Three in Norway Part 6

It is eleven miles long; very deep; very blue, and on all sides rising sheer out of the water for from 1,000 to 4,000 feet are vast black mountains with snow-clad summits; for it lies in the very heart of the highest mountains in Norway. It may not unfairly be likened to an unfrequented and awfully desolate Lake of Lucerne.

At 3,200 feet alt.i.tude it is of course above the fir trees, and only in a few sunny nooks along its sides can even stunted birches, juniper, and willow earn a precarious living. It is at these places alone that there is any exit from the lake; for along the greater part of its length there is no level place large enough to pitch a tent; no vegetation except berries and moss; and no possibility of scaling the frowning cliffs by which it is surrounded. But there is a great fascination in such a scene; and although its first appearance is almost repellent, every moment of gazing seems to increase its beauty and awe-inspiring grandeur.

At lunch here a great event happened; we had Salon ol (bottled beer), and immediately bought the whole remaining stock, consisting of six bottles. These we degraded by packing with the inferior baggage in the canoes, and commenced the final stage of our journey, or voyage--whichever is the right term.

About two miles from Gjendesheim, on the south sh.o.r.e, we came to a waterfall which runs out of a small lake lying a short distance away up in the valley. At the mouth of this fall was a small neat hut in which a Christiania professor had just taken up his abode for a few days'

stalking; we stopped a few minutes to talk to him, and then paddled on, trying a few casts now and then until we came to Memurudalen--our intended camp.

It is about halfway up the lake on the north sh.o.r.e, and is a very pretty little valley, profusely supplied with edible berries, surrounded by thick birch covert, and with more gra.s.s than we ever expected to find at this alt.i.tude; but it is by far the most favourably situated bit of the Gjendin sh.o.r.es, as it is sheltered from the cold winds and gets the sun all day.

We found a remarkably nice level bit of gra.s.s, screened by a rocky bank, and with what the Skipper called 'a brattling brooklet' in front, about two hundred yards from the lake. There we pitched the tent and made everything comfortable, but of course we shall not decide whether to stay here or not until we have tested its capabilities as reindeer ground.

Beyond the purling streamlet, and about thirty yards from our front door, the Memurua River goes tearing down, the colour of dirty soap-suds from the mud which is ground into it by the mighty Memuru Glacier, whence it springs. This glacier is about three miles from us up the valley, but not in sight from our tent; in fact, the hills are so steep that we are quite shut in, and can see very little except the snow-fjelds and peaks just opposite to us across the lake. These peaks spring from the highest plateau in Norway, which has an alt.i.tude of about 6,000 feet, and both the plateau and peaks are almost inaccessible to the hunter, as it is a day's work to climb them, and any one doing so would probably have to pa.s.s the night on the top. This is annoying, for it is a capital place for deer.

An ancient hunter, some years ago, spent a long time in conveying with incredible exertions to the top of the central peak, materials out of which he constructed a windmill; then he descended and never went near the place again, and his windmill scared all the deer away from that table-land, so that they frequented places where a man could get to them; and the cunning hunter was rewarded by many 'stor bocks' (big bucks). But now the windmill has been destroyed by time and weather, and we fear that the deer again roam there unmolested and unscared.

_Sunday, August 1._--It is our custom to rise on this day singing, 'Come, rouse ye, then, my merry, merry men, for it is our opening day,'

but on this occasion it would not have been appropriate. We were not at all merry, because it was Sunday, and raining; we were frozen in the night, our men and potatoes have not come, and altogether we could see nothing to be merry about, especially as the opening day having fallen on a Sunday, we did not feel justified in going out to pursue.

So we devoted ourselves to the pleasures of the table. Last night we had dotterel and sandpipers for dinner, this morning greenshanks, which are very good birds indeed. There was also a large brew of a meritorious composition known as Skoggaggany soup; the name is a little difficult to p.r.o.nounce, but the soup does not taste anything like it; it is merely the Norwegian for a scaup duck. In England people have been known to call scaups unfit for food, but here, under the perfectly awful appet.i.tes that we have developed, the Skoggaggany soup has very little chance.

After trying unsuccessfully to catch fish, we walked up the valley after lunch to look for a hut which is marked on the Ordnance map, and to see if there were any better camping-ground than the place we chose yesterday. We saw some beautiful reindeer ground, but could not find the hut or a camp.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Two of our Retainers: Ivar and his Pony]

On our return we perceived two men loafing about the tent, who we naturally concluded were thieves and murderers, and the Skipper hurried on to do battle with them to the death for the possession of our greatest treasure, the Salon ol. But on his arrival the robbers did not fly, but stood and stared with their hands in their pockets; so he lifted his hat and said, 'ola?' (for of course he might have been a Dook in disguise); and one of them replied, 'Ja;' and cordiality being thus established, produced the sack of potatoes and the cook, like a conjuring trick, from somewhere behind him, out of his hat or coat tails.

