CHAPTER XXX. BY RAIL TO CHRISTIANIA—FARE ON THE ROAD—NORWAY’S CAPITAL—THE VIKING-SHIP—AN INLAND TOUR.
“Twenty minutes for dinner!” supper, or breakfast, as the case may be. The conductor on the Swedish or Norwegian railways announces this important fact to English-speaking travelers in the sign-language. He spreads out all his fingers and thumbs twice. It speaks volumes to the hungry man. He jumps from the train to the platform of the pretty little station. He enters a room where he finds the feast all spread, but no waiters. Behind a desk in a corner sits a woman calmly knitting. Her business is only to take the money. The guest’s business is to help himself. It is fortunate for him if he has been through the same ordeal before. For that mighty soup-tureen, with a ladle in it, does not contain soup. It is full of delicious whipped cream, destined for the strawberries or raspberries which form a mound by its side. Another tureen, exactly matching it, is the one into which he should first dip. He should go down deep and stir up the rich sediment. With a pint of this soup at his disposal it matters less what he eats afterward. He can have fish, two kinds of meat, various side-dishes, pastry, cakes, bread, cheese and butter, tea, coffee, and bottled ale, besides berries and cream (the latter in soup-plates always) all at discretion. It rests with himself whether he will clear the board. When he has satisfied his appetite, or eaten out his twenty minutes, he hands the industrious woman at the desk one krone and a half—about forty-two cents of American money. She barely looks up from her work, sweeps the coins into the till, and resumes the clicking of her needles with an expression of impatience. At first it seems as if this “self-help” system were extremely liberal on the part of the caterer. But after trying it a number of times I find that about half of my twenty minutes is spent in choosing dishes, changing my plates, knives, forks, and spoons, and these are never handy. It also occurs to me that I am saving the establishment the expense of a waiter; and, on the whole, I would prefer to pay a little more, and be helped by somebody else. These meals, occurring at intervals of a few hours, pleasantly break the monotony of the long rail-ride from Stockholm to the Norwegian capital. The scenery is a succession of ponds—full of lilies—birch-forests and hay-fields. After the first hundred miles of it one cuddles into the corner of his seat and waits for the conductor to make the invariable signs at him to rise and eat.
Approaching Christiania and looking from the car-window, I think I see the British flag everywhere. It is the red and blue of Norway—resembling at a distance the colors of England. Norway, though under the same popular king as Sweden, has her own flag. Are those London policemen at the station? They wear cloth helmets, have their numbers in metal on their standing coat-collars, carry sheathed clubs, and only dispel the illusion when they give mild orders in an unknown tongue. They motion us to go into a room where custom-house officers are in waiting. For reasons good unto themselves, but incomprehensible to the traveler coming from Stockholm, the Norwegian authorities put the baggage through a second inspection. For all I know, the good King Oscar himself may be obliged to stand this sort of thing every time he rides from one of his capitals to the other. Though the ceremony seemed absurd and needless, I determined to spare the officials all possible trouble. I unbuckled the straps, unlocked the trunks, opened them, took out the top trays, folded my arms, and awaited developments—strong in innocence. Great was my astonishment when the custom-house man looked at me, but not at the trunks, and asked simply, “Clothes?” I nodded, whereupon he stooped and leisurely replaced the trays, locked and buckled up the trunks, and chalked them without another word. Before one could even thank him, he had vanished.
As we rode through the streets to the hotel, the likeness of Christiania to London was repeated in the yellowish fronts of the two-story houses and the extreme cleanliness of the streets. What, therefore, could be a better name for the principal hotel than “Victoria”? It looks just like one of those great, rambling inns which are the delight of Americans in the midland counties. It is a labyrinth of halls, little passages, and stairs. On every landing-place is a black or white bear or other wild beast artistically mounted. To come upon one of these at dusk for the first time is startling. Elk-horns, walrus-tusks, and every imaginable trophy of the chase, are displayed in nooks and corners. We see at once that this free museum is intended to please our English friends who come to Norway in the season to hunt and take in Christiania on the way. We hope they find that all the game has not already been shot and stuffed for the hotel.
At the royal palaces, both here and at Stockholm, visitors have a free run of the family rooms. Among themselves, kings, queens, and princes are just like other people. No well-to-do household among Oscar’s subjects contains a larger collection of personal photographs and little souvenirs of relatives and friends than may be seen at any one of His Majesty’s homes. Only the cabinet-portraits, cheaply framed and hung on the walls or stuck into card-racks, are those of the Emperor William, or the Prince of Wales, or the King of Denmark, or some other sovereign or prince with whom Sweden and Norway are on the best of terms. Fans, pipes, snuff-boxes, and all sorts of bric-à-brac, which have been presented at Christmas or other times, are displayed on étagères or under glass. I dare say that the pin-cushions, antimacassars, and tidies one sees in the more private rooms, are the gifts and the work of princesses, at the least. It would be hard if royalty could not act like the commonalty once in a while and enjoy things which are simple and cheap.
