TRAVEL STORIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3019, 24 January 1912, Page 87

TRAVEL STORIES.

By Dr Sigel Eousn

(Special to the Otago Witness.)

With the possible exception of New Zealand, no country in the world presents such a variety of natural Scenery as Norway. Nature has wrought in the land of the Norse wondrous valleys, mountains, glaciers, lakes, and waterfalls, and bequeathed them with a reckless prodigality to her legion of admiring devotees. When inland one is scarcely ever beyond the scound of rushing waters. Innumerable streams fed by glaciers, springs, or perpetual snowfields high up in the mountain fastnesses rush down through boulderstrewn ravines, and plunge with impetuous haste over many a perpendicular precipice, where, transformed into a cloud of spray, they fall with the gentleness of a time-softened sorrow' on the placid bosom of the valley below. To the man obsessed with a commercial mind alone, Norway's matchless waterfalls mean just so many sources of mechanical power, and it is doubtless a matter of regret to the traveller with the soul of an artist to note that in some cases these plunging waters have already been harnessed and compelled to turn the wheels of unsightly factories that squat like ugly toads on the banks of the broken-hearted stream. From the utilitarian’s point of view the bum of machinery is doubtless sweeter than the music of these unhampered crystal streams, and the unsightly wooden factories rather add to his practical eye an element of beauty hitherto unknown to these wild gorges and unpolluted dales. 1 grant that the interpretation of Nature’s message is largely a matter of temperament : but even to the matter-of-fact traveller it seems a pity to profanate these masterpieces of croation with the prosaic spirit of practical modernity. What an illuminating example of the rapaciousness of commerce is the case of our own Niagara Falls! It was with a deep sense of personal loss that less than a year ago I looked over the American falls and compared the volume of water then with what it was when I first beheld this peerless cataract over 25 years ago. It was as the comparison of young manhood—sturdy, vigorous, and powerful, with decrepit age—halting, senile, impotent. But on account of the innumerable Norwegian waterfalls, scattered over more than 120,000 square miles of surface, Norway's superb cascades, with the exception of a few of the more accessible examples, may reasonably be expected to escape the ruthless hand of commercial iconoclasm for many years to come. —A Wooden Country.— Norway, notwithstanding it tremendous masses of rock, is nevertheless a wooden country. This was a matter of some surprise to me, for recent researches have given to Scandinavia at least a hunting and fishing population as ancient as 6000 years before Christ. One would therefore naturally expect to find in a land of granite mountains some tendency in all these years to use the most abundant of all local materials in building the dwelling places of its inhabitants. But such is far from truth. Norwegian houses are with commercial iconoclasm for many years made of wood. I was much interested in the manner of building these dwellings. First the logs are dressed on two sides to a nnifoun size, usually from four to six inches in thickness. Then they .are “dove-tailed” at the corners, so that the edges of these flattened logs rest one upon the other. In the less pretentious houses a “chinking” of the cracks with a sort of mortar completes the construction of the walls. In the dwellings of the, better classes, however, the outside wall is next weather-boarded and painted tlie universal dark red. The inside is sometimes plastered, but many effective interiors are produced by merely staining Hie unpolished logs, thus affecting a sort of rustic finish entirely in harmony with the spirit of the land. Some very pleasing hotel interiors, especially in tho country districts, have thus been treated, which, with the great open corner fireplace, the hand-made furniture, and numerous example of exquisite wood-carving found on every side, combine to make a bar-

| momous whole, at once cosisient and pleas ing.

The forests have for centuries proved one of Norway’s principal sources of wealth, and though one is impressed with the smallness of the trees —pines seldom exceeding a foot and a half in diameter — still even to-day these pine-producing mountains send forth new forests as soon !as the preceding growth has been cut down and marketed. And so it transpires that the traveller in Norway constantly comes upon the sawmill and lumbering camp—institutions usually found only in new countries' where the virgin forests' still await the woodman’s I axe. One does not expect this anachronism in a country over 60CO years old. But I repeat that Norway is above all else a wooden country. In pagan days the gods of the wold were the most popular gods, and it is claimed by those who liave gone to the trouble of tracing the subject that with the advent of Ch.Tstianitv the old devotees were loath to abandon the forest feature of their discarded worship, and as a result of the deep-rooted love for the forest, the Christmas tree crept into our Christian celebration through the old pagan rites of Norway. —Expert Wood- workers.— It is a matter of common knowledge that practically every Norwegian is an expert wood-worker. Even the poorest peasant, though he shares his domicile*with his cow and his sheep, is seldom so poverty-stricken that he cannot afford a rude hand turning-lathe and a few woodcarving tools. As far back as the Viking age this art had reached a high state of perfection, and the samples of carving found on the old Viking ships, though executed more than 10C0 years ago, still compare favourably with the best modern examples extant. I have visited many a peasant home still practically uninfluenced by the metal age. The plates, the knives, the forks, the butter tray, the cheese stand, the bowls, the platters and pans were all made of wood. Only a pot or two and a tea kettle gave evidence of the advent of the iron age. And so, since wood is perishable, one finds little in Norway in the way of monuments and mementoes to properly convey the country’s age. For aught the traveller encounters the civilisation of Norway might be co-eval with that of Australia or America. There is a freshness and newness about Norwegian buildings that carries little of the old castle romance and legend with it, and which I am frank to confess soon grows distinctly monotonous.