Then we went into all kinds of details with him about his and Ivar's wages, which he did not understand, and he replied at great length in Norsk, which we did not understand, and so the interview concluded to the gratification of all concerned. ola is a big good-looking man, rather too much of a gentleman, we fear: but Ivar is without doubt a perfect a.s.s, and will never be able to do anything in the way of cookery, except perhaps boil a potato, and even in that enterprise we consider it would be six to four on the potato.

CHAPTER XII.

THE CAMP.

_August 2._--The Skipper won the toss (he always does, chiefly because the device on Norwegian coins is 'sorter indifferent like,' and when Esau has called heads or tails, he looks at it carefully, and gravely declares it to be the opposite), and was away eight hours wandering about the mountains without seeing a living creature except two buzzards, and hardly any 'spoor.' He returned to camp very tired and rather cross, to find a delicious meal nearly ready cooked by Esau, for the man whom we ironically call the cook has gone to fetch his horse, for which we are to pay 1s. 2d. a day as long as we have it. The cook's wages are to be 2s. 4d. a day, and those of the stalker 3s. 6d. We consider the latter cheap at that rate. He is a very tall man; very big, very heavy, and very bearded, and we hire the whole of him for the trifling sum above stated.

Besides cooking the dinner, Esau had been employed in rigging up the waggon-sheet as a continuation of the sleeping tent by planting an upright pole securely in the ground in front of the door, and connecting its top with the old tent by a birch tree ridge pole: it thus makes a very convenient place for all our large stores, and gives us much more room in the tent. We had expected the men to sleep in it, but they prefer living in a wretched little stone dog-kennel, which looks as if fleas would swarm in it, and has been built by drovers, or some other dirty people, for their lodging when they chance to come here: it is about 200 yards from our tent, and, as the men prefer it, it is very convenient for us.

The ground that the Skipper tried to-day seemed a first-rate reindeer fjeld; this means an uneven tract of mountain country, too high for vegetation, except occasional reindeer flowers and patches of gentian, but not high enough to be entirely covered with perpetual snow: this fjeld--where it is not snow--is made of rocks large and small, from the size of a haystack to that of road metal, some of them firm, but mostly loose, jagged, and sharp; the winter snow and frost leave them in this condition by continually splitting and re-splitting them: they are dark grey in colour, and at a distance look almost black.

What the reindeer can find attractive in such a place, possibly some one can tell; we cannot. There is apparently nothing for any beasts of the field to eat up there; but if you do happen to find deer before they see you, they are certain to be feeding, and Esau thinks they are eating the rocks; but the Skipper says it cannot be so, and inclines more to the theory that they feed on their 'young,' like tame rabbits, or possibly on their own blood, like the pelican of the wilderness. As for the reindeer flower, which is supposed to be their staff of life, it averages about half a stalk to the square acre, but possibly it is possessed of many highly nutritious qualities, and a little of it goes a long way. Anyhow, they thrive on their food, whatever it may be; they are always very fat, and uncommonly good to eat when you chance to slay one.

After dinner we tried all this portion of the lake for fish without success, and coming back received the awful intelligence from ola that there are no fish in any parts of Gjendin except the extreme ends, and the waterfall where Professor N---- is living. This is a dreadful blow to us, for we always count upon fis.h.i.+ng as our main employment, and fish as our staple food; and if we cannot get any here we shall have to leave. At present we have some which we brought with us from Sjodals, but when they are exhausted there will be a mutiny in this camp unless sport of some kind presents itself.

_August 3._--A curious accident happened to-day; there was no rain. We have in vain tried to account for this phenomenon, and can only fall back on the somewhat unsatisfactory theory that it is all used up. Esau went after deer on the Rus Vand side, and came back very tired to dinner without having seen any, but reported fresh tracks; he was full of the glorious view that the fine day had given him. He had been close above the Memuru Glacier, which is a very large one, and stretching beyond it as far as the eye can reach is a sea of snow mountains, most of them peak-shaped, but some domes or irregular precipices with immense glaciers lying between them, and here and there the greenish-blue waters of a lake distantly gleaming in the sunlight.

It is curious to note how the north and east sides of every peak are torn and ragged, with huge ma.s.ses of rock riven from them by the action of the weather, while on the south and west they are comparatively regular.

The Skipper spent the day in camp, completing the erection of the outside tent. Our abode is now sumptuous in the extreme, as the new wing holds all the lumber which formerly blocked up our bedroom. There was some discussion as to whether we should call it the 'Criterion Annexe,'

until we remembered that there are always policemen about that celebrated building, and this decided us not to do so.

_August 4._--The Skipper went on to Bes Ho stalking. This is a high mountain 7,400 feet above sea level. It is close to us, between Gjendin and Rus Vand, and is one of the dome-shaped species.

