THE ELV SŒTER—A MOUNTAINEER—THE YTTERDAL SŒTER—TO MAKE GRÖD—THE GRÖD STICK—EVENING CONCERT—A WILD NIGHT—THE WATERFALL—MOUNTAIN GLACIERS—THE LERA ELV—CAMP BY A GLACIER—NOMADIC HAPPINESS—A GIPSY MÄELSTROM—INSECT LIFE.

The wooden buildings are large and capacious and in good order, and one portion of the building was surmounted by a cupola, with a large bell to call the farm people to meals. We noticed two enormous pine-tree logs as we passed through the yard of the farm. Near a log hut, a short distance beyond the farm-house, we camped at the edge of the deep, narrow ravine, in the depth of which we could hear the sound of the river below. Ole said we could have some reindeer meat, and, going to the farm, we were shown a cask half full of salted reindeer, in a dark store under a sort of granary. For one mark we purchased about four pounds weight, without bone. There was a kind of crate near, with a small grÖd span in it, a sort of barrel for carrying food. We afterwards purchased a rope made of pigs’ bristles, very light and useful, and nine pounds of barley-meal, and another mark’s worth of reindeer meat. The whole cost—

Ole said the reindeer had been killed some time, and when we seemed to doubt whether it was killed in season, he remarked it occasionally happened that they were killed by accident. The reindeer hunter came to our camp when we were having our fried reindeer and tea. He was the son of the widow of the owner of the farm, and she was then at a soeter. The reindeer hunter was a tall, spare, active young fellow, fair, with his hair cut short. He wore a Norwegian cloth cap, a coarse shirt, without necktie, secured at the neck by a large silver button. His loose trousers were faced with dark leather, and also the seat; large Wellington boots of pliable rough leather came up to nearly his knee, with red leather let into their tops. He had something of the bearing of Slim-slam, our friend at Laurgaard, and his tout ensemble was decidedly picturesque. Ole told us he had once been out with some artists upon the mountains with a tent.

Our gipsies packed up and we left about half-past four o’clock, which afforded us sufficient time to enter up our notes. Our way is now through forest scenes, up a rough mountain road. At no very great distance on our right we had “Raudals Vand,” a large lake, and the “BlaahÖ,” and “Hest-brÆ-piggene” mountains. Sometimes we were close to the Lera Elv; at other times our route took us more into the forest. Often we lingered to make a hasty sketch, and then Esmeralda would wait on the side of the route lest we should miss the track in the forest. No hobbenengree could be more careful of the Shorengro of the expedition. Later in the evening a mizzling rain fell, and at last we crossed the river through a shallow ford. Near the river, below a lofty mountain, we reached the Ytterdal Soeter.

The Ytterdal Soeter consisted of a collection of log huts, with a loose stone-wall paddock behind. Cows, goats, and bristly pigs were scattered about the trampled ground among the rocks close to the soeter. Down the steep mountain above we could see a picturesque vand fos. When we came to the soeter a shepherd’s dog kept up a constant barking which Mephistopheles did his best to perpetuate until sharply rebuked.

Ole and Noah then went round the house to select a camp ground in the inclosure. All was damp with drizzling rain, as our gipsies drove the donkeys through a broken gap in the wall, and pitched our tents in the corner of the inclosure, near the soeter. Being rather damp we changed our things, and then decided to have grÖd for our aftens-mad. Ole went to prepare the grÖd at the soeter; the rest went to learn the method of making it. First, he filled the large iron pot of the soeter with water, to which he added a small quantity of salt, and a little barley-meal; the water boiled in twelve minutes; then the woman placed the large end of the short grÖd-stick in the boiling water, and kept rapidly swirling it backwards and forwards between the palms of her hands, whilst Ole added from time to time barley-meal from the bag, till the proper consistency was obtained; the pot was taken off the fire in about three minutes after the water commenced boiling; the grÖd was then ready to be eaten. This, with a large can of milk, was carried to our tents for the evening’s meal.

It is usual when the grÖd is eaten for each person to have two small bowls, one containing milk and the other the grÖd, and then a spoonful of grÖd is taken and dipped in the milk and so eaten. Our party afterwards dispensed with two bowls, the grÖd and milk being put into one bowl, which saved trouble, with the same result.

The wooden bowl, and the wooden spoon, and the grÖd-stick, which is made of a small fir sapling taken up by the roots and peeled, and the roots and stump cut to the length required, we purchased for twelve skillings next morning from the woman of the Ytterdals Soeter, and they are represented in the following engraving.