The King has artistic tastes with a strong patriotic bias. He prefers Norwegian pictures for his Christiania palace. No others are to be seen there. Some of them are crude, but all show originality, and there are a few pieces which, by their truthfulness and vigor, would make a sensation in any salon. In front of one of these people spontaneously collect and stand in horror and wonder. It is an old-fashioned sea-fight, not one of the modern scientific kind, where the combatants are at long range and almost invisible to one another. The crafts engaged are a Viking-ship and a vessel of some power with which the ancient Norsemen were at war. The former stands high out of water at bow and stern. The latter is more clumsily built—scow-shaped. The two are in dead-lock, and the crew of one is boarding the other. Every man on both sides is wielding an axe, pike, or short sword, and carries a knife in his teeth. There is a desperate resistance, but the Viking fellows are surely overmastering their enemies. The deck of the doomed ship is red with blood, and so is the water all about, as the victims of the terrible combat sink to their death. One lingers spell-bound before this picture till a cough from the guide reminds him to move on.
Every one should see this remarkable painting before or after paying a visit to the special wonder of Christiania. It is the fortune of that city to own something which is unique in archæology. This is a practically perfect specimen of the Viking-ships with which the fierce sea-robbers of the North made their descents on the English and French coasts eight hundred or a thousand years ago. It was recently dug out of a burial-mound of blue clay, where it formed the sepulchre of the chief who owned and commanded it. The surrounding earth had preserving qualities; and so the wood-work of the ship, the iron bolts, part of the iron anchor, some of the cordage, bits of the sail, spears, swords, and shields were recovered in good order. The remains of the interred hero had evidently been removed for some purpose in the distant past, as there were traces of a hole through the mound and then through the wooden tent-like inclosure where the body had been placed. The hull is beautifully modeled—about seventy-two feet long, fifteen and a half feet broad, and three and a half feet deep inside. There are holes for thirty-two oars, many of which were found within the hull. They are of various lengths from eighteen feet downward. The helm is attached by a rope to the right side of the vessel near the stern-post. Pieces of the single mast—which carried a square sail—are shown, but its height is unknown. The general shape of the ship reminds one of a Venetian gondola, than which nothing could be better designed for speed and offensive qualities. The crew, from the elevated position, fore and aft, could easily jump down to the vessels they were assailing; and they could, by the same arrangement, more surely repel boarders. It takes but little imagination to people this black, rakish hull with the original pirates standing erect and prepared to leap on their prey, and in their midst some fair-bearded giant whom they adored and would follow to the death. Such a ship as this may have witnessed such scenes of bloodshed as are depicted on that canvas in the King’s palace.
Fiords, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, snow-mountains, soft, rounded hills alternating with low but savage precipices, cultivated and peaceful valleys—these are characteristics of the scenery in Eastern Norway. We desired to take an easy trip into the interior, admitting us to the heart of the country, with the minimum sacrifice of comfort. The problem was how to get a good miniature impression of the natural features of this region in four days? Fortunately, there was (and still is, I hope) a man in Christiania able to solve this problem to the entire satisfaction of the anxious inquirer. His name is Bennett. He cashes your drafts, he outlines your excursions, he furnishes you with carriages, horses, and drivers, he sells you books, carved wood, old Norwegian silver, and other curios; he is universal purveyor and everybody’s friend. I went to Bennett and laid my wishes before him. Would he be good enough to plan a little outing, say of four days, warranted to afford some slight idea of picturesque Norway?
The worthy man listened to the request with as much apparent interest as if I had been the first person who had ever asked him that familiar question. Squaring off at a sheet of paper, he rapidly drew the skeleton of a trip which was at once adopted on his recommendation. Luckily, he had a carriage on hand, which was just the thing for the bad weather then threatening. It was a stout four-wheeler, with a high seat for the driver and a hood which came forward like that of the old-fashioned chaise, and a thick leather apron for the further protection of the inmates. There was a spare seat for the hand-bags and shawls, and a roomy box in the rear for extra harness and a small trunk if required. But we proposed to dispense with any luggage larger than a valise. Everything that Bennett suggested I at once agreed to.
Presently he said, “Of course, you want a guide, to speak the language, and save you trouble?”
“Never, Bennett, never!” said I, calmly but firmly. There is something more unpleasant than the worst of rains in the idea of having a man constantly perched before one, cutting off what little view he might have, and showing him things he does not want to see. I remembered bitterly some of my experiences in Switzerland and Russia, and determined to abandon the trip rather than take along such an incumbrance.
Bennett smiled sweetly, and shrugged his broad shoulders. “As you please,” said he. “Perhaps you can manage to get along with a copious phrase-book, giving the Norwegian and English in parallel columns, you know. I have a fine pocket-edition cheap.”
“Never, Bennett, never!” I repeated. “I just happened to look into one of those phrase-books this morning. The reader is told to consult the rules for pronunciation of Norwegian words, and be sure to apply them carefully; otherwise he would not be understood by the natives. I tried it on the word skyds (English, ‘posting’). May I drop dead if it wasn’t pronounced shoss! No, Bennett, no! I will never have anything to do with a language like that!”
He laughed pleasantly again, like one who is accustomed to dealing with highly eccentric persons. “And pray, sir, what will you do?”
“Bennett,” said I, “have you, or could you get for me, two or perhaps three pounds of the copper coins öre—pronounced ouray, I believe?”
“I have a barrel of ’em at your disposal.”
“But I want only enough to fill up my outside pockets. And could you supply me with twenty or thirty notes of one krone each?”
“I understand,” said he, “and I am sure it will work. There is no language like ready money, after all. But it is the last that most people think of trying.”
It took but a few minutes to cash a draft on my bankers in London. I received enough copper öre packed in small rouleaux to fill two pockets, and stuffed my wallet with single paper kroner. Then I knew I was prepared for any emergency arising from ignorance of the Norwegian tongue. Besides these smaller resources, there was a due provision of larger currency which can never come amiss.