A strange attraction has Norway for one who has once become acquainted with it: with its weird rocks and mountains—its dark cavernous fjords—its transparent skies—its quaint gulf-stream warming apparatus—its “Borealis race”—its fabulous Maelstrom—its “Leviathan slumbering on the Norway foam”—its sagas, so graphically portraying the manners and thoughts of an ancient race—its sturdy population, descendants of that northern hive which poured from the frozen loins of the north, and, as Montesquieu says, “left their native climes to destroy tyrants and slaves, and were, a thousand years ago, the upholders of European liberty.”

“Very attractive, no doubt,” interrupts Piscator. “In short, the country beats that loadstone island in the East hollow, which extracted the bolts out of the ships’ bottoms; drawing the tin out of one’s pockets, and oneself thither every summer without the possibility of resistance. But a truce to your dithyrambs on scenery, and sagas, and liberty. Talk about the salmon-fishing. I suppose you’re coming to that last—the best at the end, like the postscript of a young lady’s letter.”

Well, then, the salmon-fishing. A man who has once enjoyed the thrill of that won’t so easily forget it. Here, for instance, is the month of June approaching. Observe the antics of that “old Norwegian,” the Rev. Christian Muscular, who has taken a College living, and become a sober family man. See how he snorts and tosses up his head, like an old hunter in a paddock as the chase sweeps by. He keeps writing to his friends, inquiring what salmon rivers are to be let, and what time they start, and all that sort of thing, although he knows perfectly well he can’t possibly go; not even if he might have the priest’s water on the Namsen. But no wonder Mr. Muscular is growing uneasy. The air of Tadpole-in-the-Marsh becomes unhealthy at that season, and he feels quite suffocated in the house, and prostrated by repose; and as he reads Schiller’s fresh ‘Berglied,’ he sighs for the mountain air and the music of the gurgling river.

But there are mamma and the pledges; so he must resign all hope of visiting his old haunts. Instead of going there himself, in body, he must do it in spirit—by reading, for instance, these pages about the country, pretty much in the same way as the Irish peasant children, who couldn’t get a taste of the bacon, pointed their potatoes at it, and had a taste in imagination. Behold, then, Mr. Muscular, with all the family party, and the band-boxes and bonnet-boxes, and umbrellas and parasols numbered up to twenty; and last, not least, the dog “Ole” (he delights to call the live things about him by Norsk names), bound for the little watering-place of Lobster-cum-Crab. Behold him at the “Great Babel junction,” not far from his destination, trying to collect his scattered thoughts—which are far away—and to do the same by his luggage, two articles of which—Harold’s rocking-horse and Sigfrid’s pap-bottle—are lost already. Shall I tell you what Mr. Muscular is thinking of? Of “the Long,” when he shut up shop without a single care; feeling satisfied that his rooms and properties would be in the same place when he came back, without being entrusted to servants who gave “swarries” above-stairs during his absence.

Leaving him, then, to dredge for the marine monstrosities which abound at Lobster-cum-Crab, or to catch congers and sea-perch at the sunken wreck in the Bay—we shall start with our one wooden box, and various other useful articles, for the land of the mountain and the flood—pick up its wild legends and wild flowers, scale its mountains, revel in the desolation of its snowfields, thread its sequestered valleys—catching fish and shooting fowl as occasion offers; though we give fair notice that on this occasion we shall bestow less attention on the wild sports than on other matters.

On board the steamer that bore us away over a sea as smooth as a mirror, was a stout English lady, provided with a brown wig, and who used the dredging-box most unsparingly to stop up the gaps in her complexion.

“A wild country is Norway, isn’t it?” inquired she, with a sentimental air; “you will, no doubt, have to take a Lazaroni with you to show you the way?” (?Cicerone).

“The scenery,” continued she, “isn’t equal, I suppose, to that of Hoban. Do you know, I was a great climber until I became subject to palpitations. You wouldn’t think it, so robust as I am; but I’m very delicate. My two families have been too much for me.”

I imagined she had been married twice, or had married a widower.

“You know,” continued she, confidentially, “I had three children, and then I stopped for some years, and began again, and had two more. Children are such a plague. I went with them to the sea, and would you believe it, every one of them took the measles.”