Some of the grÖd we reserved for breakfast, and it is considered all the better after it has been kept for a short time.

Noah informed us at tea that he should let into the pobengree (gip., cider) when he reached England, and have a good soak. Gently, Noah, or there will be none left for anyone else.

The women of the soeter were all lightly dressed, a chemise and a petticoat being nearly all they had on; They keep about twenty cows, and make from thirty to forty cheeses in the summer season, which sell for four marks each. We counted forty-five goats near the soeter. The woman’s husband was engaged at the harvest in the lower valley.

It was very dark as we went to the soeter, after our evening meal was concluded. We found three other women there. The room was scrupulously clean. It is certainly the most comfortable, and cleanly soeter, we met with during our wanderings; they had a good bedstead, convenient fire-place, and a very ingenious folding table. It was a curious scene, as we played our music by the fire-light and watched their interested countenances. The women were very fair. All mountain races are fond of music. It would seem as if the quickened instincts of the people, whose lot is cast so much in mountain scenes, are attuned to harmony with nature. The women seemed much pleased. The room was dreadfully hot and we had the door propped open, which was the cause of occasional contests with a tame goat, who seemed determined to come in. At last we were glad to escape the heat and went out into a dark, windy, rainy night. It poured with rain as we got to our tents, yet we did not envy Ole RÖdsheim his night’s rest in the hot room of the soeter; but hot and cold seemed all the same to Ole; Then the rain came down so heavily it began to come into our tent, and a trench being now dug round it we soon fell asleep.

The grÖd and some more milk formed our frokost, and saved tea, sugar, bread and butter. Mixed occasionally with other food it is excellent for the mountains where you can have fresh milk at the soeters. The nutriment was quite sufficient for mountain work. A meal of grÖd and milk for five hungry people cost on an average the sum of about sixpence. The cost of the five kops of milk at the soeter was twenty skillings.95 The woman seemed well satisfied with eight skillings for the trouble we had given her. The two pounds of butter we purchased to take with us cost two marks more.

Whilst the donkeys were being loaded, taking Zachariah with us, we went to see the waterfall above the soeter. The torrent dashes from the steep mountain above, and descends in fleecy clouds to the broken rocks below. Occasionally, above the continuous sound of the falling waters, we could hear a rattling roar, as if loose rocks were suddenly dashed about in the waters far above. Then all subsided into the same constant hum of the falling torrent. It is picturesque, but quite below comparison with many we had before seen, especially in Romsdal.

When we returned, and were ready to start, we missed Ole, Noah, and Esmeralda, who we at last found eating best fladbrÖd and cheese in the soeter. It was a present from the woman.

Saying adieu to the women of the soeter, we now left at ten o’clock. The fir woods had been left behind, and we proceeded up the wild valley of the Lera from the Ytterdals Soeter.

The Vesle Fjeld and its glaciers were on the right bank of the Lera. One peak of dark rock rising from glaciers on either side, Ole said had never been ascended. Ole said Messrs. Boyson and Harrison were much pleased with the scenery.

At the soeter Ole had found one of Mr. Boyson’s spoons, which had been left there, and he was going to return it. We were told that at one place Mr. Boyson had accidentally left a bag containing £30, but of course in Norway it was perfectly safe, and was afterwards restored safely to his possession.

The sun became very hot. Esmeralda and Zachariah both rode upon the baggage of their donkeys. The road now became a more narrow track. All the donkeys were evidently suffering from the heat. The Puru Rawnee had fallen once, and the Tarno Rye, after falling with Esmeralda two or three times, was unloaded, and we halted at some rocks above a waterfall on the Lera.

It was an exceedingly warm spot, with no shade. The second piece of reindeer meat was boiled in our kettle, with some potatoes. Though rather salt, the soup was excellent. Some of the boiled meat and potatoes were also eaten, and washed down with spring water. After middags-mad we tried to write our notes, and fell fast asleep. In fact, we were all disinclined to move, but managed to start about four o’clock.

Mephistopheles was in high spirits. Noah was very lively, which soon ended in a disagreement with Esmeralda. We had to quiet the contending parties. The offence charged against Noah we noted down, and it was a serious one. In a surreptitious manner Noah had possessed himself of his sister’s cloak, which he had tried on, with an attempted imitation of her distinguÉ style of stepping over the rough banks of the Lera Elv. In Noah’s clumsy imitation of his sister’s movements, which were just the reverse of clumsy, he contrived to poke a hole through the Alpine cloak. We say no more, only we refer the reader to a paragraph of the short extracts from Proesten Sundt’s work, in our Appendix, and, as there described, we feared similar results.

