Morning journal and courier., 1893-12-09

stratum is an intermingling of forest, rock, \ moraine and waterfall; the latter so stu
 pendous and feecy that they seem like
 shattered descending glaciers, arrested in ! their headlong course and frozsn into e | white so wondrous that no earthly srt can
 attain its purity. Above this Is a thin \ layer of humans and herds, the very color | of the snow streaks and rock-grays inter | spersed-the sseter folk and their hocke, | that pass the brief summer thousands of | feet above their kin and kind. Then come the messureless fields, rock and Ice fields of utter solitude and desolstion; the
 whole crowned by countless ghostly peaks | of ice far above the clouds, an awful realm | of frozen silence between the last vestige of natural-life and the eternal infinite.
 \ 1 had penetrated to the mysterious
 "esgle-nest" farms above the clouds, and | now desired to see something of sseter life in the same lofty regions. Descending
 the lordly Romsdal, the most wonderful of all Norwegian valleys, partly by csrriole | and partly on foot, from Halsker to Veb- I lungsnes, came upon the jolliest skyds- | gut or post-boy had found In all Nor way, tow-headed, big eyed, open-mouth Lars Petersen, or Peter Larsen, sm not sure
 which. Tramping alone had become in-
 sufferable. For trifling consideration I purchased the companionship and willing II ecENlCcb Ol LdIb DcIlOu Ol tCa \ He had been taught English at school, had
 been four yesrs a post boy, coming In con
 tact In that period with thousands of Eng lishmen and Americans; though not six teen years of age he was as strong as an OK and nimble as a deer; and, while rip | bling and running over with a gursling and boundless good nature, had a Mark
 Tspley sort of philosophy for all unpleas- ant emergencies and ready back door out I of every exssperating difficulty.
 The Romsdsl is & tremendous gorge or | gully from two to four thousand feet deep, and from fifty to sixty miles in length, | cutting through some of the highest | mountains, and the greatest snow and foe | fields of Norway. Along most of Its length walls rise on either side prscipitous- | ly upwards of three thousand feet; and | over these pitch waterfalls not by the half | dozen or dozen but by the score, most of ! them having a sheer fall for their entire descent. These feed and increase the vol ume of the Rsums river, along which | winds the highway, that nearly the whole distance foams and tumbles and rosrs in | noisy turbulence on its northwest course to the ford of Molde and the sea. It should be called the somber Vale of Wa | terfalls. There Is nothing to compare | with 1t In any part of the explored globe. We loitered at the Sletta Foes, where | the Rsuma itself tumbles into the valley, between Stuefallen and Ormein stations; | at the triple Vermedals Foss: and passed | days of pleasure and wonder between Or mein and Horgheim, where there are hun | dreds of these water marvels, varying | from five hundred to three thousand feet in fall, and where at one place I counted ftty-three in full view at one time; ssw | the filmy Dontefossen which, directly at \ Ska roalatIa krraHlaa hirtu hnn- | dred Norsk feet; and, when opposite the giant Romsdal horn or peak, near the pic | turesque station of Roiningen, led by | merry Lsrs, we took 8 mountain path to- wards the upland Alnesdsl district, still | above which Lars promised to bring me to | some of the widest and loneliest sseters | of Norway.
 | It is no easy task to climb to these sac
 ters. Some are from twenty to sixty miles
 from the valley hamlets and farms. Thoss | we sought were perhaps no more than twelve miles distant from the Romsdsl
 highway, but certainly more than twice ] that distance by the circuitous and tortur, | ous way. The path was plain enough to
 Lars, ss to all these Norwegian Alpine
 climbsrs, and to the ponies used to carry supplies to the sseters and bring back again their psck-losds of butter and
 cheese; but a stranger to these rayines
 and crsgs would have been irretrievably
 lost after half days wandering. As 1t
 side lonely tsrn shut in by black walls,
 with snow-clsd peaks for the only outlook
 beyond.
 Here Lars genius for surmounting diff | culties was illustrated. We bad brought little food. During the last two hours
 ascent Lars had gathered here and there
 every dead branch of wood that came in | sight, as we'll as punches of juniper
 branches. These with his tollkniv, which every peasant carries, and some bits of
 strong cord which every post-boy possesses with which to mend broken harness, he
 had arranged in compact branches, be-
 slowing them on his head, shoulders and
 body until he was completely hidden from
 sight. With the dry wood he built a
 cheery fire. Tie juniper branches provi- ded our bed. which was laid In a snug an gle of & projecting rock. A travelling rug
 and stout csrriole blanket formed our
 covering, and here beneath the glittering
 stare we 'slept swste rings round our
 heads," ss the Irish mother would gay of
 her healthfully sleeping child.
 The next morning our accent was re-
 stunned through hollows, over ridges where
 Ice and snow lay concealed beneath thin
 layers of black sediment and slime, around
 soundless tarns still and dark ss the walls
 enclosing them, past copses of stunted fir
 and with never a sight of living thing
 The most amazing sight to ms in these up
 per regions was the frequent patches ir
 sunny hollows of strawberries. In soms
 places the ground was literally red witt
 them. l noticed, too, that In these pock
 ety spots the heat, even at this high alti
 tude, wss almost stifiiDg.
 | Ll l.
 answer to my inquiries about sseters and
 were very interesting. In the first plsct
 about the middle of June until the tentt
 of September, which brief period com
 prises the entire Norwegian summer
 every COW In Norway, not needed for {
 scsnt home supply of milk. Ia sent tC
 the mountain sseter. With the cows gc
 all other cattle, all goats and sheep, ana
 occasionally these will be accompanied
 by swine, which are quite ss much a home among the crsgs as the sheep ana
 goats. The sseters themselves compris
 huts or cabins and rude dairies com
 bined, where the saeter folk, who are in
 variably women and girls, live entirely
 alone in this dssolste isolation, while car
 ing for the herds, milking the COWS
 goats and even ewes, and converting thi
 milk into butter and cheese for the win
 ter store in the valley homes, often score
 of miles away.
 There Is great commotion throughou
 Norway when the annual June exodus O
 the saeter girls and their herds begins
 Every farm is in utmost confusion. Tn
 entire household is busied getting togsthe
 and packing up what will be necessary fo
 use in the temporary mountain home There are churns and milk pails. pot and moulds, frying-p pans and odds ant ends of cheap crockery and scant cut
 lery. For food there is a bit of suga
 and coffee, much flour and meal, crate of fsdbrod, some bacon. perhaps som dried or pickled fish, and, more in weigh than in kll else, salt for the cattle. Tn girls themselves find room for odd bit of embroidery and & few knick- -knacks while a Bible and some worn volumes 0 old Morse tales are never forgotten. Be sides these things there are pounds O
 wool to be spun, or other pounds of var to be knit. A few blankets or sheepskI
 for bedding and but little more than tn = clothing upon their backs completes tn B meagre outfit.
 r When all Is in readiness these strsng
 rocessions-something like the annus outgoing of the focks and their herders c 1 the Apulian plains In southern Italy-se 3 forth from every gssrd or farm iu Nol , | way. The belongings for the sseter ar
 slung in baskets upon the backs of sure
 footed ponies, or old horses that hay l known the same journey for decades l The farmer marches in advance, blowin , unearthly blasts from the lur, e not over
 musical horn made from birch bark \ Then come the cattle. No need to driy - thsse. Like the gipsies who cannot b u kept from the road and the tent at th