Here I am, once more plunging into the heart of Norway in the national vehicle, the carriole; up hills, down hills, across stony morasses, through sandy pine forests. We landed this afternoon at Christiansand, and I am now seven miles north of it, and standing by the side of the magnificent Torrisdal river, waiting for the great unwieldy ferry-boat to come over. The stream is strong and broad, and there is only one man working the craft; but, by taking advantage of a back stream on the other side, and one on this, he has actually accomplished the passage with little trouble, and hit the landing-place to an inch.
On the other side, three or four carrioles, some of them double ones, are just descending the steep hill, and I have to wait till they get down to the waterside, in consequence of the narrowness of the road. One of the strangers, with a broad gold band round his cap, turns out to be the British consul. He is returning with a party of ladies and gentlemen from a pic-nic at the Vigelandsfoss, about three miles from this, where the river makes a fine fall.
That evening we stop at the Verwalter’s (Bailiff’s), close by the falls. I have no salmon-rod, but Mr. C——, an Englishman, who has come up with me to sketch the foss, and try for a salmon, obtains leave, as a great favour, to fish in the pools for one dollar a day, and a dollar to each of the boatmen. The solitary grilse that he succeeded in catching during the next day cost him therefore some fifteen shillings. The charges are an infallible sign that Englishmen have been here.
As in the Tweed, the take of salmon in these southern rivers has fallen off terribly. In Mandal river, a little to the westward, the fishing in the last twenty years has become one-tenth of what it was. Here, where 1600 fish used to be taken yearly, 200 only are caught. But at Boen, in the Topdal river, which, like this, enters the sea at Christiansand, no decrease is observable. For the last ten years the average yield of the salmon fishery there has been 2733 fish per annum. In this state of things, the services of Mr. Hetting, the person deputed by the Norwegian Government to travel about the country and teach the inhabitants the method of artificially breeding salmon and other fish, have been had recourse to. Near this, breeding-places have been constructed under his auspices.
Extensive saw-mills are erected all about this place; and it is probable that the dust, which is known to bother the salmon by clogging their gills, may have diminished their productiveness, or driven them elsewhere. The vast volume of water which here descends, is cut into two distinct falls; but a third fall, a few hundred yards above, excels them in height and grandeur.
While eating my breakfast, an old dame comes in with a large basket and mysterious looks. Her mission is one of great importance—viz., to hire the bridal crown belonging to the mistress of the house, for a wedding, which will take place at the neighbouring church this afternoon. She gets the article, and pays one dollar for the use of it. Hearing that the bridal cortège will sweep by at five o’clock, P.M., on its way from the church, I determined to defer my journey northwards till it had passed.
At that hour, the cry of “They come! they come!” saluted my ears. Pencil or pen of Teniers or Fielding, would that you were mine, so that I might do justice to what I saw. Down the steep hill leading to the house there came, at a slow pace, first a carriole, with that important functionary, the Kiögemester, standing on the board behind, and, like a Hansom cabman, holding the reins over the head of the bridesmaid, a fat old lady, with a voluminous pile of white upon her head, supposed to be a cap. Next came a cart, containing two spruce young maidens, who wore caps of dark check with broad strings of red satin riband, in shape a cross between those worn by the buy-a-broom girls and the present fashionable bonnet, which does not cover the head of English ladies. Their jackets were of dark blue cloth, and skirt of the same material and colour, with a narrow scarlet edging, similar to that worn by peasant women in parts of Wales. Over the jacket was a coloured shawl, the ends crossed at the waist, and pinned tight. Add to this a large pink apron, and in their hands a white kerchief, after the manner of Scotch girls, on their way to kirk. After these came a carriole, with four little boys and girls clustered upon it.
But the climax is now reached. The next vehicle, a cart, contains the chief actors in the show, the bride and bridegroom, who are people of slender means. He is evidently somewhat the worse, or better, for liquor, and is dressed in the short blue seaman’s jacket and trousers, which have become common in Norway wherever the old national costume has disappeared. The bride—oh! all ye little loves, lave the point of my pen in couleur de rose, that I may describe meetly this mature votary of Venus. There she sat like an image of the goddess Cybele; on her head a turret of pasteboard, covered with red cloth, with flamboyant mouldings of spangles, beads, and gold lace; miserable counterfeit of the fine old Norwegian bridal crown of silver gilt! Nodding over the turret was a plume of manifold feathers—ostrich, peacock, chicken, mixed with artificial flowers; from behind it streamed a cataract of ribands of some fifteen different tints and patterns. Her plain yellow physiognomy was unrelieved by a single lock of hair.
“It is not the fashion,” explained a female bystander, “for the bride to disclose any hair. It must on this occasion be all tucked in out of sight.”
This ripe ogress of half a century was further dressed in a red skirt with gold belt, a jacket of black brocade, over which was a cuirass of scarlet cloth shining resplendently in front with the national ornament, the Sölje, a circular silver-gilt brooch, three inches in diameter, with some twenty gilded spoon-baits (fishermen will understand me) hung on to its rim. Frippery of divers sorts hung about her person. On each shoulder was an epaulet or bunch of white gauze bows, while the other ends of her arms were adorned by ruffles and white gloves.