The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-07-14
TALES OF TEN TRAVELLERS.
EREDAOF THE NAERO FIORD
ny EDGAR L. wAKEMES. ICopyright 1894. All rights reseryed.l


 alert suitor. had never again expected to participate in romance, much less Norwegian romance, of an extremely iowly nature.
 Indeed when employed Peter Zach ariasen as master of my little coasting yacht, in which yearly explored the mage of islands lying along the north eastern American shores, nothing could have been further from my most fanci- full imagination than that this hulking giant should be the second man to sup plant me in the affections of woman.
 I suppose stranger things have hap pened, but as I sat there in the little Norwegian inn of Bakke. recalling the curious peasant wedding which had just been celebrated in the old Bakke church, and jotting down in my diary some of my experiences and reflections, 1t emphatically occurred to me-and l generously set 1t down for the benefit of others-that in matters of love 1t Is wise to eschew the companionship of even servitors or friends.
 Of course, the series of incidents lead ing up to this conclusion was not in any particular premeditated; the curious course of events could not in any ordin- ary human wisdom have been foreseen; but the excellent principle of perma- nent solitariness in affairs of human affection, seemed to me as keenly i'm pressive as though I had prearranged the lesson for my own teaching and stubbornly sharpened the knife for my own wound.
 I had been at Bayreuth to witness the first presentation of the great mu- sic drama of "Parsifal." This final triumph of Wagner's life had drawn to the little Bavarian city music lovers and music critics from all lands. At the old Hotel Sohne, where I lodged, was a musical savant from Bergen. We be- came friends, and he descanted so glowingly upon the glorious scenery of his own country that turned from my purpose of a second visit to the Swiss Alps for a brief tour, by carriole and ford steamer, in Harold Haarfrage's ancient hero land.
 ssrTbo most ctarp and ma iaStic aya pies of precipice and glacier field, of awful ice-wastes, mighty waterfalls and impossible mountains, of ford in measureless heights and soundless depths, all coupled with the quaintest of villages, eagle-nest farms, cragsmen and dalesmen who have not yet become familiar types to the tourist, and of a perfectly simple and almost primitive peasantry," said my musical friend from Bergen, you will find along the dark and gloomy Naero ford. Make the village of Bakke your headquar- ters, and you will see and know scenes and folk you will never forget.
 If I could have known how literally true his words were to prove, I should have kept straight on to Luzerne.
 In our long coasting trips together, the peaceful solitude of the sea had in duced a familiarity between myself and Peter Zachariasen on board my little yacht, which perhaps could never have existed upon land. In this he confided to me that his ambition in leaving his native land was to earn and save a very modest sum of money which he said would make him rich and happy in Norway.
 I never asked him how. He never told me. I had perhaps never cared, being only indolently interested in his manner of service and it's term, which was soon to end.
 He had mentioned Bakke,I now recol- lected; and I thought, too, some men tion of the Naero ford had been made. All these names of places were strange to me and their sound was so harsh and outlandish at the time, that I only faintly remembered them now; think merely of how valuable his companion ship would be. So I cabled him to leave the yacht and join me at Bakke, which I knew would please him and serve me greatly. ...
 On my way to Christiana, through the picturesque Hallingsdal, the lordly Loerdal, along the Auerlands ford and into the grandly solemn Naero ford, I found many Norwegian types strongly reminding me of Peter, but none alto- gether like him.
 The faces of the merry "skydguts" or post-boys, those bareheaded, bare footed Pueks of Norwegian travel, who will run beside the carriole or stoll-cart all day. and turn as happy face upon the kindly hearted traveller at night as when he set forth from the station at daybreak, brought Peters broad, fine face, which was the very birth-spot of sunshine, oftenest to me.
 Some of the huge cragsrnen of the Auerland's district were like him in massiveness of frame. Many of the patriarchal bonders, or rich farmers, of the Hallingsdal region, recalled a cer- tain solemn gravity which I often saw had settled down upon him, when I found him, alone.
 But now that was in Norseland it. self, where its hero days and wondrous mythologies grew upon the imagina- tion with each days strange experien- ces, I found that Peter Zachariasen was continually in my mind.
 Indeed my memory of him-as I had countless times seen him stand silent. sunny and thoughtful at the wheel of my little yacht, the sea wind tossing his curly hair about his massive head. his open shirt showing a glint of a