But there was a little countrywoman of ours on board whose vivacity and freshness made up for the insipidity of the “Hoban lady.” She can’t bear to think that she is doing no good in the world, and spends much of her time in district visiting in one of the largest parishes of the metropolis. Not that she had a particle of the acid said to belong to some of the so-called sisters of mercy—reckless craft that, borne along by the gale of triumphant vanity, have in mere wantonness run down many an unsuspecting vessel—I mean trifled with honest fellows’ affections, and then suddenly finding themselves beached, in a matrimonial sense, irretrievably pronounce all men, without exception, monsters. And, thus, she whose true mission it was to be “the Angel in the House,” presiding, ministering, soothing, curdles up into a sour, uneasy devotee.

At sea, a wise traveller will be determined to gather amusement from trifles; nay, even rather than get put out by any delay or misadventure, set about performing the difficult task of constructing a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. For instance, our vessel, being overburdened, steered excessively ill, as might be seen from her wake, which, for the most part, assumed the shape of zigzags or arcs of circles. This disconcerted one grumpy fellow uncommonly. But we endeavoured to restore his good humour by telling him that we were not practising the “great” but the “little” circle sailing. His mantling sulkiness seemed to evaporate at this pleasantry; and, subsequently, when, on the coal lessening, and lightening our craft astern, she steered straighter, he facetiously apostrophized the man at the wheel—

“You’re the man to take the kinks out of her course; we must have you at the wheel all night, and as much grog as you like, at my expense, afterwards.”

The captain, who was taken prisoner on returning from the Davis’ Straits fishery, during the French wars, and was detained seven years in France, gives me some information about the Arctic shark (Squalus Arcticus), which is now beginning to reappear on the coast of Norway.

“We used to call them the blind shark, sir—more by token they would rush in among the nets and seize our fish, paying no more attention to us than nothing at all. They used to bite pieces out of our fish just like a plate, and no mistake, as clean as a whistle, sir. I’ve often stuck my knife into ’em, but they did not wince in the least—they did not appear to have no feeling whatsomdever. I don’t think they had any blood in ’em; I never saw any. I’ve put my hand in their body, and it was as cold as ice.”

“By-the-bye, captain,” said I, to our commander, who was a fubsy, little round red-faced man, with a cheery blue eye, “how’s this? Why, you are in uniform!”

“To be sure I am. Th’ Cumpany said it must be done. Those furriners think more of you with a bit of gowd lace on your cap and coat. An order came from our governor to wear this here coat and cap—so I put ’em on. What a guy I did look—just like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“Or a daw in borrowed plumes,” suggested I.

“But I put a bould face on’t, and came a-board, and walked about just as if I had the old brown coat on, and now I’ve got quite used to the change.”

Now this little fellow is as clever as he is modest—every inch a seaman. I’ve seen him calm and collected in very difficult circumstances on this treacherous old North Sea.

Last year, in the autumn, the captain tells me he was approaching the Norwegian coast in the grey of the morning when he descried what he took to be a quantity of nets floating on the water, and several boats hovering about them. He eased the engine for fear of entangling the screw. Some Cockneys on board, who wore nautical dresses, and sported gilt buttons on which were engraved R. T. Y. C., laughed at the captain for his excessive carefulness. Presently it turned out that what had seemed to be floating nets were the furniture and hencoops of the ill-fated steamer Norge, which had just been run down by another steamer, and sunk with a loss of some half a hundred lives. A grave Norwegian on board now lectured the young men for their ignorance and bravado.

“They just did look queer, I’ll a-warrant ye,” continued our north-country captain. “They laughed on t’other side of their mouths, and were mum for the rest of the voyage.”

“What vessel’s that?” asked I.

“Oh! that’s the opposition—the Kangaroo.”

This was the captain’s pronunciation of Gangr Rolf (AnglicÈ, Rollo, the Walker), the Norwegian screw, which I hear rolls terribly in a sea-way.

