FAR-OFF NORWAY.

Woodville Examiner, Volume VII, Issue 659, 30 January 1891, Page 2 (Supplement)

FAR-OFF NORWAY.

(WASHINGTON STAB.) '""Wo went by steamer to (Christiania across the North Sea in a Dutch-built steamship. It was a queer voyage, for the captain, three sailors, and ono passenger were the only ones •n the ship not ill. It was impossible in Christiania to realise that we were actually in far-off Norway. Such fine buildings, fine shops, well-dressed people, handsome carriages, elegant suburban residences, would lead one to suppose one’s self in a great metropolis, instead of the land of cold and snow. After passing four very pleasant days we went to Troudbjera, where we took the steamer Olof Kyrre, which was to carry us to the North Cape, to the land of the midnight sun, and we were exceptionally fortunate in having chosen to make the first trip of the season, for we saw such a succession of snowy mountains, glaciers, thundering torrents, and vast fields of snow, made dazzling white by the light of the sun that blazed and shone in his glory for six days and nights, as we could not have seen even in the next steamer’s trip, for the snow was lessening a little every day as it grew wanner.

It was a sight, or series of sight, so magnificent that no words of mine could give even a feeble idea of them. No picture, no written description I ever saw, prepared me in ever so small degree for the solemn, lonely grandeur of the the vast fields of unbroken snow lying close to rugged mountains. It was so extraordinary in every sense of the word that I was up almost all of every night, if night it could be called, when the sun shone with both heat and brilliancy like that of noon-time at home. On our landing at the cape many of the passengers made the ascent, hut we did not, knowing there was no advantage in doing so, but we got permission from the captain to go out, rowed by two sailors, to the front of the vast headland and see the sun that was peeping from behind some light clouds, and the sensation was weird in the extreme when we realised that wo were in an open boat on the Arctic Ocean at midnight. On our way back after leaving the cape we stopped at Tromsodal and were landed to walk a mile or two to see an encampment of Laplanders with a large herd of reindeer. This was very interesting, albeit the Laps are the dirtiest of all creatures. But dirty as they were, I was induced to go one step inside a tent or hut, because the mother of a little three-months-old ‘.baby would not lift the calico curtain from the baby’s bark and skin cradle until I went inside. So I gathered my skirts well about my feet and went inside, and immediately she lifted the veil and let me see the baby’s face, the one and only clean white thing in the hut. A fire in the middle of the floor and a hole in the top of the hut made perfect ventilation, or it would not have been endurable, for five men and women and five sleeping children, perspiring in their fur clothes and coverings, were within one tent.

Then we went home after seeing the deer, which were gentle creatures and quite tame. On our way we wont in and out of many fjords that wo had not seen on our way up, and all of equal if not superior beauty to those we had aeon. We travelled in quite fine company, too, for the Archduke Carl, brother of the Emperor of Austria, with his son, Prince Ferdinand, their suite of several counts and barons and such “ small fry” were of tbo party. We continued on the steamer until wo got to Bergen, being almost alone by that time, having dropped our passengers at all the different points on the way, from whence they were to take the various routes through to Norway.

At last we returned to Christiania and in time to sco the excitement there at the departure of the Kaiser, who had made his visit and was saying-good bye, and it was a line sight. The King of Sweden and Norway, with the Kaiser on his right and Use Crown Prince and his brother opposite, tilled one of tho ten barouches that convoyed tho royal party to the yacht. Salutes were fired, the band played, the people shouted and waved and threw showers of flowers into the carriages, which were each drawn by four black horses, with four outriders. After a visit of five days to tho beautiful city of Stockholm we leave to-morrow (if all is well) for Russia, and shall be three more days at sea, which will help to make our forty days and nights of sea travel before we get back to Washington.