In the old coaching days it used to be said the safest day in the year to travel by the Tantivy was the day after an upset. The same will hold good, thought I, of steamers, as I heard an animated conversation on board, how that last voyage it was all but a case of Norge v. Bergen (alluding to a collision between those two steamers, when the former went down), and how the Viken, Government steamer, would have been utterly cut down, and sunk, had it not been for the presence of mind of the Jupiter captain; how, moreover, a fierce newspaper war was going on in consequence, and the Government had ordered an inquiry.

Sooth to say, the navigation of this coast by night is very dangerous. Lord Dufferin, I think, says there are no lighthouses. He is wrong; there are more than twenty. But what are these among so many shoals, islands, narrow channels, ins and outs, as this coast exhibits?

“Yonder,” said a Norwegian gentleman on board, “is the Skratteskjaer (skerry of shrieks).” This spot takes its name from a tragic event of which it was the scene many hundred years ago. Olaf the Holy, being resolved to get rid of the Seidemaend (magicians and necromancers), who then abounded in Norway, made a quantity of them drunk, and, in that condition, set fire to the house where they were assembled, and made a holocaust of them. Eywind, however, a noted warlock, escaped through the chimney-hole; but afterwards he, with three hundred others, were caught, and chained down on that skerry, which is covered at high water. As the tide rose, the shrieks of the victims pierced the air; but the royal executioner was inexorable.

Crossing the mouth of the Buknfjord, we stopped for half-an-hour at Stavanger, where I had an opportunity of examining the cathedral, which really exhibits some fine pieces of early Gothic. The nave was built in 1115. The verger was profoundly ignorant of all architecture, and so were some Norwegian gentlemen who accompanied me. What they chiefly attended to was a plaster model of Christ, after Thorwaldsen, and some tasteless modern woodwork. The pulpit is two hundred years old.

We here shipped a deputy, on his way to the Storthing now sitting at Christiania. He was a very staid person, who evidently considered that he was called upon to set the passengers an edifying example of superior intelligence and unmoved gravity. I heard that he had formerly been a simple bonder, but was now a thriving merchant. Perhaps I shall best describe him by saying that his parchment visage reminded me of a Palimpsest, whence a secular composition had been erased to make room for a sanctimonious homily; but, at the corners of the parchment, some of the old secular characters still peeped out unerased. Next me, after dinner, sat a sharp young Bergenser. To while away the time, I asked him if he could recite me any popular songs or rhymes. He responded to the call at once, and produced a couple of broad sheets from his pocket-book, containing two favourite old Norsk ballads; one of which was the famed “Bonde i Brylups Garen;” the other was, “The Courtship of Ole and Father Mikkel’s Daughter.”

The deputy’s attention I observed to be caught by our conversation, and he smiled gravely. Only think of a Storthingsman, clad in a sober suit of brown, whose mind was supposed to be full of the important business of the country, listening to such trifles. Gude preserve ye! Mr. ——, what childish stuff. Nevertheless, he had once been a child, and a peasant-child, too; and there was a time when he sat on the maternal knee, and heard the lullabies of his country. Nay, he went so far as to recite a country jingle himself. It was what we call in England a Game rhyme. Seven children are dancing round in a ring; suddenly the ring is broken, and each one endeavours to seize a partner.

He uttered this in a low tone of voice, as if he was heartily ashamed of the infantine reminiscence. Human nature shrunk again into itself; the deputy remembered that his countrymen’s eyes were upon him, and he must be careful of betraying any further weakness of the sort. One or two Norwegians who had overheard the conversation, looked with no little astonishment at their representative, and with a somewhat indignant expression of countenance at me, doubtful, apparently, whether I had not of malice prepense been taking a rise out of a Norwegian Storthingsman.

As we passed Jaederen’s Rev (reef), a long, low flat shore of some miles in extent, we had the usual storm, which stirred up the bilgewater to an offensive degree, and in consequence thereof, the wrath of a doctor on board, who wore yellow kids and much jewellery, but who was not half a bad fellow in spite of his foppery.

As I sat by the open window of the hotel, at Christiansand, two burly fellows in the singular SÆtersdal costume, greeted me. In them I at once recognised two peasants with whom I had had speech at Valle. They had come down to meet the new parson and his family, whom they would drive up on the morrow on the way to his expectant parishioners. The good fellows were mightily pleased when I handed them some Bayersk Öl out of the window. A Norwegian student who was with me heard them deliberating whether they should not treat the strange Carl to a glass of something; but they apparently thought it would be taking too great a liberty, and presently made their bow, carrying all sorts of greetings to my friends in their distant home.

Next day I started to Moss, in the Christiania Fjord, by the steamer of that name. She was built in Scotland, and goes sixteen miles an hour, more than double the pace of the Government steamers, which are proverbially slow. Many of the Norwegians are frightened of her, and say she will break her back.

