Morning journal and courier., 1893-12-02

of the beer award will be settled before the
next worlds fair is held. In the mean
time It ia terribly embarrassing to be COM
PEELED to drink two different brands In
order to get the best.-Chicsgo Dispatch.
wAKEMAN's WANDERINGS.
Peeps at Norway-"Rasle-Nes Nor
wesian Farms First Visited by the
Poet Traveler-A Native Guide and
Night In n Weird Fiord-Side Hos
pice-CurIous Peasant Customs Re-
vealed-Primitiye Lives OF Content
at the Edge OF Glacier Fields,
Where the Tax Gatberer is Un-
known.
LONDON, Nov. 16.
To the Editor OF the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
Travellers in Norway who have written
of Norway aud its people have invariably
spoken of two characteristic subjects, bat
in 80 brief a manner as always to pique
and never to satisfy the readers natural
interest. These ale what have been
termed for better name the "esgle-nest
farm" and the "sseters" or mountain
summer dairies.
So far as I know no traveller writing in
our language has ever visited the former,
and while few have actually seen a sac
ter, its environment and the strange an d
lonely life at the same have never been
adequately described.
In sailing along the Norwegian coast
from Bergen to the Lefoden Islands, one
who is closely observsnt of the mainland
scenery, and particularly If a powerful
field glass is used, will be surprised at the
number of utterly lonely and isolated hab
itations, seemingly perched against the
gray crags at great attitudes midway be-
tween sea and sky. The large number of
these are at lesst two Thousand feet above
the sea. To the eye 1t seems inconceiva-
BILE that place for even their foundations
could be secured. The picture is always
the same. A line of black wall thousands
of feet high; a dent of purple or depres-
sion of misty blue where the speck of a
home is built; and then black and somber
crsgs behind and above; and above and
beyond these the ghostly glacier-feld
Because from distance their eerie loca-
tion, and the ragged, huddled structures,
which often surround the main hsbitation,
recall the nest of. the eagle at the edge of
beetling crsgs, they have come to be called
''eagle. nest farms" Sometimes the eye
will follow a black line of fissure descend
ing from these hsbitations to csvernous,
rock -gorged gap beside the water. In this
case little boat-house may be feen upon
k6a xuind
ing, puce like line will trail upwards and
into the darkening depths. This tells that
the esgle-nest farmer is a fisherman, too,
or has this means of communication with
the outside world; but how he reaches his
home perch above; how he subsists In his
desolste habitasion; aud what manner of
folk these are, who find contentment in
lives of such endless solitude, danger and
nature grudged sustensnce, were copjec-
lures which haunted me until 1 found
means to know.
Above the cliff walls of the larger and
stsrner iords which penetrate the main
| land from the coast the esgle-nest farms
are even more numerous than along the
| outer coast. This is particularly true OF
| portions of the Hardanger, Sogne and
| Throndbi jam fords. In the lordly Nero
| ford, branch of the Aurlsnds branch of
| the Sogns, and in few instances In the
| Throndbj jem, they are at such lofty alti
| tudes that they appear like specks of enow
or ice, or like poising birds upon edges OF
the cliff. had noticed few located al
| prodigious heights between Styve and Hol
menas, on the northern wall crssts of this
ford, which, all the way beyond Dyrsda
to the waterfall of the Ytre Baaken thai
| tuunbles three thousand feet, Is like somt
L a A1-1- -1.~xs
| of Eblis; and on landing at the picturesqu;
station of Bake, where snow-cappec
mountains rise thousands of feet sheel
above the village, leaving not q spare foo
between hsbitstions and the towering
walls of stone, determined that even J.
the endeavor should end in broken necl
1 would first have seen a Norwegian eagle
nest farm.
Four days passed at Bake, four days o
| contemplation of scenery so eombre ant
awful that 1t continually suggested the in
fernal, before found any one either com
petent or willing to act as q guide. The
good fortune came to me in the person o
a strspping young fellow, a native o
Grindedal, who had besn lured away fror
his own mountain home to Australia, an
tired of rowing life in the sntipodes, wa
returning as best he could, with q look @
eager homesickness In his eyes almost ssy
age in its intensity. The little he was t
receive as boatman, guide and interprete
would on our return pay his passage o
the ford steamers around through Aul
} lands ford to Fejes, and still leave him g
many dollars as peasants hard labor fc
q whole year will give for saving in MOI
way. So we were q happy pair as "
to the northeast towards Styve and Dyl
| ls1ta ioa. 6alds ah0ya the al0Dda
: could not have found In all Norway
more fitting companion for this psrticuls
adventure. Not SO very long ago the ol
, method of stages by row-boat along man
of these fiords was still in vogue. Trsve
ers were then taken from one station
, another in cumberous sharp pointed boat
: The crew of each would return with oths
| passengers to it's home-station; and fir
: quently these crews, from stress of tra'
elers' haste, or when hired by the week {
. | month, would make voyages the enttl
length of a ford and its various less
t branches.
This often brought the real Vikings
: our generation, that is, the dweliers c
viks, or creeks, along the fords, into a
quaintsnce with the peasant folk of anot
or ford; and the father of my guide, who
name was Peter Erickson, was the msst
l. of such a boat when Peter was la
9 Those who dwelt at Fejos had come to n
/ only know the lowly of Bake, but mai
o had scquired the almost unconscious Gu
9 ming of the Indians wood-crsft, or q
d coast-sailors' une1plsinsble eighth sense
instructive pre-consciousness of locate
10 iu fair weather OF foul This made clear
to these boatmen than an ordinary cha
every hidden chssm, sequestered wste
fall or unseen home-nest upon the crae
while the very cragsmsn whom we had {
is out to visit had been, in the days befo
a- the steamers whistle swoke the sleepi
echoes of the sombre Nero ford, one
a. the crew of Peters fathers boat.
1t was well We had provided food a
a. blankets The enthrsllment of the 81
= agsly msjestic scenery of the ford, I
loiterings at chssms, gorges and nsrr
valley openings, where odd and fsntas
,, hamlets and half hanging clusters of fs
'u buildings toppled at the edges of pre-
's @ pices, or seemed trembling from the fur
LIB of roaring torrents; and above all, I
meetings and partings with quaint pc
n ant groups to whom the shadowy ford '
re the only highway ever known, and who
N ways shook hands with MS % Though