The Land of Thor

by J. Ross Browne

CHAPTER XXVIII.

FROM CHRISTIANIA TO LILLEHAMMER.

The population of Christiania is something over 40,000, and of late years it has become quite a place of resort for tourists on the way to the interior of Norway. The houses built since the fire of 1858, which destroyed a considerable portion of the town, are large and substantial, built of stone and covered with cement. The streets for the most part are broad and roughly paved. Very little of characteristic style is observable in the costume of the citizens. Plainness of dress, simple and primitive manners, and good nature, are the leading traits of the Norwegians. Christiania is the modern capital of Norway, and was founded by Christian IV. of Denmark, near the site of the ancient capital of Osloe, which was founded in 1058 by King Harold Hardraade. Some of the old buildings still remain in a state of good preservation; but the chief interest of the city consists in its castle, university, library, and museum of Northern antiquities. A traveler from the busy cities of America is struck with the quiet aspect of the streets, and the almost death-like silence that reigns in them after dark. In many places the sidewalks are overgrown with grass, and the houses are green with moss. Stagnation broods in the very atmosphere. Christiania is in all respects the antipodes of San Francisco. A Californian could scarcely endure an existence in such a place for six weeks. He would go stark mad from sheer inanity. Beautiful as the scenery is, and pleasantly as the time passed during my brief sojourn, it was not without a feeling of relief that I took my departure in the cars for Eidsvold.

APPROACH TO CHRISTIANIA.

The railway from Christiania to Eidsvold is the only [!-- Illustration page --] one yet in operation in Norway. It was a pretty heavy undertaking, considering the rough country and the limited resources of the people; but it was finally completed, and is now considered a great feature in Norwegian civilization. Some idea may be formed of the backwardness of facilities for internal communication throughout this country when I mention the fact that beyond the distance of forty miles to Eidsvold and the Lake of Miösen, the traveler is dependent upon such vehicles as he takes with him, unless he chooses to incur the risk of procuring a conveyance at Hamar or Lillehammer. The whole country is a series of rugged mountains, narrow valleys, desolate fjelds, rivers, and fjords. There are no regular communications between one point and another on any of the public highways, and the interior districts are supplied with such commodities as they require from the sea-board solely by means of heavy wagons, sledges, boats, and such other primitive modes of transportation as the nature of the country and the season may render most available.

Like every thing else in Norway, the cars on the Eidsvold railway have rather more of a rustic than a metropolitan appearance. They are extremely simple in construction and rural in decoration; and as for the road, it may be very good compared with a trail over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but it is absolutely frightful to travel over it by steam. Three hours is the allowance of time for forty miles. If I remember correctly, we stretched it out to four, on account of a necessary stoppage on the way, caused by the tumbling down of some rocks from an overhanging cliff. The jolting is enough to dislocate one’s vertebræ; and I had a vague feeling all the time during the trip that the locomotive would jump off the track, and dash her brains out against some of the terrible boulders of granite that stood frowning at us on either side as we worried our way along from station to station.

It was nearly dark when we came to a saw-mill by the roadside. The scenery is pretty all the way from Christiania, but not very striking till the train passes the narrow gorge in which the saw-mill is situated, where there is a tunnel of a few hundred feet that penetrates a bluff on the left. Emerging from this, we are close upon the charming little village of Eidsvold, one of the loveliest spots in this land of beauty. A few minutes more brought us to the station-house, where the railway ends. Here we found ourselves at a good hotel, picturesquely situated on the bank of the Wormen, a river flowing from the Miösen Lake.

At eleven o’clock on a fine Sunday forenoon I took my departure from Eidsvold on board one of the little lake steamers. These vessels are well managed, and not inconveniently arranged, but they are so very small that on particular occasions, when there is an unusual pressure of travelers, it is difficult to find room for a seat. Owing to the facilities afforded by the railway from Christiania, an excursion to Lillehammer is the most popular way of passing a Sunday during the summer months, and this being the height of the season, the crowd was unusually great. It also happened that two hundred soldiers, who had served out their time, were returning to their homes in the interior, so that there was no lack of company on board. If the soldiers were somewhat lively and frolicsome, it was nothing more than natural under the circumstances. A good many were intoxicated—at the idea, perhaps, of getting home once more, and their songs and merry shouts of laughter kept every body in a good humor. I am unable to account for a curious fact, which I may as well mention in this connection. Whenever the authorities of any country through which I chance to travel have occasion to send their troops from one point to another, they invariably send them upon the same boat or in the same railway train upon which I have the fortune to take passage. There must be something military in my appearance, or some natural propensity for bloodshed in my nature, that causes this affinity to exist between us, for it has happened altogether too often to be accidental. The King of Sicily, some years ago, sent a party of troops to keep me company to Palermo. Subsequently the King of Greece favored me with a large military convoy to one of the Greek islands. After that I had an independent supervision of various bodies of Turkish soldiers on board of different vessels within the Turkish dominions. Recently Napoleon III. sent down by the same train of cars, from Paris to Marseilles, about four hundred of his troops for Algiers. Being detained at Marseilles by some unforeseen circumstance, I had the pleasure of seeing these men shipped off on the first steamer. I took passage in the next. By some extraordinary fatality, for which there is no accounting, there were upward of five hundred additional troops shipped on this vessel. It was a consolation to know that a storm was brewing, and that they would soon be all sea-sick. Before we got out of the Gulf of Lyons I could have slain every man of them with a pocket-knife. It was therefore with a spirit of resignation that I saw the Norwegian soldiers come on board at Eidsvold. Fate had ordained that we should travel together, and it was no use to complain. Besides, I liked their looks. As stalwart, blue-eyed, jovial, and hearty-looking a set of fellows they were as ever I saw in any country—men of far higher intelligence and physical capacity than the average of soldiers in Continental Europe. That these were the right sort of men to fight for their country there could be no doubt. I have rarely seen finer troops any where than those of Norway.