Foot-prints of Travel - Maturin Murray Ballou (book suggestions txt) 📗

here for a brief period when travelling as an exile under the name of Mueller, and visitors are shown the room which he occupied. It is the chief town of Nordland, and has fifteen hundred inhabitants. After leaving Bodoee the course of the steamer is directly across the Vestfjord to the group of the Lofoden Islands. Owing to the remarkable clearness of the atmosphere as seen from Bodoee, they appear to be about fifteen or twenty miles away on the edge of the horizon, though the real distance is about fifty. The play of light and shade is here so different from that of lower latitudes that distances are very deceptive.

A little to the westward of the steamer's course in coming from the mainland lies the famous whirlpool known as the Maelstroem, the subject of many a romantic and wild conjecture which lives in the memory of us all. At certain stages of the wind and tide a fierce eddy is formed here which is somewhat dangerous for small boats to cross, but the presumed risk to vessels of the size of the coasting-craft usually employed here, is an error. At some stages of the tide it is difficult to even detect the exact spot which is at other times so disturbed. Thus we find that another legend of the credulous past has but a very thin substratum of fact for its foundation. The tragedies recorded in connection with the Venetian Bridge of Sighs are proven to be without reliable foundation; the episode of Tell and the apple is not historical, but a poetical fabrication; and now we know that neither ships nor whales were ever drawn into the Norwegian Maelstroem to their destruction. There are several other similar rapids in and about these pinnacled islands, identical in their nature, though the one here referred to is the most restless and formidable.

On close examination the Lofodens are found to consist of a maze of irregular mountain-peaks and precipices, often between two and three thousand feet in height, the passage between them being very tortuous, winding amid straits interspersed with hundreds of rocky islets which are the home of large flocks of sea-birds. Dwarf-trees, small patches of green grass, and velvety moss grow near the water's edge, and carpet here and there a few acres of soil, but the high ridges are bleak and bare rock, covered in spots with never-melting snow. These islands are composed mainly of granite, and for wonderful peaks and oddly pointed shapes, deep and far-reaching gulches, are unequalled elsewhere. It seems marvellous that a steamer can be safely navigated through such narrow passages and among such myriads of sunken rocks. These elevations from beneath the sea vary from mere turtlebacks, as sailors call them, just visible above the water, to mountains with sky-kissing peaks. For a vessel to run upon one of these low hummocks would simply be destruction, as the water alongside of them is rarely less than two or three hundred fathoms in depth.

The total length of these remarkable islands is about a hundred and thirty miles, and the area is computed at fifteen hundred and sixty square miles. The population will not vary much from twenty thousand, and the entire occupation of the people is fishing, curing the fish, and shipping them southward.

The hardy fishermen work nearly all winter at their rough occupation, braving the tempestuous Northern Ocean in frail, undecked boats, which to an inexperienced eye seem to be utterly unfit for such exposed service. The harvest time to the cod-fishers here is from January to the middle of April. Casualties, of course, are more or less frequent, but do not exceed those encountered by our fishermen on the banks of Newfoundland. In the year 1848, a terrible hurricane visited the Lofodens, and in a few hours swept over five hundred fishermen into eternity. The men engaged in this service come from all parts of Norway, returning to their homes in summer and engaging in other occupations.

As we leave the group and steer towards the mainland, it is remembered that the coast of Norway extends three hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, projecting itself boldly into the Polar Sea. Two hundred miles and more of this distance is north of the Lofoden Islands. Now and then portions of country are passed on the mainland, affording striking and beautiful landscape effects, where valleys open towards the sea, presenting views sometimes capped by glaciers high up towards the overhanging sky, where they form immense level fields of ice embracing hundreds of square miles.

The varied and ever present attractions of Norway to the artist are many, and in a great measure they are unique, especially in the immediate vicinity of the west coast. No two of the many abrupt elevations resemble each other. All are peculiar; some like Alpine cathedrals rear their fretted spires far heavenward, where they echo the hoarse anthems played by the winter's storms. One would think that Nature in a wayward mood had tried her hand sportively at architecture, sculpture, and castle-building, constructing now a high monumental column or a mounted warrior, and now a Gothic fane amid regions strange, lonely, and savage. There are grand mountains and glaciers in Switzerland and other countries, but they do not rise directly out of the water as they often do in Scandinavia; and as to the scenery afforded by the innumerable fjords winding inland amid forests, cliffs, and impetuous waterfalls, nowhere else can we find such remarkable scenes.

Like rivers, and yet so unlike them in width, depth, and placidity, with their broad mouths guarded by clustering islands, one can find nothing in nature more grand, solemn, and impressive than a Norwegian fjord. Now and again the shores are lined for short distances by the greenest of green pastures, dotted with little red houses and groups of domestic animals, forming charming bits of verdant foreground backed by dark and shadowy gorges. Down precipitous cliffs leap cascades which are fed by ice-fields hidden in the lofty mountains. These are not merely pretty spouts, like many a little Swiss device, but grand, plunging, restless torrents, conveying heavy volumes of foaming water.


