The National tribune., 1909-12-09
THURSDAY

Midnight Sun: in fact, they were pas
sengers on the German ship which was
at North Cape the very night the ANA
zon lay there. Elizabeth thought they
were Austrians, and everything showed
them to be people of great wealth if
not rank. but whether they belonged to
the nobility or not they were full of fun,
and added immensely TO our enjoyment
of the trip. Altho these compartments
do hold six persons very comfortably,
fewer people have more room to spread
around in naturally, and it is desirable,
therefore, if bit selfish, to try to, keep
the place from filling up so whenever
the train stopped these men would pre-
tend to be fiercely quarreling,. with
much gesticulation, or they would stand
before the glass of the door leading
into the compartment and make the
most hideous faces, all OF which, 1t was
hoped, would tend to give the impress
sion that the place was filled with des-
perate lunatics and make that sixth
seat a drug on the market. Other
equally idiotic devices were resorted to
by them to this end, which had the
desired effect and kept us In gales Of
laughter. The two men were devoted
to the young woman, who was certainly
as pretty as a peach with her fair hair
and beautiful complexion, lovely mouth
and soft brown eyes, and when at one
time she removed her hat and rested
her head against a travelling pillow
which her maid brought her from an
other compartment to take nap i
thought / had never looked on sweet
er picture.
The ride from Bergen to the place
where we left the train at o'clock that
afternoon was, like so many of our
Norwegian experiences, one never to be
forgotten. The scenery was grand, mag
The track had been built, with
the aid of engineering skill, right on
the side of the mountain, with the
snowy peaks almost close enough to
touch. There were snow sheds a great
deal of the way, which shut off the view
to our infinite disgust. We would fol-
low along the edge of these lovely
mountain lakes / have spoken of so
often in these letters, tho hundreds of
feet above them. swing suddenly around
some curve which would disclose a lit
tie hamlet of red and yellow houses
nesting at the foot of a great noun
tain, completely surrounded by others.
and, in short, the loveliest of the views
that had become so familiar to us
were being constantly repeated, only
now we saw them from a great hight,
giving the charm of novelty and in
many cases intensifying the effect. EliZ-
abeth and 1 both realized that We were
looking for the last time on this won-
derful scenery, as Christiania is too far
south to have these great snow peaks,
and we kept our eyes glued to the win
dow most of the time trying to make
on the memory these pic
lures of marvellous beauty which Nor
way so generously provides for those
who take the trouble to visit her far
northern shores.
Now l must hurry over the story of
the rest of our trip, for this letter is
already too long. At o'clock we
reached some place where we took a
boat; in fact, there were three smallish
boats lying alongside of each other, and
as the conductor on the train had given
US supposed private tip by telling us
that the third boat was the cleanest we
carefully walked over the decks of the
first two and took seats on the third.
We had supper on that boat which was
pretty poor, and arrived at another
place at about o'clock, where wetwere
to take a train Tor Christiania. Before
we made this landing both Elizabeth
and ] realized the mistake we had
made in getting on this third boat, be-
cause, you see, all the people on those
other two would get off and to thstrain
before we possibly could,-thus securing
the best seats, SO 1T was agreed between
us that i should remain behind and
find some boy to carry our hand bag
gage, while she rushed ahead and got
the seats. Well, my dear, by the time
l had chance to look for q boy the
stock was exhausted. and,the onlyfthing
in the boy line in sight were tyBe,- in,
fants really, they were so small and
young, and who Were by no means
for a job. either; but the
was desperate, and j fairly
forced them into the cause. To the