coating of dirt; and all of us, tough old travellers as we were, sickened at the sight of her.  I verily believe that the poorer classes of the Norwegians are the filthiest people in Europe.  They are even worse than the Lapps, for their habits of life allow them to be clean.

After passing Ekre, our view opened down the valley, over a wild stretch of wooded hills, to the blue mountain folds of the Hallingdal, which crosses the Hemsedal almost at right angles, and receives its tributary waters.  The forms of the mountains are here more gradual; and those grand sweeps and breaks which constitute the peculiar charms of the scenery of the Bergenstift are met with no longer.  We had a hot ride to the next station, where we were obliged to wait nearly an hour in the kitchen, our forbud not having been forwarded from the former station as soon as the law allowed us to expect.  A strapping boy of eighteen acted as station master.  His trowsers reached considerably above his shoulder blades, leaving barely room for a waistcoat, six inches long, to be buttoned over his collar bone.  The characteristic costumes of Norway are more quaint and picturesque in the published illustrations than in the reality, particularly those of Hemsedal.  My postillion to this station was a communicative fellow, and gave me some information about the value of labour.  A harvest-hand gets from one mark (twenty-one cents) to one and a half daily, with food, or two marks without.  Most work is paid by the job; a strong lumber-man may make two and a half marks when the days are long, at six skillings (five cents) a tree ­a plowman two marks.  In the winter the usual wages of labourers are two marks a week, with board.  Shoemakers, tailors, and other mechanics average about the same daily.  When one considers the scarcity of good food, and the high price of all luxuries, especially tobacco and brandy, it does not seem strange that the emigration fever should be so prevalent.  The Norwegians have two traits in common with a large class of Americans ­rampant patriotism and love of gain; but they cannot so easily satisfy the latter without sacrificing the former.

From the village of Gol, with its dark pretty church, we descended a steep of many hundred feet, into Hallingdal, whose broad stream flashed blue in the sunshine far below us.  The mountains were now wooded to their very summits; and over the less abrupt slopes, ripe oats and barley-fields made yellow spots of harvest among the dark forests.  By this time we were out of smoking material, and stopped at the house of a landhandlare, or country merchant, to procure a supply.  A riotous sound came from the door as we approached.  Six or eight men, all more or less drunk, and one woman, were inside, singing, jumping, and howling like a pack of Bedlamites.  We bought the whole stock of tobacco, consisting of two cigars, and hastened out of the den.  The last station of ten miles was down the beautiful Hallingdal, through a country which seemed rich by contrast with Hemsedal and the barren fjeld.  Our stopping-place was the village of Naes, which we reached in a famished condition, having eaten nothing all day.  There were two landhandlare in the place, with one of whom we lodged.  Here we found a few signs of Christianity, such as gardens and decent dresses; but both of the merchant’s shops swarmed with rum-drinkers.

I had written, and sent off from Bjoberg, forbud tickets for every station as far as Kongsberg.  By the legal regulations, the skyds-skaffer is obliged to send forward such tickets as soon as received, the traveller paying the cost thereof on his arrival.  Notwithstanding we had given our forbud twelve hours’ start, and had punctually paid the expense at every station, we overtook it at Naes.  The postmaster came to know whether we would have it sent on by special express, or wait until some traveller bound the same way would take it for us.  I ordered it to be sent immediately, astounded at such a question, until, making the acquaintance of a Scotchman and his wife, who had arrived in advance of us, the mystery was solved.  They had spent the night at the first station beyond Bjoberg, where our forbud tickets were given to them, with the request that they would deliver them.  They had punctually done so as far as Naes, where the people had endeavoured to prevent them from stopping for the night, insisting that they were bound to go on and carry the forbud.  The cool impudence of this transaction reached the sublime.  At every station that day, pay had been taken for service unperformed, and it was more than once demanded twice over.

We trusted the repeated assurance of the postmaster at Naes, that our tickets had been forwarded at once, and paid him accordingly.  But at the first station next morning we found that he had not done so; and this interlinked chain of swindling lasted the whole day.  We were obliged to wait an hour or two at every post, to pay for messengers who probably never went, and then to resist a demand for payment at the other end of the station.  What redress was there?  We might indeed have written a complaint in imperfect Norsk, which would be read by an inspector a month afterwards; or perhaps it would be crossed out as soon as we left, as we saw done in several cases.  Unless a traveller is very well versed in the language and in the laws relating to the skyds system, he has no defence against imposition, and even in such a case, he can only obtain redress through delay.  The system can only work equitably when the people are honest; and perhaps they were so when it was first adopted.

