FOGGY WEATHER—FIRST VIEW OF NORWAY—CHRISTIANSAND FIORD—ARRIVAL AT CHRISTIANSAND—DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWN—THE TOPTDAL RIVER—EXCURSION INLAND—THE ENTHUSIASTIC ANGLER—RUSTIC LODGINGS—HUNTING THE BEAR—THE TRAP—THE DEATH—NORWEGIAN LIBERALITY.
Sunday, the 9th, dawned on us, tossed about on a troubled sea indeed; for a strong wind was blowing from E.S.E. However, at eight o'clock, just before breakfast, we sounded in thirty-five fathoms. We had scarcely concluded this cautious operation before the wind began to lull; and after conjecturing, both from our calculations and soundings, that land was not far away, we were confirmed in this opinion by a thick fog rising above the horizon on our lee beam. We went to dinner in great glee, and, in spite of the hazy atmosphere which now surrounded us, compensation was felt and accepted by us at the hour of six, when a perfect calm prevailed; and our peasoup and curry were threatened, for the first time this week, to be demolished in that gentlemanly and collected mode which the usages of society had rendered familiar to our observation in England.
At eleven o'clock at night the haziness cleared away, and in about half an hour afterwards a light was seen. It was imagined to be the light at the mouth of the Christiansand Fiord, the name of which, amidst the bustle and joyousness of the moment, I could but indistinctly learn, and cannot now remember. As midnight approached, our old friend the fog gathered density, and effectually deprived us of the slightest glimpse of the light; and we retired to rest ill at ease, plunged into the vale of anxiety in the same ratio as we had been exalted on the peaks of expectation and joy.
Sunday at sea retains all the monotony of the shore; for the waves seem to show deference to the day, and move their crests with more solemnity and order; while the sailors gather round the vessel's bows, and, in a group, listen with wrapt attention to the sublime and poetic sentences of prophetic Isaiah.
I cannot, in all my wanderings at sea, call to mind a tempestuous Sabbath, nor the sailors who would profane it. Mark them! How solemnly the shadow of thought hangs over their countenances; and how, with cheek cradled on the hand, with pipes unsmoked in their mouths, leaning over the bulwarks, their eyes intently riveted on the clear distant horizon, as, carried away by the inspiration and fervour of the great prophet, a messmate, who reads with energy of gesture, ever and anon raises his voice, which, by its tremulous intonation, tells the deep feeling of his heart, and the quickness with which its pulse vibrates in answer to the burning words he utters aloud!
Monday, the 10th, the most lovely of May mornings, fanned by the softest of south winds. Land in all its grandeur of mountain and of cloud lay before me, the towering peaks of the mountains, capped with everlasting snow, and piercing an atmosphere of the intensest blue.
I sat down on the after-lockers, and looked with swelling heart on the sublime scene. As far as the eye could reach inland, mountain over mountain, extending round half the horizon, the land of old Norway, I had read of in my earliest years, expanded itself. On my left hand the Naze hung, frowning, over the Northern Ocean. How memory, in a moment, rushed back to the quaint schoolroom at Ditton, and its still quainter little bookcases huddled up in one corner, where and whence I first began to pronounce and find the "Lindsnes!"
Just at this instant, poor old "Sailor," who had been poking his nose over the vessel's side, and snuffing and whining, rushed up to me, and, placing his head in my lap, turned his eyes towards my face, and looked as much as to say, "Are we not near our journey's end; and don't I smell the land?" Little Jacko, too, came out of his crib, and chirped, and chattered, and scratched himself, and rolled about on the deck in the sunniest corners; and then, all of a sudden, up he would jump, and, seizing hold of "Sailor's" tail, pull it as if he was hauling taut the weather runner. How everything was replete with life; and how happiness, without the heart's reservation, was written on every face! I cannot conceive anything more exhilarating than a beautiful morning at sea, and land in sight; I could have passed the remaining portion of my life without a pang of sorrow, or a gush of joy, but with equanimity, on this dark blue wave, surpassed only in its dark dye and eternity by the dome on which it looked.
When I returned upon deck after breakfast, the first object that attracted my attention was the helmsman. He smiled as soon as his eye met mine, and raised, in recognition, his Spanish-looking hat. He was a stout, tall, fair-complexioned man, with a mild expression of countenance, blue eyes, a long, straight-pointed nose, high cheekbones, and light flaxen hair flowing down almost to his shoulders. He made some observation to me in a dialect which sounded as being a mixture of German, Celtic, and English; but the sense of it was incomprehensible.
"Norway?" I said in reply, pointing to the land now not three miles from us.