The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1893-12-23

and Night In a Wierd ff0rt SIDE
Hospice-Curious Peasant Customs
Revealed-Primitiv Lives of Content
at the Edge Of Glacier Fields, Where
the Tax Gatherer is Unknown.
LONDON Dec 8, 1S93.-Travelers
in Norway who have writtea Of Nor
way and its people have invariably
spoken oftwo characteristic subjects,
but in so brief manner as always
to pique and never to satisfy the
readers natural interest. These are
what have been termed for better
name the "eagle-nest FARMS and
the s'saeters" or mountain summer
diaries.
So far as / know no traveller writ
ing in our language has ever visited
the former, and while few have ac-
tually seen saeter, its environment
and the strange and lonely life at the
same have never been adequately de-
scribed.
In sailing along the Norwegian
coast from Bergen to the Lofoden
Islands, one WHO'S closely observant
of the mainland scenery, and partic-
ularly if a powerful fleld-glass is
used, will be surprised at the num-
Der of utterly lonely and isolated
habitations, seemingly perched
against the gray crags at great alti-
tudes midway between sea and sky.
The largest number of these are at
least 1000 feet above the sea. To
the eye it seems inconceivable that
place for even their foundations
could be secured. The picture is
always the same. A line of black
wall thousands of feet high; dent
of purple or depression of misty
blue where the speck of home is
built; and then black and sombre
crags behind and above; and above
and beyond these the ghostly glacier
fields.
Because from distance their eerie
location, and the ragged, huddled
structures, which often surround
the main habitation, recall the nest
of the eagle at the edge of beetling
crags, they have come to be called
"eagle- nest farms" Sometimes the
eye will follow a black line of fissure
descending from these habitations
to cavernous. rock gorged gap be-
side the water. In this case little
boat-honse may be seen upon the
rocks; and somewhere near, a wind
ing, puce-l like line will trail upwards
and into the darkening depths. This
tells that the eagle-nest farmer
is fisherman, too. or has this means
of communication with the outer
world; but how he reaches his home
perch above; how he subsists in his
desolate habitation; and what man
ner of folk these are, who find con
tentment in lives of such endless sol
itude, danger and nature grudged
sustenance, were conjectures which
haunted me until / found means to
know.
Above the cliff walls oc the larger
and sterner fiords which penetrate
the mainland from the coast, the ca
gle-nest farms are even more numer-
Gus than along the outer coast. This
is particularly true of portions of the
Hardanger, Sogne, and Throndhjem
fiords In the lordly Naro Fiord, a
branch of the Aurlands branch oil
the Sogne. and in few instances in
the Throndhjem, they are at such
lofty attitudes that they appear like
specks of snow or ice, or like poisine
birds upon edges of the cliff. / had
noticed few located at prodigious
heights between Styve and Hol
menas, on the northern wall-crests
of this ford, which, all the way be
You'd Dyrsdal of the waterfall of the
Ytre Baaken that tumbles 5000 feet
is like some black and terrible water
way to the realms of Eblis; and OF
landing at the picturesque station
of Bake, where snow-capped noun
tains rise thousands of feet sheer
above the village, leaving not spare
foot between habitations and the
towering walls of stone, determined
that even if the endeavor should enc
in broken neck / would first hav'
seen a Norwegian eaglenest farm.
| Four days passed at Bake, foul
days of contemplation of scenery 81
sombre and awful that it continual
ly suggested the internal, before
found any one either competent O
willing to act as guide. Their
good fortune came to me in the per
son of strapping young fellow, I
native of Grindedal, who had beer
lured away from his own mountain
home to Australia, and tired of row
ing life in the antipodes was return
ing as best he could, with look o
eager homesickness in his eyes al
most savage in it's intensity. TIL
little he was to receive as boatman
guide and interpreter, would on GU
return pay his passage on the fore
steamers around through Aurland
Fiord to Fejes, and still leave him a
many dollars as PEASANTS hard la
Dor for whole year will give 70
saving in Norway. So we were 4
happy pair as we rowed in our small
boat, hired at Bake to the north
east towards Stvve and Dyrdal's ice
fields above the clouds.
RI / could not have found in all MOI
way more fitting companion 70
this particular adventure. Not S
very long ago the old method o
stages by row boat along many Q
> these fiords was still in vogue Tray
, elers were then taken from one sta
: ton to another in cumbrous sharp
pointed boats. The crew of eacl
would return with other passenger
to its home station; and frequentl
these crews, from stress of travellers
haste, or when hired by the week o
month, would make voyages the ell
tire length OF a ford and It's varion
= lesser branches.
This often brought the real Vik
ings Of our generation, that is, tn
o dwellers on ciks, or creeks, along th
fiords, into acquaintance with til