The universal custom, however, especially in the country districts, of sodding the roof over with a covering of 6in or more of turf forms the one picturesque building feature of the land, and a peasant's home with the roof ablaze with daisies, violets, and poppies often saves those country houses of the lower classes from a hopeless and tiresome monotony. If an athletic goat has succeeded in gaining these household heights and found the pasture to his liking, the picture becomes accordingly more in keeping with the traveller’s idea of bucolic quaintuess. —A Picturesque Coast.—

But if Xorway possessed no other type of natural scenery than that exemplified on the far-famed western coast, it could still claim a prominent place among the scenic countries of the world. Xorway, with the exception of its eastern limitations. is bounded by the sea. All but a short section of this coast-line in the south is peculiarly rugged and picturesque. The waters are deep, the land declivities steej) and slashed into numerous gashcr, or chasms that extend irregularly inland in some cases for over 100 miles. Xature must have been in a- fine ferocious frenzy when she fashioned the west coast of Xorway. One can imagine the turmoil, the seething sea, the quaking earth, the Jove-like thunderbolts that accompanied the heaving, the hissing, and the rending when the forge of Xature produced from chaos this hold hut beautiful coast. Hurled red-hot into the sea, the mass of molten rock must have exploded into a million fragments, to have formed that chain of countless islands, varying in size from a mere sea-washed rock no larger than a fisherman’s hut to areas that extend unbroken for more than two score miles. These islands, ‘‘holmes,’’ and “skerries” form a series of land-locked sounds or leaders, between the open sea and the mainland that extend practically the whole length of the western coast. The shores of Norway proper, therefore, with but a few exceptions, where this socalled “skjaergaard” or island defence is interrupted for a few miles, lie immersed in protected waters as smooth and unruffled as the placid surface of the proverbial millpond. It is a matter, therefore, of no surorhe that this ideal yachting course early became a favourite cruising resort, and in consequence has long been familiar with every lover of the mildermooded sea. For months one can sail among these Norwegian islands and never go over the same course twice. It is a never-ending succession of picturesque lake like lagoons, rugged coasts and rockhound islands. The wafers are always smooth, the summer climate charming, the nighis continually light. For the most part the islands are not susceptible of cultivation, and when inhabited at all the population is mainly composed of fisher folk, whose plain wooden houses only accentuate the natural barrenness of the naked rocks.

Ami so the good ship sailed for days over the unruffled bosom of these charminti lagoons through serried ranks of never ending islands. Sometimes we would land at a fishing village and spend a few hours ashore. Here the blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked, half wild children of the fishermen would regard us with open-eyed amazement and wonder. I always took my camera with me on these occasions, and often succeeded in obtaining some characteristic photos of these isolated village people.

—The Fishing Season. —

The fishing season varies according to the kind of fish sought. Generally speaking the desirable shoals of fish visit these shores in the winter time, cod and herring furnishing the bulk of the fish then taken. All of these fishing villages are connected with telephone, and as the shoals of fish make -their appearance at given points the news is telephoned along the coast, and every fisherman at once heads his boat for the tempting quarry. As many at 10,000 fishing-boats are sometimes thus brought together on the Norwegian coast at a given point, presenting a scene as one can easily imagine seldom if ever duplicated elsewhere in the world. The day’s catch is usually disposed of on the spot to some broker who prepares and ships the fish to the various markets. Even in August we saw millions of fish drying on the rocks or suspended from poles and curing without salt in the pure fresh atmosphere. These dried “stock fish'’ are next pressed by powerful hydraulic presses into bales like cotton or hay, and in this form shipped to market. Stock fish is a very cheap variety, and is sold mainly in Italy and Spain. Besides this dry fish and the vast amount shipped in barrels and casks, Norway markets annually millions of “tins” of sardines and other varieties of “preserved” fish. It is a marvellous industry, and one of Norway’s main sources of wealth. It may be interesting to note in this connection that several centuries ago a company of Germans came to Bergen and formed the Hanseatic League—one of the earliest and one of the most powerful trusts history has ever recorded. This fish trust became so oppressive and so arbitrary that a national revolt ensued, and the overthrow of the Norwegian fish trust marks one of Norway’s important historical epochs, and might properly ba used as a warning to the grasping trusts of today.

—Life of the Fisher Folk.—

There is always a sort of grim romance in the life of the deep-sea fisherman. These frail small fishing craft of the Norwegian coast often follow the moving fish far out to sea, where storms, especially in winter, bi’eak without warning with unprecedented seventy and oft times disastrous consequences. And so it transpires that after the sudden tempests the anxious wives of the fishermen congregate on the wharf and watch with a dark foreboding the return of the battered flee. One boat after another makes harbour, and joy with each safe return illuminates the face of some careworn woman. Bat still a handful of weary watchers remain by the side of the now caressing waters. Anxiety grows to a definite premonition as the hours go by and the arrivals of the straggling boats become loss and less frequent. The shert day wanes, and the long winter night falls like a pall over the stricken village. The early dawn finds the desperate watchers wild eyed and frenzied, scanning the distant horizon for the sail with the missing number. Their rugged, hard-handed neighbours try to comfort them, but the hope they hold out dies on the lips even as proffered. The story is .already ended. They know all too well that the belated ships will never come back, and perhaps os the tide comes in when spring again returns and like an angel of life quickens the ice-bound fields into fields of verdure, a battered spar or weather-beaten sail is cast up on the beach—the last message from the missing ship. But the call of the sea to these fisher folk is ever seductive, and in a few years the widow’s son, now grown older, takes his father’s place in the local fleet. And so the little isolated fishing village, with its talcs of daring, selfsacrifice. grim romance, and tragedy, yields from season to season its hapless victims to the wrath of the waves.