The Norwegians call their mountains either 'Tind,' which means a cone, or 'Ho,' a round top; 'Piggen,' a peak rather more jagged than a Tind; 'Horn,' apparently one steep side and one more gradual; and 'Kampen,'

apparently a rough hill with nothing striking about its shape. Most of the mountains round here are Tinden, the finest being Memurutind, Skagastolstind, and Glitretind, the last over 8,000 feet, only surpa.s.sed in height by Galdopiggen, which, though in sight of us, is beyond our reach.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Skipper returns to Camp disgusted with life]

From Bes Ho the Skipper got a good view between the storms of Gjendin lying encircled by its enormous steep black banks of snow-capped mountains, the whole of its eleven miles of length being visible at once. Its colour is a creamy greenish blue, caused by the snow-water which comes straight into the lake by scores of torrents, which collect it from the various glaciers. The Skipper, who is always bubbling over with poetic similes, said it looked like a cupful of very blue milk in a crease of brown paper; but, beautiful as this idea is, who can take any pleasure in scenery without a little, ever so little, sport to flavour it withal? Certainly not the Skipper; so he came back from his long tramp disgusted with life, and longing to find that Esau had played the fool in his absence, so that he might be able to pick a quarrel with him. Unfortunately Esau was provokingly amiable, and had been performing acts of virtue, such as making soup, improving the tent, and swearing at the cook the whole day, so that the seething volcano of the Skipper's temper had to content itself without an eruption. We did manage to get up an approach to a row about the Memuru Glacier, which the Skipper had visited to-day: he described its beauty and the extraordinary blue of the ice, where the large creva.s.ses near its lower end gave glimpses of its real formation--for of course it is covered thickly with snow except just where it begins to break up. Then he went on to say how curious it was to think that this huge ma.s.s, covering square miles of ground, is always moving onwards, and that no more powerful agent exists for altering the arrangement of the earth's crust than that cold, placid field of ice. Esau said it did _not_ move. He watched it for half an hour yesterday and it never stirred, and he even pushed it with his stick without the smallest effect.

It is impossible to argue with a man of that kind.

Tyndall and Geikie being disposed of, we had a discussion in the tent over the map, with the result that we determined to leave the camp for four days in charge of Ivar; and we and ola would go to Gjendesheim, and live there, and drink beer, and catch fish until the 8th, when we calculated that John ought to arrive; and we hope by that time some reindeer will have sought safety from other guns by flying to the sheltering embrace of our fjeld.

We always do our baking just before bedtime, when the men have gone to their hutch, and in a permanent camp it soon gets reduced to a certainty. We prefer milk to water for mixing with the flour, as it makes the bread crisper and shorter, and it does not matter how sour the milk is. This is most providential, as we have generally plenty of sour milk. We send twice a week to Besse Saeter, distant about eight miles, and the long journey does not agree with the milk, so that it is generally turned before it arrives here.

Another important article of food is soup, of which we have several varieties. When made of scaup duck, it is--as already mentioned--called Skoggaggany soup; but our present brew is 'gipsy soup,' which is made from potatoes, fishes chopped into small lumps, a square of 'Kopf's compressed vegetables'--a most invaluable article--and all the bones from the birds that we happen to be using. We never empty the pot, but keep adding water and bones as fast as we consume it, and it simmers by the fire all day. But when times are very bad, and we have no meat, and are living on fish, our soup is then called 'prairie soup,' and is composed of every sc.r.a.p that we can collect--fish-bones; bacon; potatoes; milk; dandelion, and sorrel; bread, and biscuits: and whenever it develops any unusual flavour, we look suspiciously round to see if that boot-lace or candle-end is missing, or if any of the tent-pegs have been newly whittled. It is always very good, and we call it 'prairie'

because of the dandelion, which is a prairie flower.

There is yet one more kind, known as 'Argonaut soup,' the recipe of which was introduced from America by the Skipper; but our resources have never yet been so low that we could not make something better than this.

_Recipe for Argonaut Soup._

Take a pail of water and wash it clean. Then boil it till it is brown on both sides. Pour in one bean. When the bean begins to worry, prepare it to simmer. If the soup will not simmer it is too rich, and you must pour in more water. Dry the water with a towel before you put it in. The drier the water, the sooner it will brown. Serve hot.

CHAPTER XIII.

GJENDESHEIM.

_August 5._--Such a lovely morning at last that we were quite tempted to stay, but n.o.bly stuck to our resolve, heaped everything we possessed except rods, guns, and a change of raiment, into the inner tent, and covered them with a ground-sheet; then packed the selected weapons into the canoes, and sailed from these inhospitable sh.o.r.es.

Not far from camp we saw some fish rising under a cliff, and though it was a dead calm, and the sun as bright as sun could be, we stopped to try for them.

Esau soon tired of casting, and mentioning that 'if _he_ could not catch those fish no one could,' paddled off to make a formal call on the Professor, and ask if he had got any deer.

The Skipper persevered, and was rewarded with two fish weighing about three pounds, and the most perfect fish for shape and condition that we have ever seen. This was an important event for us, for it entirely demolished ola's theory of the non-existence of fish here, and gave us new hope for the future, especially as the weather has been so bad all the time until now, that we should hardly have caught any even if they swarmed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Throwing for a Rise]