Morning journal and courier., 1893-11-04

stantly presented at the fishing stations
your steamer will call at or pass, of some
vast clothes-washing industry. The ab-
surd notion possesses you that the laundry
for all Europe has been found; for at
little distance the white drying cod, hang
ing over poles or covering acres of fiat
rock, seem like countless and immeasurs-
BILE collections of lingerie bleaching In the
nightless days of these Arctic regions.
This Norwegian Goldfish has the two names
of "stok6sh," )" stockfsh or stickhsh, and
'klip6sk" or fish. The former derives lite
name from being dried In pairs hanging
from long stok or pole; and the latter
are "klipfsk" from being cured where
poles are not available. on the fiat surfaces
| OF the klippe, the everlasting rock. From
these they are sent to the barn-like struc-
lures, around which cluster the dreary
habitstions of the coast and islets, which
are to the fishing industry what the ''stor-
haus" is to the Morse farmer; and from
these they are taken by coasting craft
called "jsgts" to the great wsterside store
houses of Bergen, from which they find
their way to their final market in various
Mediterranean ports.
So you will never escape the sight, taste
and smell of fish in Norway. Every ami
| mate object along the coast from human to
sea gull is seeking for 6sh. 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 ish
disappeared from the sea. roads and iords.
The most picturesque sights In these wa
ters are the fleets of fishermen's crafts 60
ing or coming between the home ports and
outlying stations and the numberless jsgts
with their high reaked prows and i'm
mense sails creeping in and out of the
blue bays and shadowy fords or msssing
in bewildering confusion about the qusys
of Bergen and Throndbjem.
At your hotel every manner of fish Is
served in extraordinary variety and tre-
mendous qusntity. If you are enter
tanned at the house of a friend the never
failing familiar dish Ia thrust before You.
The bonder further countrywsrds assaults
your safety with picked fab. If you take
pot-luck with the peasant there 1t is again
ground into powder and mingling with
his porridge. Up among the mountain
saeters the women who care for the herds
and hocks will ferce 1t upon you as a
hospitsble delicsoy. At the tourist sta
tions along the great stone roads of Nor
way il bobs up to haunt you, dried,
picked and in csviare. Aud penetrating
the remotest country districts, among the
highland lakes and streams, you will
starve if you do not at once fall upon
|
quiverlng with its inny, bloodless life.
l have known travellers who passionstely
protested against the universally of
Great Britain's cham and eggs" grow voice
less In despair from the omnipreeence and
immutability of fish in Norway.
A T1rneresque picture indeed Is that
gradually unfolding from your steamers
deck when morning breaks through the
mists and begins to light up the city of
Bergen. A tumble of spare, of huge flap
ping sails, and then the dim outlines of
all manner of shipping, but chiefly the
odd-lookipg lines OF the old drsgon-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-dehned outlines of what suggest
Brobdignsgisn monks, squsttiDg at the
waterside with cowlsd and bowed heads as
in meditation or prayer. These prove to
be the vast white-fronted ancient store
houses of Bergen. What seemed q cowl
at the peak of each is only a huge vippe-
bonn or Jude crane, with Its cumberous
hood-like cover, used when the Nord-far-
Stpvne, or northern sesfarers' arrival,
crowds the bay with fishing craft, in IN
loading the unsavory freight. Here is the
ancient Hsnseatic quarter. Brave are the
tales of trade these odd old storehouse
shells might tell. Strange scenes were
once here in the olden council rooms.
Strange romsnces cling TO the ways and
days of these sturdy old League mer-
chsnts. And strange and grewsoms were
the lives of their slsvish clerks who passed
their days in these mighty eaverns of dead
6sh, and by the jealousy of different ns-
tions might ever love but never wed.
Through the misty rose, like the tint of
the ripened peach, the quaint old city
seems at last to float out of it's ghostlIness
into clearer view. Behind the masis and
the hooded storehouses rises the grim ca
thedral roof and dome. Then bits of
green, where the open spaces are, won
drously green in these brief and humid
summer dsys, checker the uplsnds of roof,
at first as brillisnt in purple and red ss a
ragged heather clad Scottish mountain side;
for all theee roofs are flaming es peonies In
ruddy, red tiles. Angie, projection, quaint
corner, here and there psgoda-like house
end, everywhere peaked roof and sharp,
pointed gable, in successive jagged ends
and bits of color and contrast of color,
rise not tier on tier, bu. most picturesque
tumble upon mass, and mass upon tumble,
defined at last by the loveliest OF valley
Landscapes, delicate in whites of villas and
greens of parks, gardens, farms and for
ests, as Tuscan dresmlsnd reach of vine
yard vale; and then, all about, the dark
mountain edges, serrsted, dark and grim,
| which shut in every scsne eyes may behold
| in Norway as If only nothingness and i'm
mensity lay forbldding and measureless
beyond.
One is in love with old Bergen town be-
| fore foot is set upon it's huge. hard qusys.
! The feeling instantly possesses you that
you are in a city and among folk that
have not let all manner of modern 6otions
/ run away with their comfortable olden pos
| sessions and ways. There is a sense of
| amplitude and almost bsnignity about these
! wide old structures of the sort one feels
| when coming Unexpectedly into a house
with cspscious and CHEEKY freplsces still
doing their hospitable duty; and the peo-
pie themselves impress you, even before
dealing with or knowing them, with per-
eonsl consciousness of simple integrity aud
| measured-psced content that irresistibly
| puts sunshine and benigniiy into your own
heart and leads you on to each successive
| experience with q cheeriness and good ns-
| ture mutually reciprocal with yourself and
| every soul you meet. In all other wan
derings my own experience has been that
never came to strange people or city with
sut indeinsble anxiety, faint pressges of
unforeseen Ills, and forebodings of unhappy
discoveries, happenings and scenos. Not
so with Norway. You may not know the
language of her people; but every face
that Is turned to you're seems so frank aud
unru fled; every eye that meets your own
is so steady and clear in its friendly can
dor; and every sslutstion, dealing and
new experience seems so unaffected, hon.
est and genial; that you move forward in
each days doings as In an atmosphere of
benefcent hesrthside calm.
You will secure a still finer view of red
rooted Bergen and environs than from
your steamers deck by leisurely wander
ing up the magnificent mountain road
| Cd tha Tlra Vai- tha Az
because built from the profits derived
from lquor-lic revenuss-rising along
the grand slopes of the Floifjsld heights
dominating the city on the east. 1t Is q
stone road making five great bends before
reaching the brow of Fioifjeld; but from
this point the lights and shades playing
upon the city roofs transform old Bergen
into a curiously- wrought entsglio of coral
set round about with the lustrous emerald
of foot-hill and valley verdure and tht
! cleaning sapphire of the sea.
Gradually the chief objects of the towr
, come into prominence. The most ancien
portion of the city IL bsneath you. There
Ia the Tydskebrygge where are the Dutch
5 looking houses and all the quaint memo
/ risls of the Hansestic League. Here th,
| steamers lay alongsi3e in the Wage
Across the Vsage or hsrbor is the NOR
: modern-built city with Its Strandgssde-
s its regent street or Brosdway-wi;h 1t
. fne chops, the warehouses, custom-house
and other buildings for commerce AMI
| trade Behind these to the south ara I'll