The proprietor of the hotel at which I had taken luncheon was at the pier waiting for the fiord steamboat, and from him I learned much about the fishing industry. Several men were busy barreling and boxing up fresh-looking fish. Those were small or thin herrings, I was told, and were merely to be shipped to other fishing stations to be used as bait for cod. Much of the cod which I saw around on the beach was from Iceland;—the large boat at anchor in the harbor had recently come from there with a cod cargo—but great quantities of cod were also caught in Stor Fiord. The Iceland cod is freed from its surplus salt by washing in the sea; dried by spreading on the rocks along the shore; then packed away in great cylindrical-shaped piles on the sand—heads in and tails out—to cure. The sides of the cylinder are covered with canvas and the tops with cone-shaped wooden roofs, painted red. Near the pier a man and two little girls, their hands covered with thick woolen mittens, were building one of those cod cylinders; and scattered over the beach were dozens of the covered piles of codfish, looking like little huts. A boat with a man and a woman in it, both rowing, was making its way to the Iceland vessel for a new load of salt cod.
By the time I had acquired the practical information which I have just retailed to you, the fiord boat Geiranger, on which I was to embark, arrived. A number of men and about three times as many hunting dogs landed from the boat; but when I went aboard I found a goodly supply of hunters remaining, and about twenty dogs—barking, whining and fighting—on the deck. However, to my relief, these also landed in a short time.
At Merok on Stor Fiord, a pleasant, wide-awake-looking woman boarded the boat, and I soon fell into conversation with her. She was a merchant in Aalesund, she told me. The foundation of my Scandinavian conversational medium, as you know, is very bad Danish. In Sweden I stuck in a few Swedish words for flavoring and the intelligent Swedes understood my utterances and called my jargon “bra Svensk”; in Norway I remembered to pronounce m-e-g-e-t (much) phonetically instead of “myet” as the Danes do, and the Aalesund merchant lady declared that what I spoke was not Danish at all, but Norwegian. I seem to possess a variety of “three-in-one” Scandinavian linguistic equipment. Fortunately, it works, and is very convenient when one is traveling. The Aalesund lady, however, recognized that there was abundant room for improvement, and kindly supplied corrections as the need rose.
The lady, I soon learned, was an enthusiastic voter. It was due to the fair-mindedness of the “Venstre,” or Liberal party, she said, that Norwegian women had been granted the right of suffrage; now the “Höire,” or Conservative faction, acknowledged that the women should have been given the vote long ago, since they have demonstrated that they are capable of making good use of it. The Norwegian women, she told me, are at present working for total prohibition and for just labor laws for women. Their slogan is “The same pay for the same work, regardless of sex.” May they win speedily!
A Norwegian “Maud Muller”
Piling Cod Fish in Söholt
We spoke of the independence of Norway from Sweden, and the lady said that the Norwegians rejoiced in their freedom. I asked whether there was no regret in Norway over the separation from Sweden, because of the increase of taxation—as some Swedes had told me that there was. “No; we have no regrets,” she said; “we are free; we have our own king, and, besides, our taxes are no higher.” That was the sort of reply I had received to similar queries all the way down the Norwegian coast. I felt that it was representative of the Norwegian people as a whole; and I rejoiced with them that they had at last gained the freedom for which they had so long waited.
I am moved by the remembrance of the lady merchant’s politeness to a digressive dissertation upon Scandinavian manners; for the more I have seen of Scandinavia the more I am convinced that the manners here are superior to our own. My comparison is between the rank and file of people in both lands; I know little about the socially élite in either country. In Sweden, especially in the cities, because of the French influence which came with the Bernadotte line of kings, one finds greater elegance and polish (I believe that I mentioned to you the grand bows of my Söderhamn cousins); and in Norway one notices greater simplicity and directness, for Norway is the most democratic of the Scandinavian lands. Nevertheless, the code of manners is very similar all over Scandinavia; the people are everywhere courteous, and their courtesy reflects their national characteristics—reserve, sincerity, and kindness.