As we continued upon our journey we passed a bridal party of several boat-loads of peasants, from the little farm houses up the mountain side, who were rowing to the nearest village for the celebration of the ceremony. In the stern of one of the boats rowed by six oarsmen, sat the bride, adorned with her golden crown, and beside her the bridegroom, who wore a short coat with many bright buttons; the musicians stood at the prow and the sound of music and singing floated across the water.
At a small island called Terö we had a most striking view of the crystal mass of the Folgefond, spread out upon a plateau five thousand feet above the fjord, with offshoots from the immense glacier cropping over the sides of the steep cliffs. We passed through a very narrow channel, and among a multitude of islands, where the intricate navigation demands great skill on the part of the pilot; and thus the day was spent in journeying among islands, grand rock formations, and barren mountains, till we entered a wide fjord, and the houses and shipping of Bergen appeared in the distance.
BERGEN.
CHAPTER XIII.
BERGEN.
Our Experiences in the “Weeping City”—Scenes in the Fish Market—Rainy Walks about Town—A Beneficial Licence System—Voyage across the North Sea—Up the River Maas to Rotterdam.
We had travelled from the North Cape to Odde, nearly the entire length of Norway, and everywhere had met most honest and good-hearted people, to whom overcharge and extortion seemed unknown; but the moment we stepped from the steamer at Bergen we landed among a race of land sharks who appeared to possess none of the qualities we had admired so much in the Norwegians among whom we had sojourned during the past five weeks, but whose sole aim seemed to be the extortion of money from travellers.