The record-union., 1893-11-04

ingness and immensely lay forbidding
and measureless beyond.
One is in love with old Bergen town
before foot is set upon its huge, hard
quays. The feeling instantly possesses
you that you are In city ard among
folk that have not let all manner of mod
ern notions run away with their COM
Portable olden possessions and ways.
There is a sense of amplitude and almost
benignity about these wide old Struct-
ures Of the sort one feels when coming
unexpectedly into a house with capacious
and CHEEKY hreplaces still doing their
hospitable duty, and the people them
selves impress you. even before dealing
with or knowing them, with personal
consciousness of simple integrity and
measured-paced content that irresistibly
puts sunshine and benignity into your
heart, and leads you on TO each successive
experience with q cheeriness and good
nature mutually reciprocal with yourself
and every soul you meet. In all other
Wanderlngs my own experience has been
that l never came to strange people or
city without indefnable anxiety, faint
presages of unforeseen ills, and forebOd
ings of unhappy discoveries, happenings
and scenes. Not so with Norway. You
may not know the language Of her peo-
pie, but every face that is turned to yours
seems so frank and unruffled, every eye
that meets your own is so steady and
clear in its friendly candor, and every
salUtation, dealing and new experience
seems so unaffected, honest and genial,
that you move forward in each days do
ings as in an atmosphere OF beneficent
hearthside calm.
You will secure a still finer view Of
red-roofed Bergen and environs than
from your steamers deck by leisurely
wandering up the magnificent mountain
road called the Drammens Vie-the
Dram's Way, because built from the
profits derived from liquor license rev.
enues-rising along the grand slopes of
the tlOifJeld nights dominating the city
on the east. IL is a stone road making
five great bends before reaching the brow
of FlOiGeld, but from this point the lights
and shades playing upon the city roofs
transform old Bergen into a curiously-
wrought entaglio Of coral, set round
al out with the lustrops emerald of foot
hill and valley verdure and the cleaning
sapphire of the sea.
Gradually the chief objects Of the town
come into prominence. The most an
cient portion of the city is beneath you.
There is the Tydskebrygge where are
the Dutch looking houses and all the
quaint memorials OF the Hanseatic
League. Here the steamers lay along
side in the broad Faaga. Across the
Wage or harbOr is the more modern
built city with it's Strangaade-its Regent
street or BrOadWay-Withi its fine shops
the warehouses, cuStom-h houses and other
buildings for commerce and trade. Be-
hind these to the south are the cathedral.
public squares and gardens, the ceme-
terry, the Leper's Hospital (the only OBJ
ject of dread in Norway the villas and
gardens of the substantial merchants,
reaches of bright bays which nearly sur
round the city, and then blOssoming vale
land, above which circle the everlasting
hills. Seaward, the eye rests upon dim
ribbons Of blue winding away into misty
hords, interlacing the bases Of grim head
lands and threading between maZes of
islands countless and beautiful to the far
and serrated horizon rim.
Probably the most characteristic scene
in Bergen is down here at the Tory OF a
Saturday morning. This is the ancient
fish market. II is an open space in the
quay, precisely like the fish market at
Newhaven, Edinburgh, at Plymouth,
England, and at Galway, Ireland but
few fish are brought ashore. The stalls
are the jagts or fishing boats, and there
are no bowling fishwives. Hundreds of
peasants from the surrounding country,
dressed in the peculiar costume Of their
respective districts, come to the Tory to
sell vegetables, cheese, butter, eggs.
fowls and many rude articles of home
manufacture. AIingling with these are
the honest housewives and maid serv-
ants of the city.
1t is a CHEEKY, chatty, hearty crowd;
all life, animation and geniality; glitter
ing with quaint Old gilt and silver orna-
ments; cOlorful from bright garters, gau-
dy bodices, saffron and scarlet shoulder
ribbons, lustrous braids of yellow hair,
snowy white caps and headkerchiefs
glinting with silver grimps or fine old
embroidery. Every woman who comes
to buy fish carries a shining tin pail or
scuttle, often Ornamented in gaudy col
ors. The fishermen, standing in their
boats, say never word. They are the
most silent and sodden statesmen you
ever knew. The women do all the bar
tering and chatting. When a satisfactory
price is reached the fish is tossed up to
the buyer and the coin exchanged. And
so with pleasant badinage from the quay
and utter solemnity in the boats the
sales go on. But think Of fresh cod,
salmon, mackerel and turbot selling at
the Bergen Tory at but from four to six
cents per pound!
The more modern streets of Bergen are
spacious and wide. and all are match
lessly clean. Nearly all the houses are Of
wood, large, rambling, roomy. and every
window is gay with boxes and pots of
flowers. Not even in the tropics are
more flowers to be seen in summer. All
vegetation here seems TO take on added
beauty and luXuriance in proportion to
the brevity of its yearly outdoor life, and
Norwegian folk are fond to passionate
tenderness of every leaf and bud and
bloom for its seeming responsiveness to
atfectiOnate nurture and care. Every
open space is tilleu with trees and shrubs.
Every street or thoroughfare yields
vista, bordered with green and ending
in the blue OF the sea or blossom Of flow
ers.
Many of the older structures are very
ancient and curious. Some OF the old
time villas and homes on the outskirts
are interesting for their suggestions of
wooden castles, where there was possible
occasion tor defense. The timbers are
something mighty IN these, and the out
buildings for servants and vast store
houses on pillars OF stone, all tell their
tale of generations of master and folk
and servitOrs living in a little community
capable Of protecting its own integrity
against any manner of offensive aggres-
sion or harm.
over IN The Finnegaard on the Tydske-
brygge, in the region Of mountains of bar
rels, fences decorated by drying Goldfish
and all the curious gear Of the greatest
fishing mart Of northern Europe. still!
stands a single Hanseatic house. 1t is
the only one left In Bergen where the
old-time German traders lived and traded
almost like a parcel of pirate monks,
The strangest OF rude carvings, painted
in barbaric colors, bedeck the exterior.
The merchants tantastically carved and
paneled Office, the managers musty
bureau, the celibatic clerks living-rooms
and dormotories remain just as they were
once used. The latter are very unique
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