The flowers of the torrid and temperate zones, as a rule, close their eyes like human beings, and sleep a third or half of the twenty-four hours, but in Arctic regions, life to those lovely children of Nature is one long sunny period, and sleep comes only with death and decay. It will also be observed that the flowers assume more vivid colors and emit more fragrance during their brief lives than they do in the south. The long, delightful period of twilight during the summer season is seen here in perfection, full of roseate loveliness. There is no dew to be encountered or avoided, no dampness; all is crystal clearness.
In the rural districts women are generally employed in out-of-door work, as they are in Germany and Italy, and there is quite a preponderance of the sex in Norway and Sweden. As many women as men are seen engaged in mowing, reaping, loading heavy carts, and getting in the harvest generally. What would our American farmers think to see a woman swing a scythe all day in the hayfields, cutting as broad and even a swath as a man can do, and apparently with as little fatigue? Labor is very poorly paid. Forty cents per day is considered to be liberal wages for a man, except in the cities, where a small increase upon this amount is obtained.
Norway has been appropriately called the country of mountains and fjords, of cascades and lakes. Among the largest of the latter is Lake Mjösen, which is about sixty miles long and has an average width of twelve. It receives in its bosom one important river, the Longen, after it has run a course of nearly a hundred and fifty miles. At its southern extremity is the port of Eidsvol, and at the northern is Lillehammer. These are situated in the direct route between Christiania and Tröndhjem. But the most singular fact attached to the lake is that it measures about fifteen hundred feet in depth while its surface is only four hundred feet above the level of the ocean. Its bottom is known to be nearly a thousand feet below that of the adjacent North Sea, which would seem to show that the lake must be the mouth of some long-extinct volcano.
As to the animals of Norway, the reindeer, the bear, the wolf, the fox, and the lynx about complete the list. The ubiquitous crow abounds, and fine specimens of the golden eagle, that dignified monarch of the upper regions, may often be seen sailing through the air from cliff to cliff, across the fjords and valleys. At certain seasons of the year this bird proves destructive to domestic fowl and young lambs. Magpies appear to be as much of a nuisance in Norway as crows are in India or Ceylon, and quite as unmolested by the people. What are called the wild birds of Scandinavia are in fact quite tame, and they are in large variety. As the traveller passes through the country, he will observe sheaves of unthreshed grain elevated upon poles beside the farm-houses and barns, which are placed there to furnish the feathered visitors with food. These sheaves are frequently renewed throughout the long winters; otherwise the birds would starve. The confiding little creatures know their friends, and often enter the houses for protection from the severity of the weather. Neither man, woman, nor child would think of disturbing them, for they are considered to bring good luck to the premises.
In a journey from the capital to Tröndhjem, where the coasting steamer is usually taken for the North Cape, we cross the Dovrefjeld, or mountain table-land. The famous elevation called the Sneehaetta—"Snow Hat"—forms a part of this Alpine range, and it is one of the loftiest in Norway. It should be remembered that one-eighth of the country lies within the region of perpetual snow, and that these lofty and nearly inaccessible heights are robed in a constant garb of bridal whiteness. No known portions of the globe have more extensive glaciers or snowfields, unless, possibly, it be some portions of Alaska or Greenland. There are glaciers in Norway which cover from four to five hundred square miles, descending from plateaus three and four thousand feet in height, down to very near sea-level.
Though the highest point in the peninsula is only about eight thousand five hundred feet above the sea,—an elevation which is reached only by Jotunfjeld, or Giant Mountain,—still no highlands in Europe surpass those of Scandinavia in terrific grandeur. Mont Blanc (Switzerland) is nearly twice as high as this Giant Mountain, but being less abrupt is hardly so striking.
The elevations of Norway are intersected by deep, dark gorges and threatening chasms, roaring with impetuous torrents and grand water-falls, constantly presenting such scenes as would have inspired the pencil of Salvator Rosa. The mountain system here does not form a continuous range, but consists of a succession of table-lands, like the Dovrefjeld, and of detached mountains rising from elevated bases. The length of this series of elevations—mountains and plateaus—is that of the entire peninsula from the North Cape to Christiania, some twelve hundred miles, which gives to the mountains of Norway and Sweden an area larger than the Alps, the Apennines, and Pyrenees combined; while the lakes, waterfalls, and cascades far surpass those of the rest of Europe. It has been said, somewhat extravagantly, by those familiar with the geography of Scandinavia, that could it be flattened out into plains, it would make as large a division of the earth as is now represented by either of the four principal continents.
The ratio of arable land to the entire area of Norway is not more than one to ten, and were it not that the support of the people came mainly from the sea, the country would not sustain one-quarter of its present population. Undismayed, however, by the prevalence of rocks, cliffs, and chasms, the people utilize every available rod of land to the utmost. The surroundings of many habitations seem severe and desolate, even when viewed beneath the summer sun; what, then, must be their appearance during the long and trying winters of their frosty regions?
It is not uncommon to see on the Norwegian coast, farm-houses surrounded by a few low buildings, perched among rocks away up on some green terrace, so high, indeed, as to make them seem scarcely larger than an eagle's nest. To anybody but a mountaineer these spots are inaccessible, and every article of subsistence, except what is raised upon the few acres of available earth surrounding the dwelling, must be carried up there upon men's backs. A few goats and sheep must constitute the animal stock, added to which are generally some domestic fowls. These dwellings are constructed of logs, cut in the lofty gulches, and drawn by hand to the spot, one by one. It would seem that such energetic industry applied in some inviting neighborhood would insure a more desirable result.