A Summer Holiday in Scandinavia

16th August. -- We had put up on our arrival at Bertlesen's Hotel, and after a. night's experience we found it fairly comfortable. The views from almost all the windows were very restricted. From mine, however, I enjoyed a pleasing prospect of the broad fjord fading into the distance, and hemmed in by its towering rock-walls; whilst in the foreground I had a bird's-eye view of the small red fishing town at my feet. A strange, quaint little place indeed, nestling between its massive green and purple hills; having very little to do with the turmoil and bustle of the outer world; rarely disturbed, save in its summer doze when the Bergen steamer comes puffing up the blue fjord with a cargo of hurrying tourists. Everybody knows everybody here. Gossiping in all its forms is the most important occupation of the inhabitants. They sit or stand about dreamily all day long, and far into the warm evening, talking and joking languidly. No one hurries for anything. Watch that man at his house-door across the road -- he is going fishing; but with what deliberation he sits down on the gate-post and ruminates over his tackle. He makes up his mind which line he will use after a meditative ten minutes, and another methodic five are spent in getting it ready. Then there comes a minute or two of indecision about the towering twenty-foot rod, which rests against the side of the hut in all weathers. At last it is shouldered, and the coarse line run, off the gigantic reel at the butt through all the rings -- the smallest as big as an English sixpence. Now, perhaps, if there is no gossip in sight, he will stroll over to the most rapid part of the neighboring stream, and play a fly nearly as big as a beetle, with all the finesse of a master craftsman. Let us trust that the rush of a big salmon, and the hum of the line as it spins like a wire away into the river, may awake his dormant energies.

Laerdalsoroen is a village entirely given over to the gentle craft. Salmon in some form is the staple article of diet with every one. Salmon nets may be seen drying by the dozen in the lower parts of the town; salmon cutlets hang in the smoke of all the chimneys of the fishermen's huts. Indeed, were it not for the salmon, it is difficult to imagine how the peasants would live. As it is, nearly all necessities of life, except the very commonest, must be imported from Bergen. As the town is surrounded by lofty mountains, over which the autumn sun never shines after the 18th September, it naturally follows that nothing but a scanty crop of cereals can be grown; consequently, Laerdalsoroen is encircled with large tracts of meadow land, untilled, and often no better than undrained and unreclaimed fens. These marshes, being at the estuary of a large river, are favorite resorts of the wild duck, heron, and other water birds, which may generally be found there in considerable numbers when wanted, with a little searching. Beyond the attraction of wild fowl shooting and possibly some fly-fishing, there is, however, little or nothing to detain the tourist here. From its position it is a naturally gloomy spot, and, one would think unhealthy for a long stay; while there is not much to see in the immediate neighborhood.

The provisions at our hotel were decidedly not more than moderately good. The meals we had were simple, and the bill of 37 sp. 96 sk. for seven days, was heavier than usual.

17th August. -- Walking in the Bergen direction along the road which, by-the-by, only extends a few hundred yards further than the old steamboat wharf, the botanist will find two or three lovely kinds of ferns -- one in particular, I must confess, quite new to me. This grew in crevices of the cliff where it was most steep and inaccessible: its fronds, very dark olive-green in color, were rather like those of an acacia tree, and, to be technical, "pinnately cleft."

Finding that the road came to an abrupt termination at the packet-wharf, we retraced our steps to the town, to try if it were possible to hire a boat. In our second attempt we succeeded. Firstly, we interrogated a highly mediaeval-looking old fisherman, who was leaning against an overturned craft, with a hammer in one hand and some tow in the other, and eating something which he kept tightly shut up in his mouth.