CHAPTER V.
THE NORWEGIAN NORDLAND.
The Ever-Present Salmon—A Cheese Exhibition—The Blessed Island Belt—Torghätta and the Seven Sisters—Scenes within the Arctic Circle—Visit to the Svartisen Glacier—Coasting along the Lofoden Islands—Sea Fowl and Eider Ducks—Reindeer Swimming across the Fjord.
At noon, June 23rd, we stood on the deck of the mail steamer “Kong Halfdan”; the last passenger with boxes and luggage had come aboard, the bridge was drawn in, cables thrown off, we drew out from the wharf, and steamed down the fjord on our long journey to the North Cape.
The captain, mates, and stewards all spoke English, that being one of the requirements for the holding of their positions, and they were well informed, social, and obliging. We were satisfied with the fittings of the steamer which was to be our home during the next eleven days, and though they were not elegant, they were comfortable, and everything was neat and clean. The state-rooms, each for two persons, contain plush sofas at the sides, converted into berths at night, and between these sofas, beneath the port hole, is a washstand forming a table when closed. Our luggage and belongings were stowed away under the sofas, and arranged in racks and on hooks. There are accommodations for twenty-four first-class passengers. The saloon is at the stern, fitted with an upholstered plush seat extending around the sides, with two tables down the centre, at which we gathered three times daily. On deck is a smoking-room, the chief resort of both ladies and gentlemen, who spend most of the time there when it is too cold or stormy to sit beneath the awning, upon the deck in its rear.
At two o’clock we assembled for dinner, consisting of soup, boiled salmon, entrées, roast meats, and delicious cakes and pastries.
Almost the first word the tourist will learn in Norway is Lax (salmon), for he is absolutely certain to see it upon the table every day during his stay in the country. During our steamer trip we were served with salmon three times daily; it came upon the table boiled, fried, broiled, and smoked; we were served with salmon salad, salmon jelly, and salmon pudding.
The pudding is the chef d’œuvre of the Norwegian cook’s art. The fish is first separated from the bones, cut into small pieces, and after being chopped fine is mixed with eggs, milk, and flour, seasoned with salt and pepper, and boiled in a mould. It is generally made from salmon and cod or halibut arranged in layers, and as it appears upon the table it looks like a mould of strawberry and vanilla ice-cream, or a variegated Italian cream or blanc mange. Its consistency is somewhat firmer than the last, and as we eat it for the first time at dinner, served after the soup, we were full of wondering and questioning as to what it could be. A lobster or shrimp sauce is eaten with it, and it forms a palatable dish; we did not relish it as well upon its second appearance at supper cut into slices and fried.
The smoked salmon is uncooked, and is cured and prepared much like smoked halibut. It always graces the breakfast table, and we became quite fond of it, although many dislike it exceedingly.
Notwithstanding the fact that the Norwegian salmon are considered the best in the world, and we took on new supplies of them at the little ports, where they had been taken fresh from the water, yet after sitting down to thirty-three meals in succession where Lax in some form was always one of the constituents, we must confess that, though we started upon the voyage with a great fondness for salmon, at its end Lax had lost all its charms.