CHAPTER XVII.

As we advance northward, our experiences become more and more peculiar. It seems as if humanity, like nature, is possessed by a certain sleeplessness in these regions during the constant reign of daylight. People are wide awake and busy at their various occupations during all hours, while the drowsy god appears to have departed on a vacation to the southward. The apparent incongruity of starting upon a fresh enterprise at midnight is only realized on consulting one's watch.

All along the coast the birds are nearly as numerous as the fishes, and many islands are solely occupied by them as breeding-places. Their numbers are beyond calculation, consisting of petrels, swans, geese, pelicans, auks, gulls, and divers. These last are more particularly of the duck family, of which there are over thirty distinct species in and about this immediate region. Curlews, ptarmigans, cormorants, and ospreys are also seen in greater or less numbers.

The steamer lands us for a few hours at Tromsoee, a small island in latitude 69 deg. 38' north, a thriving place of six thousand inhabitants, a goodly number for a town within the Arctic Circle. It is the capital of Norwegian Lapland. Both to the north and south of the town snow-clad mountains shut off distant views. During the winter months there are only four hours of daylight here out of the twenty-four,--that is, from about ten o'clock A.M. until two o'clock P.M.,--but the long nights are made comparatively light by the glowing splendor of the Aurora Borealis. The birch-trees in and about Tromsoee are of a remarkably developed species, and form a marked feature of the place.

Just outside of the town a field is seen golden with buttercups, making it difficult to realize that we are in the Arctic regions. A pink-blooming heather also covers other fields, and we are surprised by a tiny cloud of butterflies, so abundant in the warm sunshine, and presenting such transparency of color as to suggest the idea that a rainbow has been shattered, and is floating in myriad particles in the air.

The short-lived summer perhaps makes flowers all the more carefully tended. In the rudest domestic quarters a few pet plants are seen whose arrangement and nurture show womanly care. Every window in the humble dwellings has its living screen of drooping, many-colored fuchsias, geraniums, forget-me-nots, and monthly roses. The ivy is especially prized here, and is picturesquely trained to hang about the window-frames. The fragrant sweet-pea, with its snow-white and peach-blossom hues, is often mingled prettily with the dark green of the ivy, the climbing propensities of each making them fitting mates. Surely there must be an innate sense of refinement among the people of these frost-imbued regions, whatever their seeming, when they are actuated by such delicate tastes.

One of the most interesting subjects of study to the traveller on the journey northward is to mark his progress by the products of the forest. The trees will prove, if intelligently observed, a means of fixing his position. From the region of the date and the palm we come to that of the fig and the olive; thence to the orange, the almond, and the myrtle. Succeeding these we find the walnut, the poplar, and the lime; and again there comes the region of the elm, the oak, and the sycamore. These will be succeeded by the larch, the fir, the pine, the birch, and their companions. After this point we look for no change of species, but a diminution in size of these last named. The variety of trees is the result of altitude as well as of latitude, since there are mountain regions of Southern Europe, as well as in America, where one may pass in a few hours from the region of the olive to that of the stunted fir.

From Tromsoee vessels are fitted for exploration towards the North Pole; some for the capture of seals and walruses among the ice-fields, and also on the coast of Spitzbergen. A small propeller is seen lying in the harbor fitted with a forecastle gun, whence to fire a lance at whales--a species of big fishing, so to speak, which is made profitable here. Little row-boats with high bows and sterns flit about the bay like sea-birds on the wing, and ride as lightly upon the water. These are often "manned" by a couple of sturdy women who row with great precision, their faces glowing with animation. These boats, of the same model as that ancient Viking ship at Christiania, sit very low in the water amidship, but are remarkable for buoyancy and the ease with which they are propelled.

The Lapps in their quaint and picturesque costumes of deer-skins surround the newly arrived steamer, in boats, offering furs, carved horn implements, moccasins, walrus-teeth, and the like for sale. These wares are of the rudest type, and of no possible use except as mementos of the traveller's visit to these far northern latitudes. This people are very shrewd in matters of trade, and are not without plenty of low cunning hidden behind their brown, withered, expressionless faces. They are small in stature, being generally under five feet in height, with prominent cheek bones, snub noses, oblique Mongolian eyes, big mouths, large, ill-formed heads, hair like meadow hay, and very scanty beards. Such is a pen portrait of a people who once ruled the whole of Scandinavia. A short trip inland brings us to the summer encampment of the Lapps, formed of a few rude huts, outside of which they live except in the winter months. A Lapp sleeps wherever fatigue overcomes him, preferring the ground, but often lying on the snow. They are