An hour or two later we were startled from our sleep. The scene was reversed, and the cattle were landed at their destination.
About four o'clock we were again disturbed by the running backwards and forwards of many feet. When the steamer settled into silence, we dropped off to sleep, too quickly to discover that all motion had ceased and that we were at a standstill. We were not shipwrecked; nor had we met with any untoward accident. We had arrived, and, though most of the passengers had left the boat and finished their night in more comfortable quarters, we slept on in blissful ignorance until after eight o'clock, when Nico came to inform us that all our baggage was at the hotel and breakfast ordered.
We dressed with alacrity, and made our way to the enormous hotel of Odde, which is about the most popular resort of the tourist in Norway, though when we were there late in August it was without guests. We breakfasted in a lofty room, and noticed that the waitresses, who are famed for their allegiance to Norwegian costume, had relinquished it with their hopes of other foreign guests, and were soberly dressed in black. The day after our departure the proprietor and his family left the place, and caught us up when we finally rested at Dalen. I wonder if Norway is glad or sorry when the enthusiastic but destroying tourist ceases for nine months to take up his abode within her gates?
MINOR ROMANTIC EPISODES
MINOR ROMANTIC EPISODES
From Odde we returned to our old friend the stolkjærre, and the American girl took a carriole. In this manner we had a little variety, for we changed places now and then. Both vehicles belonged to one man, who drove with us all the way, putting up when we did. This prevented the nuisance of continual change of horses and conveyance. The driver assured us that the carriole had been used by the German Emperor. I believe that in the season a great point is made of providing every stranger with the carriole: hundreds are so honoured. Well, the Kaiser Wilhelm is a wonderful man, and he would be rash who should say, "This even the Emperor cannot do." To explain his frequent presence here, a story must be told. A few years ago, a young German lieutenant, riding down the steep road not far from the Laatefos on his bicycle, swerved from the straight course, and was hurled into the raging waters beside which runs the road. The incident is supposed to have been witnessed by a child and an old man, and a few weeks afterwards the poor victim's body, torn by the rocks beyond all recognition, was found at some distance from the spot where the disaster happened. The Emperor, with two hundred men, arrived to search for the body, and a stone to the soldier's memory has been erected by his Imperial Majesty. There is another story on the subject, which is only whispered; but our romantic friend seized upon it with eagerness, and wove a yarn of possibilities and improbabilities, of which she persists in believing the hero to be alive.
On our right hand as we drove in procession from Odde, preceded by the carriage and pair of the French nobility, lay the Buar glacier. It was of a wonderful green which we had not before seen, inasmuch as many of the glaciers we had passed were almost covered with snow and débris, which concealed their colour. The road took us for some way beside a charming lake; after this we passed several beautiful waterfalls, the spray from one of which was so considerable that the road beside it was converted into a pond, and in the moment we took to pass through it our clothes were made quite wet.
