A Summer Holiday in Scandinavia

THE light lunch which we had taken in the middle of the day had not destroyed our power of appreciating dinner; and our healthy expectations were soaring high when they were brought down suddenly to the ground upon our "dinner" making its appearance in the hands of the station-mistress. A single small dish obviously contained all that we were going to get; and it was with suspended animation that we gazed as the cover was solemnly lifted. Lo! Nothing but about a pound of the beefsteak which we had seen at breakfast. P. expostulated with the landlady; but not only could she not give us anything more; she sadly added, as a climax, pointing to the Spartan fare on the table, "that when that was finished she could give us no more meat this season."

It was some comfort to know the worst at once, but this failure in the provisions effectually cut short our stay at Gulsvig. We had intended to remain until the next Sunday, when a boat was advertised in Bennett to start down the lake; but as we found there was one leaving the very next morning, taking into full consideration that if we remained we should be reduced to eat "flad-brod" and that terrible cheese I have mentioned, why! it was thought best to fly as soon as we possibly could.

30th August. -- We were all up and at breakfast as soon as the sun appeared over the distant hills. Our baggage had been packed and put ready overnight, and now we placed the more cumbrous articles on the three hired carioles we had brought from Laerdalsoroen, and gave some men a few skillings apiece to wheel them down to the steam-boat wharf -- not more than four or five hundred yards from the house. We followed them more leisurely, after P. had paid the bills and thanked the hostess, with as much sincerity as was possible, for our entertainment. The little lake steamer was very impatient to be off, for when we reached the wharf there lay the grim little tug loudly whistling -- the passengers already on board; about a dozen rough agriculturists with their wives, very noisy and awkward, tumbling about and playing hide and seek with their own and other persons' baggage, adding to the general good-tempered confusion. The lowering of our carioles down an incline of boards concentrated their attention for a few minutes. They (the carioles) were hoisted over miscellaneous agricultural implements and domestic property -- spades, shovels, boxes, vegetables, ropes, harness, tubs, etc., etc. -- and were finally lashed down on the deck, well "for'ad," side by side, whereupon their carioling, as far as we were concerned, was at an end, P. having instructed the captain to have them forwarded to Christiania when we reached the far end of the lake.

They had done their duty excellently, being all of them nice, clean, well-made conveyances, and much superior to those we should have received at each station had we not thus hired them for the whole journey from Laerdalsoroen to Christiania. But, perhaps, tourists who do not care about being pitched out, and perhaps over a precipice, will be glad to be warned against such a cariole as the one I used. This, though strongly built, was constructed with its body too high above the axles of the wheels to be perfectly safe. Doubtless the make was an advantage, as far as speed went; but my little trap was never very steady on its wheels, and once, as already mentioned, it went over bodily with very little provocation; while, when you do tumble off such a vehicle, it is an episode to be remembered.

The only place on board the steamer with any signs of order and cleanliness was well aft in a little open cabin, much the same as the one we occupied on the Lake Miosen steamer; so this, accordingly, P. appropriated for us, paying, of course, a few extra skillings for the privilege. But it was well worth it. The crew were not numerous: there was a captain whose staff of office was a long iron-shod pole, for guiding floating pine logs out of the way of the ship; the stoker, also an important functionary; the stewardess -- I am happy to say the least necessary person on board for ladies, thanks to the smoothness of Lake Kroderen; and lastly, a boy, whose duty it was to do everything the others could not, or did not.