The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-11-05
WAEENlN'S WANDERINGS.
NOTWay'S HaTVeStS Come Chiefly From
the Sea.

Soil More Precious Than the Habita-
tions Beside Them Turnernesque
Pictures Of Bergen-views From a
Steamers Deck and the Lofty Dram
mems -Rambles in the Red
Rooted Ancient City.
tCopyright)
London, Oct, 12.-If one has sailed up
and down the magnificent Norwegian
coast, it is easy to believe the statement
that ore-tenth of the entire population Of
Norway are fishermen. Twenty million
cod alone are annually taken. The value
of fish each year exported from Norway
is nearly Sl2, 100000. From Bergen to
Vadso, one is scarcely ever out Of sight of
fshermen's huts, fisher fleets, fishing sta
tions, an bleak and dreary towns where
fish and fishing are the exclusive reason
for TIE presence of man.
Agriculture along the entire coast and
among the coast islands is carried on in
patches so tiny as to astonish the traveller
at their insignihCance Little strips a
few rods in length and a few feet in
breadth are regarded by those patient
folk as priced possessions, and what they
are made TO produce IS amazing. 10 such
straits are the coast and lslet fisher folk
sometimes put for soil that it is often
trainland from mainland boats,
bit by bit, to fill some Crevice, or to be
walled in and cultivated against the
floods and tempests which often wash 1t
ruthlessly into the sea. / have seen these
little patches often cared for with vastly
more expense and labor than the owners
rude habitation; it is not infreqUent to
discover them half way up the broken
side of a beetling crag; l know of many
that can only be reached by lowering the
owner to his farm" by means of wind
lass and it is no uncommon thing to see
them walled in at the edges, forming a
portion of shopping roof of stone nuts
abutting plains of mighty Jagged rocks
behind. These bits of green seem to
take on added intensity Of contrast for
their sterile and desOlate surroundings,
and emphasize the only market-garden-
ing OF the coast-the tremendous harvest
Of the sea.
In all the vast region where cod are
taken the curious apparent scene is con-
stantly presented at the fishing stations
your steamer will call at or pass, of some
vast clothes washing industry The alb
surd notion possesses you that the laundry
for all Europe has been found; for at a
little distance the white drying cod,
hanging over poles or covering acres Of
fat rock, seem like countless and i'm
measurable collections Of lingerie bleach
ing in the nightless days of these Arctic
regions. This Norwegian Goldfish has the
two names Of 'stokfsh," stockGsh or
stickfish and 'klipfskp or fish. The
former derives its name from being dried
in pairs hanging from q long stol1 or pole
and the latter are "kliphs6" from being
cured where poles are not available, on
the fat surfaces of the klippe, the ever
lasting rock. From these they are sent
D, g,l
cluster the dreary habitatiOns of the
coast and islets, which are to the fishing
industry what the "stOrhaus' is to the
Morse farmer; and from these they are
taken by coasting craft called "jagts" to
the great waterside stOrehouses of Ber-
gen, from which they find their way to
their final market in various Medtterra-
mean ports.
So You viii never escape the sight,
taste and smell of fish in Norway. Every
animate object along the coast from
human to seagull is seeking for fish.
Every coast city, town or huddle of
houses is engaged in catching, curing,
storing or selling fish, and would rot in
ruin in a decade if fish disappeared from
the sea-roads and fiords The most
picturesque sights in these waters are
the fleets of fishermens crafts going or
coming between the home ports ana out
lying stations and the numberless jagts
with their high-peaked prows and
immense sails creeping in and out of the
blue bays and shadowy fiords or massing
in bewildering confusion about the quays
of Bergen and Throndhjem.
At your hotel every manner of fish is
served in extraordinary variety and ire
mendouS quantity. If you are enter
tanned at the house of a friend the never
failing familiar dish is thrust before you
The bonder further countrywards as
saults your safety with picked fish. If
you take pOt-luck with the peasant, there
1t is again ground into powder and ming
ling with his porridge. Up among the
mountain saeters the women who care for
the herds and flOcks will force it upon you
as a hospitable delicaCy. At the tourist
stations along the great stone roads of
Norway it bobs up to haunt you, dried,
picked and in cavlare. And penetrating
the remotest country districts, among the
highland lakes and streams, you will
starve ifyou do not at once fall upon fresh
fish, served while it is almost quiveIing
with its finny, bloodless life 1 have
known travellers who passionately pro-
tested against the universally of Great
Britain's ham and eggs" grow voiceIess
In despair from the omnipresence and i'm
mutability of fish in Norway.
A Turnere sque picture indeed is that
gradually unfolding from your steamer S
deck when morning breaks through the
mists and begins to light up the city OF
Bergen. A tumble of spars. Of huge flap
ping sails, and then the dim outlines of all
manner of shipping, but chiefly the odd
looking lines of the old dragon-ships of
the Vikings, the latter OF course laden
with endless stores of fish, are FIRST to
come in view. Then ghostly rows of half-
defined outlines of what suggest Brobdig-
nagian monks, Squatting at the waterside
with cowled and bowed heads as in medi-
tatiOn or prayer. These prove to be the
vast white-fronted ancient store-houses
of Bergen. What seemed cow at the
peak of each is only huge vippebOm or
rude crane, with it's cumberous hood-like
cover, used when the Nord -far-Stueyne
or northern seafarers' arrival, crowds the
bay with fishing craft, in unloading the
unsayory freight. Here is the ancient
Hanseatic quarter Brave are the
tales of trade these odd old store
house shells might tell Strange
scenes were once here in the olden coun-
cil-rOOms. Strange romances cling to tho
ways and days OF those sturdy old league
merchants. And strange and grewsomt
were the lives Of their slavish clerks who
passed their days in these mighty caverns
Of dead hsh, and by the jealousy of diff
ferent nations might ever love but never
wed.
Through the misty rose, like the tint o.
the PipAupH f,saqh tho Quaint 1J1 81