“Hurrah!” I exclaimed. “Saall for Gamle Norge,” as we sighted the loom of the land. How different it is from the English coast. The eye will in vain look for the white perpendicular cliffs, such as hedge so much of old Albion, their glistening fronts relieved at intervals by streaks of darker hue, where the retreating angle of the wall-like rock does not catch the sun’s rays; while behind lie the downs rising gently inland, with their waving fields of corn or old pastures dotted with sheep. Quite as vainly will you cast about for the low shores of other parts of our island—diversified, it may be, by yellow dunes, with the sprinkling of shaggy flag-like grass, or, elsewhere, the flat fields terminating imperceptibly in flatter sands, the fattening ground of oysters.

As far as I can judge at this distance, instead of the coast forming one sober businesslike line of demarcation, with no nonsense about it, showing exactly the limits of land and ocean, as in other countries, here it is quite impossible to say where water ends and land begins. It is neither fish nor fowl. Those low, bare gneiss-rocks, for instance, tumbled, as it were, into a lot of billows. One would almost think they had got a footing among the waves by putting on the shape and aspect of water. Well, if you scan them accurately you find they are unmistakeably bits of islands. But as we approach nearer, look further inland to those low hills covered with pine-trees, which somehow or other have managed to wax and pick up a livelihood in the clefts and crannies of the rocks, or sometimes even on the bare scarps. While ever and anon a bald-topped rock protruding from the dark green masses stands like a solitary Friar of Orders Grey, with his well shaven tonsure, amid a crowd of black cowled Dominicans.

“Surely that,” you’ll say, “is the coast line proper?”

“Wrong again, sir. It is a case of wheels within wheels; or, to be plain, islands within islands. Behind those wooded heights there are all sorts of labyrinths of salt water, some ending in a cul-de-sac, others coming out, when you least expect it, into the open sea again, and forming an inland passage for many miles. If that myth about King Canute bidding the waves not come any further, had been told of this country, there would have been some sense in it, and he might have appeared to play the wave-compeller to some purpose. For really, in some places, it is only by a nice examination one can say how far the sea’s rule does extend.”

The whole of the coast is like this, except between the Naze and Stavanger, rising at times, as up the West Coast, into magnificent precipices, but still beaded with islands from the size of a pipe of port to that of an English county. Hence there are two ways of sailing along the coast, “indenskjÆrs,” i.e., within the “skerries,” and “udenskjÆrs,” or outside of the “skerries,” i.e., in the open sea. The inner route has been followed by coasters from the days of the Vikings. Those pilots on the Norwegian Government steam-vessels whom you see relieving each other alternately on the bridge, spitting thoughtfully a brown fluid into a wooden box, and gently moving their hand when we thread the watery ThermopylÆ, are men bred up from boyhood on the coast, and know its intricacies by heart. The captain is, in fact, a mere cypher, as far as the navigation is concerned.

“You’ve never been in Norway before?” I inquired of the fair Samaritan.

“No; this is my first visit. I hope I shall like it.”

“I can imagine you will. If you are a lover of fashion and formality, you will not be at ease in Norway. The good folks are simple-minded and sincere. If they invite you to an entertainment, it is because they are glad to see you. Not to fill up a place at the table, or because they are obliged to do the civil, at the same time hoping sincerely you won’t come. Their forefathers were men of great self-denial, and intensely fond of liberty. When it was not to be had at home, they did what those birds were doing that rested on our mast during the voyage, migrated to a more congenial clime—in their case to Iceland. The present Norwegians have a good deal of the same sturdy independence about them; some travellers say, to an unpleasant degree. It’s true they are rather rough and uncouth; but, like their forefathers, when they came in contact with old Roman civilization in France and Normandy, they will progress and improve by intercourse with the other peoples of Europe.

“Their old mythology is grand in the extreme. Look at that rainbow, yonder. In their eyes, the bow in the cloud was the bridge over which lay the road to Valhalla. Then their legends. Do you know, I think that much of our fairy lore came over to us from Norway, just as the seeds of the mountain-flowers in Scotland are thought by Forbes to have come over from Scandinavia on the ice-floes during the glacial period. If I had time, I could tell you a lot of sprite-stories; among others, one how the elves all left Jutland one night in an old wreck, lying on the shore, and got safe to Norway. To this country, at all events, those lines won’t yet apply:—

“But here we are in Christiansand harbour, and yonder is my steamer, the Lindesnaes, which will take me to Porsgrund, whither I am bound; so farewell, and I hope you will not repent of your visit to Norway!”