At last, emerging on a grassy slope, we saw, five or six miles below us, the arm of the Sogne Fjord, whither we were journeying. What a pleasure it was to tread once more on a piece of flat road, which we did at a place called Flom. More than one Bauta stone erected to commemorate some event, about which nobody knows anything at all, is to be found here. Not long ago they were very numerous; but these relics of a heathen race have been gradually destroyed by the bonders. Offensive and defensive armour is not unfrequently picked up in the neighbourhood, so that this secluded valley must have been at one time the scene of great events.
Over the stream to the left, I see one of those sand-falls so frequent in this country, and more destructive to property than the snow avalanche.[18] In an unlucky hour some sudden rain-storm washes off the outer skin—i.e., grass, or herbage, of a steep hill of loam or sand. From that hour the sides of the hill keep perishing—nothing will grow upon them, and every rain the earthy particles keep crumbling off from the slope: thus, not only curtailing the available land above, but damaging the crops below. Woe to the farmer who has a mud or sand-fall of this description on his property.
Not sorry was I to darken the doors of Thorsten Fretum, whose house stood on an eminence, commanding a view up the valley and the Fjord. Bayersk Oel and Finkel—old and good—raw ham, eggs, and gammel Ost—a banquet fit for the gods—were set before me. Thorsten Fretum is a man of substance, and of intelligence to boot. He has twice been member of parliament—one of the twenty peasant representatives out of the aggregate one hundred and four which compose the Storthing. A person of enlightened views, he is especially solicitous about the improvement of the means of road-communication. At present, between the capital, Christiania, and Bergen there are no less than sixty miles of boating; fancy there being sixty miles of sea voyage, and no other means of transit between London and Aberdeen.
Mr. Fretum is well acquainted with the mountains, and from him I learn that my guide has brought me some twenty miles out of the right way. Mrs. Fretum, a nice-looking woman, wears the regular peasant cap of white linen stiffly starched, but of lighter make than those used in the Hardanger, while round the forehead is fastened a dark silk riband. She is the mother of fourteen sons, some of whose small white heads I could see now and then protruded through a distant door to get a sight of the stranger.
Mr. Fretum catches large salmon in the river, and exhibits flies of his own construction. A few of mine will serve him as improved patterns, and at the same time be an acknowledgment of his hospitality.
The lyster, I find, is used, but as the river is not of a nature to admit of boats, the weapon is secured by a string to the wrist of the caster. I must not omit to say that I deliberately fined my guide one dollar for the injury I had sustained by his carelessness, which he submitted to with a tolerably good grace, evidently thinking I had let him off very cheaply.
An old man and a young girl row me in the evening to that most pretty spot, Urland. Here I find shelter at the merchant’s, just close to the whitewashed church, which, according to tradition, was originally a depôt for merchandize, and belonged to the Hanse League. As I landed, a crowd of peasants stood on the beach taking farewell of a lot of drovers bound for the south. They wore, instead of the national red cap, one of blue worsted, adorned with two parallel white lines. This is peculiar to parts of the Sogne district. The Crown Prince, by-the-bye, enchanted the peasants by purchasing one of the aforesaid red nightcaps to take to Stockholm.
Didn’t I get up a good fire in the iron stove which garnished one corner of the comfortable room upstairs. With a palpitating heart I then opened my box to investigate the amount of damage done by the immersion. What a sight! Those carefully starched white shirts and collars which I had expressly reserved for the period when I should get back to towns and cities, limper than the flexible binding of the guide-book. The books, too, and maps humid throughout; the ammunition nearly in the same plight; while those captain-biscuits, on which I counted, were converted into what I should imagine was very like baby-food, though I am not skilled in those matters.
There was no need of the cup of cold water, which travelling Englishmen so often insist on placing near the red-hot thirty-six pounders (i.e., iron German stoves) for the purpose of neutralising the dryness of the atmosphere in the apartment, for I was soon in a cloud of steam rising from the drying effects.
The Morgen-Bladt, I see, still continues to give accounts of the Crown Prince’s progress. He has been examining some extensive draining operations near Molde, much to the wonderment of the peasants.