At about seven o’clock we encamped. The donkeys had done better in the cool of the evening; it was decided that they had quite enough to carry, without the addition of extra weight, especially over the rough and stony route before us. Adhering firmly to this resolve, unless for the purpose of crossing some river, the animals enjoyed this immunity for the rest of our wanderings. The part of the valley where we had halted for the night was very wild; there was very little verdure, except some low stunted bushes, moss, and heath. Ole and the gipsies gathered heath enough to make a fire for tea. The tents were pitched exactly opposite the “SmÖrstab BrÆen” (Butter glacier). We contemplated with interest an outline of sharp dark peaks rising before us. Close to us, on the east side of the Lera Elv, extended the glacier of the “BlaabrÆen.” Beyond we could see the Tverbottenhornene. A short distance from our camp we found a deserted cabin occasionally used by reindeer hunters.

It is with much pleasure we are able to say that Noah and Esmeralda were not prevented, by results similar to those described in the paragraph referred to in the Appendix, from appearing at tea.

There was something so hors de voyage ordinaire in our wandering existence, so charming in the freshness of wild nature, so free from conventional restraint, lingering in regions not yet spoilt by so-called art, and disfigured by man’s attempts at civilisation. All was so silent, as we looked from our camp fire in delighted contemplation of the great glacier of the “SmÖrstab,” and the sharp-peaked mountains separating us, as it were, from other worlds. We had escaped for a time, the thousand and one cares, which beset us on every side in dense populations, and had left far behind those scenes, and voluptuous lures, which the poet saith Meek Peace was ever wont to shun.

Tea was cleared away by our energetic hobbinengree. We often silently congratulated ourselves that the tea service was of tin, such was the rapidity with which they sometimes vanished into her kettle bag.

Mr. RÖdsheim, as the gipsies generally called Ole, commenced the manufacture of birchwood cruppers for our animals, in anticipation of steep mountain ways, and he also engaged his time on some hobbles of the same wood, which we wished to take to England. Then, as night came fast upon us, Ole selected his bed between two large rocks; with our spade he made with rough sods a sort of turf coffin, about a foot deep, over which he placed a large mass of heath roots, and moss which he had peeled off the ground, the moss being turned downwards; then our waterproof was placed over all. When his bed was ready, he proposed that we should start at five o’clock the next morning.

“I shan’t get up at five o’clock!” shouted Esmeralda, in a shrill voice, which nearly broke the drum of Ole’s right ear. “I don’t care; I shan’t get up to please anybody!”

Noah and Zachariah looked at one another, as much as to say, “Dawdy! she’s up; may our good shorengero land safely on the other side.”

“The next day’s journey is a long one,” suggested Ole, slowly recovering; and we promptly decided for half-past five. Ole screwed himself into his turf coffin, and, wrapping his head in his woollen shawl, we laid the waterproof over him, and he was comfortable for the night.

“Well,” said we to Esmeralda, being determined to maintain discipline, “you shall please yourself, but remember we move on in good time to-morrow.” Our hobbenengree was at once a study, which would have made the fortune of an artist.

For a time we wrote up our notes, till the shadows of night descended on the dark peaks, and a chill air came from the SmÖrstab glacier, when we retired to rest.

Our sleep the next morning was disturbed by Ole asking for matches and paper to light a fire. Very shortly we joined him. “Now, Zachariah!’—vand! vand!” Zachariah and Noah were soon up. We had only made eight miles yesterday, and it was a long day’s journey to reach the Utladal StÖl. The morning was windy, with a heavy dew, but we could see the sun creeping down the opposite mountain peaks, promising a hot day.

Tea was soon ready; a tin of potted meat was opened, and spread upon slices of bread. All four commenced breakfast with a good appetite.

When Esmeralda found that we did not attempt to disturb her, it is wonderful how quick she appeared, and the tents were immediately after packed up. Our camp was about 4,000 feet above the level of the sea. We observed some cow-dung flies and spiders in our tent before it was packed up.

The rugged peaks of the Tverbottenhornene (signifying peaks of the pass from one valley to another) rose before us. What a line of dark peaks! The scenery of this valley is extremely wild.