We are the only occupants of the second class carriage; the guard, who speaks English, opens the door as we arrive at a station and tells us how long we are to stop, and following the general custom we get out for a few minutes’ walk, and to look at the natives.
We were both intently reading when the door opened and the guard made this startling announcement: “Gentlemen, this is Hell; we stop five minutes.” We hastily left our seats to see the place against which we had been warned all our lives, hoping at least to refresh ourselves with a few glasses of sulphur water. No fumes of sulphur, no odor of brimstone greeted us, but instead, “a nipping and an eager air” enveloped the forlorn little settlement, even on that summer afternoon. Whatever Hell may signify in Norwegian, this place is decidedly different as regards climate from that of the same name mentioned in King James’ version.
Descending from Hell the railroad runs for a long distance close to the edge of the lovely Throndhjem fjord, with its transparent waters, clusters of islands, and on the opposite side its deeply indented and darkly wooded shores, with a background of pale blue mountains. Then we roll into the most northern railway station in the world, and are in Throndhjem, a city of 23,000 inhabitants, the third largest city in Norway, situated on a line with the south coast of Iceland.
The houses are mostly built of wood, on very wide streets as a protection against the spread of conflagrations. At the head of a long street stands the cathedral, the most interesting edifice in the North. It is built over the burial site of St. Olaf, the Norwegian king who first introduced Christianity into his country, at the end of the tenth century. A succession of fires has destroyed the interior, which for years has been in process of restoration, and at the present time the nave, from the transepts to the west end, is given up to masons and stone-cutters, who are busy upon its reconstruction.
The choir ends in an exquisitely sculptured octagon formerly containing the relics of St. Olaf, on the south side of which is St. Olaf’s well. Tradition assures us that it burst forth from the place where the saint was buried. The early kings of Norway were crowned and buried here, and, by the present constitution, every king of Sweden and Norway is required to repair to Throndhjem for coronation in this historic cathedral.
Surrounding this old edifice is the “cathedral garden,” so called, a graveyard where each grave is buried beneath flowering shrubs, with vases of fresh-cut flowers before the tombstones, and where the seats beside the graves bespeak an unbroken connection between the living and the dead.
Rising on a high hill just back of the town is an old fortress, now disused, although a sentry still keeps guard upon one of its ramparts. We climbed thither in the twilight, to enjoy the extended view over the old city, with its background of rugged hills, and the river Nid winding through it, with picturesque bridges, old wooden warehouses, and shipping along its quays. Out in the blue fjord is the little island called Munkholm, covered by a fortress commanding the harbor, small islands rise from the water, and across the wide fjord wooded hills extend upward from the shores, and the view is closed by distant mountains.
In one of the streets we saw throngs of peasants, who had come into the city to the weekly market, bringing butter and produce, besides an endless variety of cheeses, rolls of homespun cloth, and linen from the hand-loom. We strolled along the quays, interested in the shipping and the sea-faring men, and visited the finer buildings in the city, built of stone, occupied by shops with a fine display of goods; but we found the place chiefly interesting from its natural beauty and situation.