CHAPTER XL.
They played on the guitar until the warm day had given place to the starry night. I sat on my balcony, and looked on with pleasure at the gaiety of youth.
With castanets they danced,
Their only music this;
Their eyes into each other’s glanced,
Quaffing sweet draughts of bliss.
In Spain. Hans Christian Andersen.
WE LEAVE THE BEINA—THE LILLE PIGE—ANY PORT IN A STORM—THE FAIRIES’ VISIT—THE SPIRILEN—YTRE AADALEN VAL—LARGE BONDEGAARD—HEEN WOODLAND CAMP—EVENING VISITORS—THE HÖNEFOS—INTELLIGENT POSTMASTER—NORDERHOUG CHURCH—HALT NEAR VIK—THE GIPSIES’ POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY—NOAH AND THE PHILANTHROPIST—STEENS FJORD—THE KROGKLEVEN—BEAUTIFUL GORGE—CAMP NEAR THE KING’S VIEW.
Noah and Zachariah quickly loaded the donkeys;[119] one of the boatmen showed us the way. We followed a track from the river through the wood. An old boat near the river, in the wood, turned on one side, with the marks of a fire having been lighted before it, showed that it had been used as a bivouac.
Passing through the court of a large house, near the wood, we shortly afterwards, entered by a gate into a pleasant shady way, leading along the left shore of the Spirilen Lake. A large crowd were still watching our cavalcade from the house.
It was about twenty minutes past ten o’clock, when we left the river Beina;[120] a halt was called at eleven, in a wood, on the shores of the Spirilen.
Our middags-mad consisted of soup, made of potatoes, ham, bacon, and Liebig’s essence, with addition of some gröd.
Zachariah went fishing, but was unsuccessful. The rain commenced, and we either slept, or wrote our notes from about two o’clock until four o’clock.