At eight o'clock on Tuesday morning, the 6th, we started for Larvig. About sixty miles from Christiania, at the mouth of the Fiord, a fine, light air sprung up, and, delighted with the expectation that we should reach Larvig before set of sun on Wednesday, we amused ourselves by firing at bottles thrown into the sea, and afterwards by watching the gambols of Sailor and Jacko. Sailor, stretched at full length on his back, allowed Jacko to pull his ears, and bite his claws; and mindless of the monkey's antics, seemed rather to encourage, than object to his vagaries. Wearied, at last, with his pulling, and jumping, and biting, Jacko sought a variation to his amusements, by springing on the weather runner-block, and thence depending by his tail. When Sailor perceived that Jacko had removed his gymnastics from himself, and transferred them to the block, he rose from his recumbent attitude on the deck, and, squatting on his haunches, observed, for some little time, with singular attention and silence, the extraordinary flexibility of Jacko's limbs; but at the moment when Jacko suspended his little carcase by his smaller tail from the runner-block, whether it was the manner in which Sailor expressed a roar of laughter, or whether it was a shout of applause at the comical likeness of Jacko's body, swinging in the air, to a bunch of black grapes, certain it is, that, at that instant, Sailor gave one, but one, tremendous bark, and, in the twinkling of an eye, Jacko fell souse into the water. He sank like a boiled plum-pudding to the vessel's keel; for when he rose again, his little round head could just be seen a hundred feet astern. Never was there such dismay on board the Iris before.
"Jacko's overboard!" shouted each man; and echo taking up the cry, "Jacko's overboard!" must have alarmed Jacko himself by its forlorn expression. Struggling with the waves, and striking out manfully with his hands, and not like a monkey, Jacko kept his head above water, and his eyes turned towards the cap of the top-mast.
"Hard a-port the helm!" bellowed D——, rushing to the tiller himself; and soon as the cutter shot up in the wind, he added,
"Now, then, two of you, my sons, jump into the dingy."
The command was obeyed quickly as it was given; and Jacko has to thank his star, whichever it may be, that the boat had not been hoisted on the davits, but towing in the vessel's wake; or he might, many months ago, have been a source of entertainment at the Court of Neptune.
If a drowned rat looks sleekly wretched, Jacko looked ten times worse when taken out of the water. The brightness of his eye had fled,—his tail, which curled usually like a sucking-pig's, hung now straight down behind him, relaxed from its ringlet, like a piece of tarred rope,—and his stomach, vying once with the symmetry of the greyhound's, was distended and globular as a small barrel of oysters. Half a spoonful of brandy was poured down his throat, and having been wrapped up in some odd pieces of flannel, he was put in a soup-plate, and set down before the fire. This was all that human art could do, and the rest was left to the control of time, or Jacko's robust constitution.
At twelve o'clock we were off Fredricksværn, the Norwegian Portsmouth, which is a small town at the entrance of the Larvig Fiord. Here Jacko came on deck buoyant as a ball, and with a coat made more glossy by the chemical action of the salt water.
Looking towards Larvig, we saw, an unusual sight in this country, the Union-jack flying on a little rock; and were puzzled for some time to know whether it was a compliment that had reference to us. After a tedious contention with dead water, light puffs of wind that came down the gulleys on our starboard beam, and shifted to our bows, and then veering right aft, jibed the main-sheet, we cast anchor about twenty yards from the rock on whose summit the Union-jack waved.
The Consul sent on board to say, that his house was at our service, as well as any other kindness he could show us. We understood afterwards, that the Consul had mistaken the Iris for the Fairy schooner, belonging to Sir Hyde Parker; and had hoisted the jack in compliment to his old friend the baronet.
It was not possible for us to fish to-day; but P—— hired a carriole, and drove about six miles into the country, to obtain leave from the proprietors on the banks of the Larvig River, to fish on the following morning. The task of gaining permission to fish for salmon in Norway is sometimes a tedious one; for every man is his own landlord, and possesses a few acres of land that he tills himself. All lands on the banks make the portion of the river flowing by them, the property of the landowner; and the angler may have to secure the good-will and assent of fifty persons, before he can fish in any part of a river, which is more difficult to do, as the Norwegians are jealous of their little privileges. They rarely deny courtesy to a stranger; but they like to have it in their power to do so if they please. This, however, was not P——'s case; for through the hearty assistance and recommendation of the Consul, no obstruction was made to the attainment of everything we desired.