Waterton, Ch. Wanderings in South America (Ed. by J. G. Wood, 1878).
Woodford, C. M. Naturalist among the Head-hunters (London, 1890).
FROM
NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR.
THE BIRD-BERGS OF LAPLAND.
“When the Creator of the worlds had made the earth, best loved of all, and was rejoicing in His perfect work, the devil was seized with a desire to bring it all to nought. Not yet banished from heaven, he lived among the archangels in the abodes of the blessed. Up to the seventh heaven he flew, and, seizing a great stone, hurled it with might down on the earth exulting in the beauty of its youth. But the Creator saw the ruthless deed, and sent one of His archangels to avert the evil. The angel flew even more swiftly than the stone to the earth beneath, and succeeded in saving the land. The huge stone plunged thundering into the sea, and hissing waves flooded all the shores for many a mile. The fall shattered the crust of the stone, and thousands of splinters sank on either side, some disappearing into the depths, and some rising above the surface, bare and bleak like the rock itself. Then God took pity, and in His infinite goodness resolved to clothe even this naked rock with life. But the fruitful soil was all but exhausted in His hand; there remained scarce enough to lay a little here and there upon the stone.”
So runs an ancient legend still current among the Lapps. The stone which the devil threw is Scandinavia; the splinters which fell into the sea on either side are the skerries which form a richly varied wreath around the peninsula. The rents and cracks in the rock are the fjords and the valleys; the sprinkling of life-giving soil which fell from the gracious Creator’s hand forms the few fertile tracts which Scandinavia possesses. To appreciate the full depth and meaning of the childish story one must one’s self have visited Scandinavia, and especially Norway, have steered a boat among the skerries, and have sailed round the country from the extreme south to the farthest north. Marvellous, indeed, is the country; marvellous are its fjords; still more marvellous is the encircling wreath of islands and reefs.
Scandinavia is an alpine country like Switzerland and the Tyrol, yet it differs in a hundred ways from both of these. Like our Alps it has lofty mountains, glaciers, torrents, clear, still alpine lakes, dark pine and fir forests low down in the gorges, bright green birch woods on the heights, far-stretching moors—or more strictly tundras—on the broad shoulders of the mountains, log-huts on the slopes, and the huts of the cowherds in the upland valleys. And yet all is very different from our Alps, as is obvious to anyone who has seen both. The reason of this difference lies in the wonderful way in which two such grand and impressive features of scenery as lofty mountains and the sea are associated and harmonized.
The general aspect of Scandinavia is at once grave and gay. Stern grandeur and soft beauty go hand in hand; gloom alternates with cheerfulness; with the dead and disquieting is linked the living and exhilarating. Black masses of rock rear themselves perpendicularly out of the sea, rise directly from the deeply-cut fjords, and, riven and cleft, tower precipitously upwards and lean threateningly over. On their heads lie masses of ice stretching for miles, covering whole districts and scaring away all life save the torrents to which they themselves have given birth. These torrents spread themselves everywhere in ribbons of silver over the dark masses, and not only give pleasure to the eye, but murmur to the ear the sublime melody of the mountains. They rush down through every cleft to the depths below, they burst forth from every gorge, or plunge in mad career from rock to rock, forming waterfall after waterfall, and awakening echoes from the farthest mountain sides. These rushing mountain-streams which hurry down to the valley through every channel, the gleaming bands of water on every wall of rock, the ascending smoke-like spray which betrays the most secluded falls—these call forth life even in the most dread wilderness, in places where otherwise nought can be seen but rocks and sky—and they are most truly characteristic of the scenery of the interior.