The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-12-03
VAKEMAN'S WANDERINCS.
PEEPS at Some Of the Most Interest
ing Features Of Norway.

~
Fiord-side Hospice-Curious Peasant
Customs Revealed-Primitive Lives
If Content at the Edge of Glacier
Fields, Where the Tax Gatherer Is
Unknown.
(Copyright)
london. Nov. 16.-Travelers in Norway,
VINO have written of Norway and its peo-
nile have invariably spoken of two char
aoteristic subjects, but in so brief a man
ner as always to pique and never to sat
isfv the readers natural interest. These
are what have been termed for better
name the "eagle-nest farms" and the
"saeters' or mountain summer dairies
So far as know no traveller, writing in
onr language, has ever visited the former,
and while few have actually seen a
saeter, its environment and the strange
and lonely life at the same have never
been adequately described.
In sailing along the Norwegian coast
from Bergen to the Lofoden Islands, one
who is closely observant of the mainland
scenery, and particularly if a powerful
4eld-glass is used, will be surprised at
the number of utterly lonely and isolated
innabitations, seemingly perched against
tbe gray crags at great attitudes midway
between sea and sky. The larger mum Der
oftbese are at least 1000 feet above the
sea To the eye it seems uncomfortable
that place for even their foundations
could be secured. The picture is always
the same. A line of blackwal thousands
of feet high; dent of purple or de-
pression of misty blue where the speck
of a house is built; and then black and
sumber crags behind and above; and
above and beyond these the ghostly
rlacier-felds.
Because from distance their eerie
location, and the ragged, huddied struc-
lures, which often surround the main
habitation, recall the nest of the eagle at
the edge of beetling crags, they have
come to be called "eagle-nest farms. "
Sometimes the eye will follow a black
line Of assure descending from these habi-
tatiOns to Cavernous, rOCk-gOrged gap
beside the water. In this case a little
boat house may be seen upon the rocks
and somewhere near, a winding, puce-
like line will trail upwards and into the
darkening depths. This tells that the
eagle nest farmer is a fisherman, too, or
has this means of communication with
the outer world but how he reaches his
h0mp-perch above; how he subsists in his
desOlate habitatiOn and what manner of
folk these are, who find contentment in
lives of such endless solitude, danger and
natre-grudged sustenance, were conjec-
lures which haunted me until found
means to know.
Above the cliffs walls of the larger and
sterner tiords which penetrate the main
land from the coast, the eagle nest farms
are even more numerous than along the
outer coast. This is particularly true of
portions of the Hardanger, Sogne and
Throndhjem tiords In the lordly N@ro
ford branch of the Aurlands branch of
the SOgne and in few instances in the
1hondhiem, they are at such lofty alti-
tudes that they appear like specks of
snow or ice, or like posing birds upon
edges of the cliff. j had noticed a few To-
Gated at prodigious nights between Styve
and HOlmenas, on the northern wall
crests of this ford, which all the way
beyond Dyrsdal to the waterfall of the
Ytre Baaken that tumbles 5000 feet, is
like some black and terrible waterway to
the realms of Eblis and on landing at the
picturesque station of Bake, where
snow-capped mountains rise thousands of
feet sheer above the village, leaving not
spare foot between habitations and the
towering walls of stone. | determined
that even if the endeavor should end in a
broken neck | would first have seen a
Norwegian eagle nest farm.
Four days passed at Bake, four days
awful that it continually suggested the
Internal. before I found any one either
competent or willing to act as a guide.
Then good fortune came to me in the per-
son of a strapping young fellow, native
OF Griudedal, who had been lured away
from his own mountain home to Austria
Tia, and tired of rowing life in the anti
nodes was returning as best he could,
with a look of eager inconsistencies in his
eyes almost savage in its intensity The
little he was to receive as boatman, guide
and Interpreter, would on our return pay
his passage on the ford steamers around
through Aurlands Fiord to F'eies, and
still leave him as many dollars as peas
ants hard labor for whole year will
give for saving in Norway, So we were
happy pair as we rowed in our small boat,
hired at Bake, to the northeast towards
Styye and Dyrdals ice-helds above the
clouds
could not have found in all Norway a
more lifting companion for this particu-
laradvCnture. Not so very long ago the
old method of stages by rowboat along
many of those tiOrds was still in vogue.
travellers were then taken from one sta
non to another in cumberous sharp-point-
cd boats. The crew of each would return
with other passengers to its home-sta-
Hon; and frequently these crews, from
stress of travellers haste, or when hired
o} the week or month, would make Voy-
ages the entire length of a ford and its
various lesser branches.
This often brought the real Vikings Of
our generation, that is, the jewellers on
EkS, or creeks, along the fords, into ac-
qmntance with the peasant folk of
another ford; and the father of my
guide, whose name was Peter Erickson,
was master of such boat when Peter
was lad. Those who dwelt at Feios
IdQ come to not only know the lowly of
bakke, but many had acquired the
Almost unconscious cunning of the In
uIdnS wood-craft, or the coast-sailors' I'M
eAp.alnable eighth sense of instinctivepre-
yohSelousness of location in fair weather
Ut 10ul. This made clearer to those boat
men than ordinance chart every hidden
CAaSm, sequestered waterfall or unseen
uome-nest upon the crags; while the
very craigsmen whom we-had set out to
'lSlt had been in the days before the
s15dmer whistle awoke the sleeping
eSAoes of the sombre N8ro Fiord, one of
we crew of Peters fathers boat.
b, III was well we had provided food and
oLdnkets The enthrallment of the saw
fatstly majestic scenery of the ford, the
IolTTeIIngs atchasms, gorges and narrow
Eduey openings, where odd and fantastic
IdH!ets and half hanging clusters of farm
olIulngs tOppled at the edges ofprecipices,
VI seemed trembling from the furies of
tOdIIng torrents; and above all the meet
--ss and partings with quaint peasant
groups to whom the ShadOwV ford was