Opening the cottage door with a wooden key, the eldest girl led us into a small room appropriated as a dairy, in which were eight or ten large basins of wood filled with milk, in the various gradations of decomposition from its natural sweet state to that of acidity, until it took the solidity of cream cheese. I do not know that the Norwegians have any precise system of making cheese by churning; but from what I saw, and I am now only speaking of the poorer peasantry, I believe that the milk, from the moment that it is drawn from the cow is placed in these deal basins, whence the cream is skimmed and committed to a separate bowl, where it remains till it becomes sour, and after resting undisturbed for a few days, thickens to a vile firm substance, the natives call cheese. The Norwegians do not drink fresh milk, but use it, even for household purposes, when quite sour; and plentiful as milk was, we found much difficulty in procuring any, the most trifling quantity, fit for our English tastes. We were so fortunate as to find one basin that contained some fresh milk, of which we drank plentifully; but our guide swallowed quart after quart of all the acid stuff he could smell out; for he would not taste before he had applied his nose to each basin.
There were only two apartments in this cottage, and both without floors, or windows. In one corner of the dairy, which was not eight feet square, a few planks of fir formed a bedstead over which were tumbled one or two torn and dirty blankets. Three large stones, arranged angularly on the dank earth, answered the purpose of a grate, for half burned sticks and cinders were scattered about; and immediately over head, a large hole in the roof admitted the rain and cold wind, while it might, and was intended to let out the smoke. Poverty and discomfort seemed to wrestle with each other which should torment these two girls the most. And yet they looked glad and contented, and said they were so, and laughed heartily at our discomposure when we went from pan to pan, and found the milk sour, or half hardened to a jelly. They could hardly be persuaded to receive any compensation for the milk we and the Norwegian had consumed; and both of these girls shook hands with us, and thanked us continually in grateful idioms for sixteen skillings, a sum of money worth five pence sterling. They answered to the solicitous questions of our guide, that a herd of three hundred rein-deer had passed through the valley two days before, and believed they had gone towards a large lake ten miles to the eastward.
The sun had now set, and no place of rest could be found among these mountains, unless we chose to risk the danger of sleeping in the open air under some tree. It was, therefore, necessary to delay as little as possible, and we took leave of the two peasant girls. They came forward with the most unaffected simplicity, and shaking us again by the hand, wished us a pleasant journey. It seemed almost heartless to leave two girls, so young and unprotected, in such a wilderness, many miles from any human dwelling, surrounded everywhere by wolves and bears; and the smile of perfect contentment and cheerful resignation to the dreary lot attributed to them, made me feel the more sensibly for their isolated condition. But it is the condition allotted to women by the usages of Norway; and while the young men remain in the low lands to cultivate the soil and gather the corn, the females are banished to the mountains to tend the flocks. Sometimes, among the most distant and unfrequented mountains, a hut, like this, may be met with, inhabited by a single girl; and holding no communication with her fellow creatures she drags on the bright time of summer in the profoundest solitude, quite regardless, apparently, of the bereavement of all social intercourse, or of the horrible death that may overtake her by the hunger and ferocity of wild beasts.
We now travelled with more briskness, not only lured by the chance of coming up with the herd of rein-deer, but pursued by the moss-grown phantom of a mountain couch. An endless forest of firs lay on our right hand, and the nearer we approached it, the more clearly we could hear the howl of wolves; and whenever we reached an elevated mound of ground we thought to see a troop of them galloping forth to their nightly depredations. Mountainous ridge after ridge we climbed, but along the wide expanse our eyes could alight on no lake; and only through a chasm, far away between two mountains, the lead-coloured water of the Sogne Fiord momentarily deceived the sight. The guide kept his place in front and led the way, bounding from valley to mountain-top like a spirit of Indian rubber; and unwearied in his tongue as he seemed in body, he continued shouting, cheerily, in a strange, drawling chant,
"Salt, h-o-o-o! salt, h-o-o-o! salt, h-o-o-o!"
"Salt" in the Norwegian language signifies salt, as it does in ours; but the vowel has a soft pronunciation. The rein-deer are very fond of salt, and the wildest of them will follow a person, who holds some salt in his hand, for miles together. To put salt on a bird's tail, and catch it, may be an English piece of jocularity; but the Norwegian would be puzzled to think why we should attach a joke to such an act; and to prove to an Englishman the inaptitude of the proverb, the Norseman will go forth with his handful of salt, and take, not his covey of sparrows, for his country has none; but a fine fat buck.
As the evening advanced, the light wind, that had made the heat of the day tolerable, now lulled; but mute as the long blades of grass were, the breath of night, when it moved the hair gently from our brows to cool our faces, whispered in our ears the warning sound of the tramp and unceasing howl of a hundred wolves. Regardless of all danger, be it far or near, the Norwegian still claimed the van, and dipped his hand with frequency in the little bag of salt that dangled at his girdle, chanting as he went,
"Salt, h-o-o-o! salt, h-o-o-o! salt, h-o-o-o!"
The deer came not; though the lonely hills took up the words, and passed them from vale to vale.