There was an intelligent young Norwegian on board who is resident in America. He tells me that the Lammers’ schism has done no little good, in a religious point of view, by awaking the State clergy from the torpor into which they had sunk; and there is every symptom of a new spiritual life being infused into the community. Things, he says, have hitherto been at a low ebb in this respect throughout the country. Among the better classes there is no such thing as family prayers, they seldom look at their Bibles. At Arendal and Christiania private meetings have been set on foot for prayer and reading of the Scriptures. A Moravian clergyman, who was the first to establish gatherings of this kind, and who has laboured diligently in this line for some years, has lately received a subvention from the Government without his solicitation.

In Sweden, the proposal to abolish the law by which Dissenters may not reside in that country, has lately been thrown out in the Chambers, Count P—— having described in pathetic language the danger likely to ensue upon such a change, and being backed in his opposition by 280 clergy.

In Norway, on the contrary, as in England, all religions, provided they do not trangress the laws of morality and social order, are tolerated. The Roman Catholics take advantage of this, and are busy in a quiet way making proselytes. The widow of the late King Bernadotte is understood to give her countenance to their exertions. Contributions are also received from Belgium and France, and two French ladies conduct a school on Romish principles at Christiania. One of the two Romish priests there is a born Norwegian.

My travelling companion also informs me of a curious discovery made lately by Lange, the author of a History of Norwegian Monasteries.

It has always been supposed that the precious treasures which adorned the tomb of St. Olaf, in the Cathedral of Trondjem, were stolen by King Christian the Second, and that the ship conveying the ill-gotten booty sank near Christiansand.

At Amsterdam, however, from whence Lange has just returned, he found incontestable documentary evidence that the Archbishop of Trondjem was himself the thief. He fled to Amsterdam, got into debt, and the jewels were sold and dispersed.

Landing at Moss, I passed through a wretchedly ugly country to Frederickshal. There is nothing in the place worth seeing, except the fortress and the statue to the patriotic burgher, Peder ColbjÖrnsen. Some of the houses are far beyond the average of many of the Norwegian towns; to which detracting people might be inclined to apply the old description of Granville:—

A small enclosure outside the fortress marks the spot where the Swedish madman was sacrificed by one of his own soldiers while occupied in the siege. The monument, however, has utterly disappeared. A new one is talked of.

Thence I posted to Sarpsborg, to see the mighty falls of the Glommen, with the beautiful suspension-bridge swung over them. Above it the huge river winds away its vast coils into the distant mountains, bringing down the timbers which once grew upon their sides. But the wastefulness of the people in timber is now beginning to tell. Norway is at length about to start a Forstwesen similar to that of Germany, and AsbjÖrnsen is now employed by the Government in travelling through Bavaria, for the purpose of investigating the admirable regulations there in force in the Department of Woods and Forests.

As usual, there has been a fire in Sarpsborg. Half the town is destroyed, and presents a terrible scene of desolation.[34] A new church, just completed, was saved by a miracle. At Drammen, on the other side of the Fjord, one or two fires have also been sweeping away a vast quantity of buildings. The conflagration was visible at Uddevalla, near Gottenburg, about one hundred and fifty miles off.

My slumbers that night, at the waterside inn, whence the steamer was to start next morning, were interrupted by an odd sort of visitation. Two bulky Norwegian gentlemen were ushered into the bed-room, puffing away at cigars, and forthwith prepared to occupy the other bed. By what Procrustean process it could possibly be made to contain two such ponderosities was a problem now to be solved. However, one of them got in first, and retreated as far as he could into its recesses. The other followed, and managed to squeeze himself into the space left by the side of his companion. Many jocular remarks were let fall between them, and one remark especially seemed to tickle the risibilities of the larger and fatter man to such an extent that he shook again, and the bed also. Suddenly I heard a loud smash, and looking up, found that the bottom of the bed, though equal to their dead weight in a quiescent state, was unable to bear the momentum of their laughter-shaken frames, and had given way, both gentlemen falling through on to the floor.

For some time they had great difficulty in escaping from their awkward predicament. This, however, was at length effected, and for the rest of the night the floor was their couch—the floor which they had used as a spittoon; but this did not seem in the least to interfere with their comfort.

Having nothing to call me to the capital, I determined to catch the Kiel steamer that afternoon in the Christiania Fjord, where I saw for the first time one of those remarkable mirages so common in the seas of Scandinavia, which are supposed to have given rise to the legends of phantom-ships, which prevail along the coast. The next day we were steaming over a smooth sea, along the low coast of our forefathers, the Jutes, and the day after shot by train through the heathy flats whence issued England’s sponsors, the Angles.

THE END.