Night was rapidly drawing on, and we had not yet reached the Utladal Stöl. At last we came to a romantic reindeer hunter’s cave. It had a narrow entrance in the rocks; no outlet for the smoke from the inside but the entrance. Traces of fire remained, and we noticed marks on a bank near where the hunters had tried their rifles. We had only time to explore it, and make a hasty sketch.
Shortly afterwards, just at dusk, we came to the open ground of the Utladal Stöl. It was a small melancholy valley. On a rise of ground, a short distance from us, we could see the stöl or sœter built of loose stones, one story high with one window. Somehow the stöl had a dismal deserted appearance. Some cows were grazing near.
We were close to the river, some hillocks covered with low bushes only intervening. The donkeys were very tired, and it was just nine o’clock. Even Noah was out of sorts. The cows rendered the camp ground far from desirable. There was no time for much choice, or we should have tried some other ground. The woman of the sœter was out, so that we could not have cream porridge as intended. A small boy represented the woman. Our tents were quickly put up. Noah said he liked places where you could see plenty of people. This was the only camp ground we had disliked through our wanderings. It seemed like a valley where a dozen suicides had been committed, supplemented by an undiscovered murder. Though the influences were dull and gloomy, we made an excellent meal of tea with fried ham, and Ole informed us that the woman had returned, and we could have “flödsgröd” the next morning.
Ole, in answer to our inquiries, said that there were no fish in the Utladals Elv, only newts, black-looking water lizards, sometimes called “asgals,” in England “lacerta palustris.” There were no birds; even the “philomela lascinia,” or one-headed nightingale, usually considered a foolish bird and easily caught, was not fool enough to perch in this valley.
Ole retired as quickly as he could to occupy the bed at the stöl, where we were told Messrs. Boyson and Harrison had stayed one night—we do not say slept, for we are extremely uncertain whether they did so.
Notwithstanding the Romany chaff—for the gipsies were blowing great guns during tea, and pronounced the place in an impressive manner to be “mumply”—we got an excellent night’s rest in our comfortable tent, lulled quickly to sleep by the rushing waters of the Utladal Elv.
At six o’clock we were performing our matutinal ablutions on the banks of the Utladals Elv, regardless of the newts, who might be staring at such an unusual visitor. Then we had a consultation with Ole about our future route. On reference to our maps and a calculation of the different routes to be followed, it seemed that we should reach Christiania with difficulty at the time we proposed. We sighed for a double summer in such a splendid country for mountaineering. At first we thought of giving up our visit to Mörkfos; then remembering Captain Campbell’s description of this magnificent fall, we determined it must be visited, even if we pushed through the rest of the journey by forced marches.
Our breakfast of “flödsgröd” was prepared by the woman and ready at eight o’clock. For the information of our readers, we will describe how it is made. Two quarts and a half of beautiful cream were boiled by the sœter woman in an iron pot, to which we added some of our barley meal carried from Elvsœter. This was mixed together with the gröd-stick, and carried down to our tent. The flödsgröd was quite sufficient for the breakfast of five persons, and is a dish highly prized by the Norwegians, being eaten without the addition of anything else. It is very rich; the butter from the cream floating about at the top in a melted state.
The two quarts and a half of cream cost us one mark twelve skillings, and we gave the woman four skillings, which Ole suggested as quite sufficient. All the party excepting perhaps Ole, preferred the ordinary gröd with milk.