Here I must tell an unpleasant truth.  There must have been some foundation in the beginning for the wide reputation which the Norwegians have for honest simplicity of character; but the accounts given by former travellers are undeserved praise if applied at present.  The people are trading on fictitious capital.  “Should I have a written contract?” I asked of a landlord, in relation to a man with whom I was making a bargain.  “Oh, no,” said he, “everybody is honest in Norway;” and the same man tried his best to cheat me.  Said Braisted, “I once heard an old sailor say, ­’when a man has a reputation for honesty, watch him!’” ­and there is some knowledge of human nature in the remark.  Norway was a fresh field when Laing went thither opportunities for imposition were so rare, that the faculty had not been developed; he found the people honest, and later travellers have been content with echoing his opinion.  “When I first came to the country,” said an Irish gentleman who for ten years past has spent his summers there, “I was advised, as I did not understand the currency, to offer a handful in payment, and let the people take what was due to them.”  “Would you do it now?” I asked.  “No, indeed,” said he, “and the man who then advised me, a Norwegian merchant, now says he would not do it either.”  An English salmon-fisher told me very much the same thing.  “I believe they are honest in their intercourse with each other,” said he; “but they do not scruple to take advantage of travellers whenever they can.”  For my own part, I must say that in no country of Europe, except Italy, have I experienced so many attempts at imposition.  Another Englishman, who has been farming in Norway for several years, and who employs about forty labourers, has been obliged to procure Swedes, on account of the peculations of native hands.  I came to Norway with the popular impression concerning the people, and would not confess myself so disagreeably undeceived, could I suppose that my own experiences were exceptional.  I found, however, that they tallied with those of other travellers; and the conclusion is too flagrant to be concealed.

As a general rule, I have found the people honest in proportion as they are stupid.  They are quick-witted whenever the spirit of gain is aroused; and the ease with which they pick up little arts of acquisitiveness does not suggest an integrity proof against temptation.  It is but a negative virtue, rather than that stable quality rooted in the very core of a man’s nature.  I may, perhaps, judge a little harshly; but when one finds the love of gain so strongly developed, so keen and grasping, in combination with the four capital vices of the Norwegians ­indolence, filth, drunkenness, and licentiousness, ­the descent to such dishonest arts as I have described is scarcely a single step.  There are, no doubt, many districts where the people are still untempted by rich tourists and sportsmen, and retain the virtues once ascribed to the whole population:  but that there has been a general and rapid deterioration of character cannot be denied.  The statistics of morality, for instance, show that one child out of every ten is illegitimate; and the ratio has been steadily increasing for the past fifty years.  Would that the more intelligent classes would seriously set themselves to work for the good of “Gamle Norge” instead of being content with the poetical flourish of her name!

The following day, from Naes to Green, was a continuation of our journey down the Hallingdal.  There was little change in the scenery, ­high fir-wooded mountains on either hand, the lower slopes spotted with farms.  The houses showed some slight improvement as we advanced.  The people were all at work in the fields, cutting the year’s satisfactory harvest.  A scorching sun blazed in a cloudless sky; the earth was baked and dry, and suffocating clouds of dust rose from under our horses’ hoofs.  Most of the women in the fields, on account of the heat, had pulled off their body-sacks, and were working in shifts made on the same principle, which reached to the knees.  Other garments they had none.  A few, recognising us as strangers, hastily threw on their sacks or got behind a barley-stack until we had passed; the others were quite unconcerned.  One, whose garment was exceedingly short, no sooner saw us than she commenced a fjeld dance, full of astonishing leaps and whirls to the great diversion of the other hands.  “Weel done, cutty sark!” I cried; but the quotation was thrown away upon her.

Green, on the Kroder Lake, which we did not reach until long after dark, was an oasis after our previous experience.  Such clean, refined, friendly people, such a neat table, such excellent fare, and such delicious beds we had certainly never seen before.  Blessed be decency! blessed be humanity! was our fervent ejaculation.  And when in the morning we paid an honest reckoning and received a hearty “lycksame resa!” (a lucky journey!) at parting, we vowed that the place should always be green in our memories.  Thence to Kongsberg we had fast stations and civilised people; the country was open, well settled, and cultivated, the scenery pleasant and picturesque, and, except the insufferable heat and dust, we could complain of nothing.