A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden / 2nd edition

by William A. Ross

For two hours, the fate of King and his two companions, was unknown to us, until the whisper passed from man to man on board, that a light was imagined to have been seen. An answering signal was immediately ordered to be made, and a man, running half up the shrouds, burned a blue light; and, instantly, another blue light shone brightly about three miles to windward, on our starboard quarter, then a second followed, and a third; and, to satisfy all doubt, a fourth gleamed steadily through the night. It had been arranged, that King should show a light for every man he might have in the boat, so that if he should chance to find a pilot, a fourth light would immediately convey the intelligence to us.

It was impossible for us to do anything more than lay to as long as we could, and, to meet the boat, was utterly impracticable. In a shorter time, however, than could be imagined, from the heavy sea running, the little boat, taken, like a cork, on the top of a wave half way up our mast, then carried down again so near our keel, that, a rope could hardly reach her, jumped, and sank, and tumbled by some agency or other, for the men did not pull, to the lee-gangway, and our three men leaped on board with a Swedish fisherman. To our questions the Swede replied, through King, that he was not a pilot, and would not attempt to take the cutter within the reef until daylight, and that we must weather out the gale where we were. These were no gratifying tidings to hear on such a dark and boisterous night; but, in this part of Europe, Aurora soon shows her rosy face; and, before I was up the following morning, the yacht was safely at anchor in comparatively smooth water.

The reef of rocks, which forms the only roadstead at Falkenborg, circles in the shape of a horse-shoe, having but one inlet. It is sunk half a foot under water, so that a heavy surf is always broken before it reaches a vessel lying in the centre of this curious bay. The channel into it is not more than twenty or thirty feet in breadth.

After breakfast, we rowed ashore in the gig. In compensation for the abatement of wind, the rain fell determinately, and in such big drops, that, not all the coats and cloaks we put on, could keep us dry. P—— however, had gone by daylight into the town, and hired a carriole, which was to take us some distance into the neighbouring country, where, it was said, a celebrated salmon-stream ran.

On our arrival in the town of Falkenborg, a guard of several men, with drawn swords, received us; but what their motive was in honouring us with their protection, we could not conceive. Wherever we went, these men kept close to our heels, nor faltered in the strictest observance of every military evolution. This seeming honour amounted, at length, to extreme pertinacity, and became offensive to our freedom; for, it not only excited the curiosity of numberless dogs, that barked, and the admiration of ragged children, who pointed at us as we passed; but, if R——, or P——, or I, walked into a fisherman's hut, or any humbler dwelling, to inquire the way, a man, with unsheathed sword, and scowling brow, would step from this redoubted phalanx, and place himself on the threshold, watching minutely every action. Tormented at length to anger, by the pursuit of this file of armed men, P—— asked them what they meant; but receiving, of course, no reply to his common, yet, to them, incomprehensible question, he determined to seek out the Mayor, and represent to that functionary the nuisance to which we were subject.

On reaching the Mayor's residence, our complaint was laid very forcibly by P——, who was not a little nettled before that old gentleman, who, shaking his grey hairs, replied, as well as he could, in French, that the anticipated arrival of an English yacht at Falkenborg had been communicated to him some days ago, and it was, at the same time, hinted the object of the Englishman on board that yacht, was to fish. An order was therefore issued by the owner of the salmon-streams near Falkenborg to prevent any foreigners from angling on his property, and, in pursuance of that order, the Mayor, fancying us to be the real Simon Pures, which, by the bye, we were, had directed much attention should be paid us, and no latitude given to our movements.

A short remonstrance being made to the inconveniences we felt by the obstinate attendance of this body guard; and on our simple assertion, without pledging our honour, that we would not molest, by fly or net, two or three rivers which were mentioned, it was promulgated by the Mayor himself, from his library window, to the populace below, consisting of four women, the man who was to drive our carriole, forty half naked urchins, and twice as many curs, that, the battalion of six men was dismissed, and the rear of the three Englishmen should be annoyed no longer.

This misunderstanding being set at rest, we got into our carriole, and started to perform a journey of ten miles into the interior of the country. The harness, which attached the two horses to our vehicle, had not an inch of leather from one end of it to the other. The collar was a plain, flat piece of wood; the traces were wood; the bit was wood; the shafts, of course, were wood; and the reins alone relieved the monotony of appointment by being of rope. Small wooden pegs supplied, by some ingenuity I could not fathom, the absence of buckles. The carriole itself had not even a piece of iron to act in any way as a spring, and the agony we suffered when this wretched machine creaked, and squeaked, and jolted over the stones, is indescribable; and, to the eye, it was one of the clumsiest pieces of carpentry I ever met with; nor do I hesitate in saying, that an approximation to a civilized condition was more evident among savages I have seen, than in this first glimpse of Sweden. I could hardly persuade myself I was not more than six hundred miles from London; and when the driver began to talk to me about the result of the war in China, and ask if George the Third was dead, I was not at all astonished that the Baron Munchausen could write such travels as he did.

We arrived about three o'clock at the river where salmon were said to abound; but when the evening brought the labour of an entire day to its close, neither R—— nor P—— were able to speak to the truth of that abundance, for they had not even a bite between them. It was our original intention to sleep at a cottage on the banks of this river; but it seemed to be inhabited by a patriarch, the father of so many suspicious-looking sons, grown in want to maturity, that we thought the most prudent plan was to return and rest for the night at Falkenborg. Resuming our place of purgatory in the carriole, we were soon galloping on our way home; for the Swedes, like the Norwegians, drive at a tremendous pace, and it is astounding how these carrioles, so barbarously joined together, scouring over ruts and stones, do not tumble to pieces.

At every river we had to cross, a large boat, like a coal barge, without stem or stern, is to be found, and stowing carriole, horses, and everything else connected with them into this huge ferry boat, the driver, by means of a rope made fast and extending from one bank to the opposite one, draws boat and cargo across, and, reaching the shore he desires, remounts his box, and, heeding not from which quarter the next traveller may come, drives off, and leaves the barge where he did not meet with it. I do not know how a wayfarer, following in our track, contrives to reach our side of the water; but I fancy some person, unseen, must be left in charge of these ferries, and rows across in a skiff, or other smaller boat when necessity requires.