The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-12-10
WAEEMAY'S WANDERNCS.
Peeps al Some Of The Most Interest
Ing Features Of Norway.

The Lo~dly Romsdal on the Way-A
Precipitously Walled Valley Sixty
Miles Long, With Hundreds of
Waterfalls Half Mile High-Saetsr
Life-Anaual Professions of Herds
and Herd Girls to the Mountains.
Their Lonely But Loving Life To-
gether-Curious Pastoral Scenes.
(Copyright)
London, Nov. 23.-To the traveller in
Norway the impression is constantly re-
curing that the country possesses the
greatest amount Of majestic scenery and
the fewest people of any habitable land
on the face Of the globe. Perhaps this
feeling is strongest with the wanderer on
foot along the mountain highways. What
might be termed the superabundance Of
natures tremendous spectacles often sad
dens and even appaus the spectator, who
finds scant relief in human contact, or
even in that scenic contrast which pro-
vides repose for awe-inspired emotions.
These panoramas of nature have been
provided in such vast proportions, and
ara SO endless in number. that something
like headache and heartGche follow the
unreiieved emotional tension. One invol-
unfairly cries out, in the surfeit OF it all,
for respite; Just as one who has passed
with unwrecked mind through the noun
tain-hight spiritual and sound tornadoes
of WagCer's "Parsifal," at Bayreuth
feels that reason might be easily de-
throned if the human gaieties of Berlin
and Paris were not conveniently near to
assist in speedy restoration
Without 1 companion / should have de-
SPARED of tramping more than from one
drcary station 10 another. indeed, find
I love best the lands OF peoples of activi-
ties ana homes. The mile posts, as would
be remarked in dear old Ireland, are too
FAR apart II Norway. There are too much
Of frozen field and alacier-peaked mount
tain between clusters OF homes. And
when. after always jOurneying long and
far, You come upon human kind, while
YOU certainly meet honest folk, hospita ole
folk, and, universally, folk possessing ex-
traoriipary virtues Of mind and charac-
ter, you Ill detect the ineffable sadness
and appalling loneliness of surrounding
nature reflected in their faces; as you
VIII find, the world over, vacuouS meager-
ness transmitted from cnangeless sur
roundines into the natures and faces of
all human stand-stills and stay-at-homes.
Whenever close my eyes and see Nor
way and her people in retrospect. both
seem to blend in sOlidifed strata of per-
spective. Down there, almost on the sea
level in the lower valleys, are the scant
folk with solemn faces and solemn ways:
so measured and exacting in toll or pleas
ure, that they suggest huge lchens which
have chung through the storms of ages to
the mountain bases of stone. The next
stratum IS an intermingling of forest, mo-
raine and waterfall: the latter so stu
pendous and tieecy. that they seem like
shattered descending glaciers, arrested in
their headlong course and fro 5en into a
White 50 Vvondrous that no earthly art can
attain lis purity. Above this is thin
layer of humans and herds, the very color
OF the snow streaks and rock-grays in
tersp5rsed-the saeter folk and their
3ocks, that pass the brief sumner thou
sands Of feet above their kin and kind.
Then come the measureless fields, rock
and ice fields of utter solitude and desc
latiOn; the whole crowned by countless
ghostly peaks of ice, far above the clouds,
an awful realm of frozen silence between
the last yestige Of nature-life and the
eternal infinite.
l had penetrated to the mysterious
"eagle-nest'' farms above the clouds, and
now l desire to see something of saeter
life IN the same lofty regions. Descend
ing the lordly ROmsdal, the most wonder
tul Of all Norwegian valleys, partly
by GarrlOle and PARTLY on foot, from Hala-
ker TO NeblungsnaS, | came upon the
Jolllest skydsgut or post-boy I had found
in all Norway, tOw-headed, big-eyed,
open-mouth Lars Petersen, or Peter Lar
sen, 1 am not sure which. Tramping
alone had become insufferable For a
trlhlng consideration / purchased the
companionship ana willing service of
Lars for period of ten days. He had
been taught English at school, had been
four years a post-boy, coming in contact
in that period with thousands of English
men and Americans; though not 16 years
OF age he was as strong as an OK and MIN
bic as a deer; and, while ripping and .un-
ming over with a gurgling and boundless
good-nature, had Mark Tapley sort of
philosophy for all unpleasant emergencies
and ready bacA-door out Of every exas-
perating dihculty.
The Romsdal is a tremendous gorge or
gully from 1900 to 1000 feet deep, and
from fifty TO sixty miles in length, cut
ting through some of the highest noun
tains, and the greatest snow and ice fields
of Norway. Along most of It's length
walls rise rise on either side precipitously
upwards OF 1900 feet; and over these
pitch waterfalls not by the half dozen or
dozen but by the score, most of them hav-
ing a sheer fall for their entire descent.
Rauma river, along which winds the
highway, that nearly the whole distance
foams and tum bles and roars in noisy tur-
bulence on its northwest course to the
ford of Molde and the sea. Il should be
called the sOmber Vale of Waterfalls
There is nothing to compare with it any
part Of the explored globe.
We Ioitered at the Sletta FToss, where
the Rauma itself tumbles into the valley,
between Stuefallen and Ormein stations !:
at the triple Vermedals Foss; and passed
days Of pleasure ana wonder between Or
melu and Horgheim, where there are hun
dreds OF these water marvels, varying
from 500 to 1900 feet in fall, and where at
one place / counted hfty-three in full
view at one time; saw the flmy Donte-
fossen which, directly at the roadside,
tumbles 3, 700 Norsk feet: and, when op-
posite the giant Romsdal horn or peak,
near the picturesque station of Rudinin-
gen. led by merry Lars, we took a noun
tain path toward the upland Alnesdal
district, still above which Lars promised
to bring me to some Of the widest and
loneliest saetels Of Norway.
Ii IS no easy task to climb to these
saeters Some are from twenty to sixty
miles from the valley hamlets and farms
Those we souEnt were perhaps no more
than twelve miles distant from the Roms-
dal highway, but certainly more than
twice that distance by the circuitous and
tortuOus way. The path was plain
enough to Lars, as to all these Norwegian