The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1893-11-11

LONDON, OcT., % 1S93.-If one
has sailed up and down the magnif
icent Norwegian coast. it Is easy to
believe the statement that one-tenth
of the entire population of Norway
are fishermen. Twenty million cod
alone are annually taken. The val
ue of fish each year exported from
Norway is nearly $l2,000,000. From
Bergen to Vadso, one is scarcely ever
out of sight of fishermen's huts,
fisher fleets, fishing stations, and
bleak and dreary towns where fish
and fishing are the exclusive reason
for the presence of man.
Agriculture along the entire coast
and among the coast islands is car
ried on in patches so tiny as to as
tonish the traveller at their insignif-
icance. Little strips few rods in
length and few feet in breadth are
regarded by those patient folk as.
priced possessions, and what they
are made to produce is amazing
To such straits are the coast and
islet fisher folk sometimes put for
soil that it is often transferred from
mainland in boats, bit by bit, to fill
some crevice, or to be walled in and
cultivated against the floods and
tempests which often wash it ruth.
lessly into the sea. l 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
beetling crag; l know of many that
can only be reached by lowering the
owner to his farm" by means of
windlass; and it is not uncommon
to see them walled in at the edges,
forming portion of sloping roof
of stone huts 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 EN-
phasize the only market gardening
of the coast-the tremendous har-
vest of the sea.
In all the vast region where cod
are taken the curious apparent scene
is constantly presented at the fishing
stations your steamer will call at or
pass, of some vast clothes washing
industry. The absurd notion pos
sesses you that the laundry for all
Europe has been found; for at lit
tie distance the white drying cod,
hanging over poles or covering acres
of fiat rock, seem like countless and
unreasonable collections of lingerie
bleaching in the nightless days of
these Arctic regions. This Norwe-
gian Goldfish has the two names of
'stokfish," stockfish or stickfish,
and 'klipfsk" or fish. The former
derives its name from being dried in
pairs hanging from long stok or
pole; and the latter are "klipfish"
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 structures, around which clus-
ter 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 Bergen,
from which they find their way to
their final market in various Medi-
terranean ports.
A Turneresque 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 jun
BILE of spars, of huge tapping sails,
and then the dim outlines of all
manner of shipping, but chiefly the
odd-looking lines of the old dragon
ship of the Vikings, the latter of
course laden with endless stores of
fish, are first to come in view. Then
ghostly rows Of what suggest Brob-
dignagian monks, squatting at the
waterside with cowled and bowed
heads as in meditation or PRAYER.
Those prove to be the vast white
fronted ancient store-houses of Ber-
gen. What seemed cowl at the
peak of each is only huge vippe-
BON or rude crane, with it's cumber-
GUS hood-like cover, used when the
Nord far St9vne, or northern sea
farers' arrival, crowds the bay with
fishing craft, in unloading the un-
savory 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
council-rooms. Strange romances
cling to the ways and days of these
sturdy old League merchants. And
strange and grewsome were the
lives of their slavish clerks who
passed their days in these mighty
caverns of dead fish, and by the
jealousy of different nations might
ever love but never wed.
| One is in love with old Bergen