The old farmer, like all the sociable Norwegians, was simply aching to talk, and was delighted when I brought forth a few words from my phrase book, or showed that I caught at the meaning of his oft-repeated sentences; on learning that I was from America he was more anxious than ever to talk, as he had a brother living in Wisconsin, but the conversation was limited, as my simple vocabulary was soon exhausted; though it is surprising to find how much one can accomplish with only a few words of a foreign language, and how well one can make himself understood by signs and motions.
We continued on our laborious way until we came to a mountain stream, which was almost a river. While wondering how we were to cross, I saw the guide drive some horses, feeding near by, to the river, and, mounting one of them, he rode to the other side. I caught an old mare, and, succeeding in mounting, urged her into the water, every step as she plunged among the rocks nearly sending me off; when in mid stream, where the swift-running water was up to her belly, the neighing of her colt, who had remained behind, caused her to suddenly whirl about, and as I frantically clung to her mane, my feet dragging in the water, she returned to the shore; driving the colt into the stream and remounting the mare, I succeeded after shouting and flourishing my walking stick in riding her across, and on reaching the opposite side slipped from her back with a thankful sigh.
The narrower streams that we afterwards came to we forded, and in a decidedly demoralized condition we reached a cluster of rude sæters, the homes of girls who had gone thither with the goats and cows for the summer, where the butter and cheese are made; but we found them deserted, the girls being away with their herds.
It now began to rain as we proceeded down a marshy slope, the springy soil slipping from beneath our feet; and extricating ourselves from a forlorn swamp, we ascended by precipitous zigzags a spur of the mountain. It was then noon, and I had had nothing to eat since my five o’clock breakfast of wrapping-paper fladbrod and tissue wafers. The guide took from his pocket a piece of hard black bread he had brought from his home, and sitting in the rain, on the side of the barren mountain, amid a scene of absolute desolation and eternal silence, that dry bread was the sweetest morsel I had ever tasted.
Willingly would I have lingered and rested, but the guide urged me onward up the mountain, and then, as we descended on the other side, we came to a long extent of snow, where as we walked we slumped down much above our knees, first with one leg then with the other, until it became so tiring that we climbed higher up the mountain side covered with fragments of rock, and jumping from rock to rock continued our weary course. I began to think the guide had lost his way, as there was neither indication of a path nor sign that any one had been in this dreary place before, but he answered my anxious inquiry, Til Sylte? (To Sylte?) with, Ja, ankommen der strax (Yes, we arrive there immediately).
Still onward we go through woods and swamps, till at last, as we pass through an oozing, clinging loam, I am about to give up in despair, when in the distance I perceive a road and a farm house. Weary, lame, and footsore, I reach the farm house, and dismissing the guide, hire a farmer to take me the few miles which still must be travelled before Sylte is reached.
The springless stolkjærre seemed like the easiest riding and most luxurious of coupés, and as we climbed the narrow way high up the cliff above the fjord, and descended the winding road to Sylte, a delightful sensation of rest stole over my weary frame.
The main street of the little village was filled with men, who had come in from the neighboring farms to vote for county officers, the largest groups being gathered before the little inn. The innkeeper’s knowledge of English was even more limited than mine of Norwegian, so he gave up the former, and I proceeded to order a dinner in Norwegian: Suppe, Lax, and Bifstek med Potetes were mutually understood, and while they were being prepared, I renewed my exhausted strength with bread, cheese, and beer. The Norwegians possess many virtues, but they certainly lack those of quickness of motion, and of hurrying in an emergency. One hour, two hours, went by, and still to my anxious inquiries for dinner nothing appeared but a few plates and some salt and pepper. The time was rapidly approaching for the arrival of the steamer, and it looked as if I must depart dinnerless, when the woman, whose every movement was only performed after mature deliberation, entered with the soup, and the remainder of the dinner was brought on before the steamer appeared far down the fjord.
As a steamer is considered to be on time if it arrives an hour before or an hour after the advertised time, one is liable to wait two hours and still be told that the steamer is exactly on time; fortunately the steamer that day was an hour behind that denoted by the time table. While waiting on the shore of the fjord for the steamer slowly making its way toward Sylte, two farmers entered into conversation with me in English, and a crowd gathered around us to hear the strange language. The farmers had been to America and had spent several years in Wisconsin, but while living on the level monotonous plains they had had such intense longings for the mountains and fjords of their native land, that, disregarding all material benefits, they had returned to Norway.