Chapter 30

HOW THEY TRAVEL IN NORWAY.

Nothing can be more characteristic of Norwegian seclusion from the world than the rude means of inland communication between the principal cities. Here was a public highway between two of the most important sea-ports in the country--Christiania and Trondhjem--without as much as a stage to carry passengers. Every traveler has to depend upon his own vehicle, or upon such rude and casual modes of conveyance as he can find at the stations by the wayside. I asked the reason of this backward state of things, and was informed that the amount of travel is insufficient to support any regular stage line. The season for tourists lasts only about three months, and during the remainder of the year very few strangers have occasion to pass over the roads. In winter--which, of course, lasts very long in this latitude--the whole country is covered with snow, and sledges are altogether used, both for purposes of traveling and the transportation of merchandise from the sea-board. The products of the country--such as logs, spars, and boards--are prepared during these months for rafting down the rivers during the spring floods. Once, as I was told, an enterprising Englishman had started a regular stage-line from Christiania to Trondhjem, in consequence of the repeated complaints of the traveling public, who objected to the delays to which they were subject; but he was soon obliged to discontinue it for want of patronage. When travelers had a convenient way of getting over, they grumbled at being hurried through, and preferred taking the usual conveyances of the country, which afforded them an opportunity of enjoying the scenery and stopping wherever they pleased. People did not come all the way to Norway, they said, to fly through it without seeing any of its wonders and beauties. There was some philosophy in this, as well as a touch of human nature. It reminded me of the Frenchman in Paris who lived to be eighty years of age without ever leaving the city; when the king, for the sake of experiment, positively forbid him from doing so during the remainder of his life. The poor fellow was immediately seized with an inordinate desire to see something of the outside world, and petitioned so hard for the privilege of leaving the city that the king, unable to resist his importunities, granted him the privilege, after which the man was perfectly satisfied, and remained in Paris to the day of his death.

By reference to a copy of the laws on the subject of post-travel, which I had procured in Christiania from a Mr. Bennett, I discovered that the system is singularly complicated and hazardous, as well as a little curious in some of its details. The stations are situated along the road about every eight or ten miles (counted in Norwegian by so many hours). Nothing that we could call a village is to be seen in any part of the interior, unless the few straggling farm-houses occasionally huddled together, with a church in the centre, may be considered in that light. The stations usually stand alone, in some isolated spot on the wayside, and consist of a little log or frame tavern, a long shambling stable, innumerable odds and ends of cribs, store-houses, and outbuildings, forming a kind of court or stable-yard; a rickety medley of old carts and carioles lying about basking in the sun; a number of old white-headed men smoking their pipes, and leathery-faced women on household duties intent, with a score or so of little cotton-headed children running about over the manure pile in the neighborhood of the barn, to keep the pigs company; here and there a strapping lout of a boy swinging on a gate and whistling for his own amusement; while cows, sheep, goats, chickens, and other domestic animals and birds browse, nibble, and peck all over the yard in such a lazy and rural manner as would delight an artist. This is the ordinary Norwegian station.

There is always a good room for the traveler, and plenty of excellent homely fare to eat. At some few places along the route the station-houses aspire to the style and dignity of hotels, but they are not always the best or most comfortable. Then there are "fast" and "slow" stations--so called in the book of laws. At the fast stations the traveler can procure a horse and cariole without delay--fifteen minutes being the legal limit. At the slow stations he must wait till the neighborhood, for a distance of three or four miles perhaps, is searched for a horse--sometimes for both horse and cariole. If he chooses to incur the expense he can send forward a _Forbad_, or notice in advance, requiring horses to be ready at each station at a specified time; but if he is not there according to notice, he must pay so much per hour for the delay. A day-book is kept at each of these post-houses, in which the traveler must enter his name, stating the time of his arrival and departure, where he came from, his destination, how many horses he requires, etc. In this formidable book he may also specify any complaint he has to make against the station-holder, boy, horse, cariole, or any body, animal, or thing that maltreats him, cheats him, or in any way misuses him on the journey; but he must take care to have the inn-keeper or some such disinterested person as a witness in his behalf, so that when the matter comes before the Amtmand, or grand tribunal of justice, it may be fairly considered and disposed of according to law. When the inn-keeper, station-holder, posting-master, alderman, or other proper functionary on the premises, fails to present this book and require the traveler to sign his name in it, he (the arrant violator of laws) is fined; but the traveler need not flatter himself that the rule does not work both ways, for he also is fined if he refuses or intentionally neglects to write his name in the said book. The number of horses to be kept at fast stations is fixed by law, and no traveler is to be detained more than a quarter of an hour, unless in certain cases, when he may be detained half an hour. At a slow station he must not be detained over three hours--such is the utmost stretch of the law. Think of that, ye Gothamites, who complain if you are detained any where on the face of the earth three minutes--only detained three hours every eight or ten miles! But for delay occasioned by any insuperable impediment, says the Norwegian law-book--such as a storm at sea, or too great a distance between the inns--no liability is incurred on either side. A Philadelphia lawyer could drive six-and-thirty coaches-and-four, all abreast, through such a law as that, and then leave room enough for a Stockton wagon and mule-team on each side. Who is to judge of the weather or the distance between the inns? When the traveler holds the reins he is responsible for the horse, but when the post-boy does the holding, he, the said boy, is the responsible party. Should any post-horse be ill treated or overdriven when the traveler holds the reins, so that, in the language of the law, "the station-holder, inn-keeper, or two men at the next station can perceive this to be the case, the traveler shall pay for the injury according to the estimation of these men, and he shall not be allowed to be sent on until the payment is made." The traveler pays all tolls and ferry charges. "When the road is very hilly, or is in out-of-the-way districts where there are but few horses in proportion to the travel, and the distance between the stations is unusually long, or under other circumstances where the burden on the people obligated to find horses is evidently very oppressive, etc.," "it may be ordered by the king, after a declaration to that effect has been procured by the authorities, that payment for posting may be reckoned according to a greater distance, in proportion to the circumstances, as far as double the actual distance."

In addition to all these formidable regulations--against which it seems to me it would be impossible for any ordinary man to contend--the tariff fixes the price of posting for fast and slow stations in the country, the only difficulty being to find where the towns are after you get into them, or to know at what stage of the journey you leave them. The Amtmand, by letter to all the authorities, likewise requires the tariff to be hung conspicuously in all the inns; which tariff, says the law, "is altered according to the rise and fall of provisions."

When I came to study out all this, and consider the duties and obligations imposed on me as a traveler going a journey of three or four hundred miles; that I was to be subject to contingencies and liabilities depending upon the elements both by land and sea; that serious responsibilities fell upon me if I held the reins of the post-horse, and probably heavy risks of life and limb if the post-boy held them; that the inn-keeper, station-holder, alderman, or two men chosen miscellaneously from the ranks of society, were to judge of damages that might be inflicted upon the horse; that I must register my name in a day-book, and enter formal complaints against the authorities on the way about every ten miles; that the tariff might rise and fall five hundred times during the journey, for aught I knew, according to the rise and fall of provisions or the pleasure of the Amtmand; that conspiracies might be entered into against me to make me pay for all the lame, halt, blind, and spavined horses in the country, and my liberty restrained in some desolate region of the mountains; that I could not speak a dozen words of the language, and had no other means of personal defense against imposition than a small pen-knife and the natural ferocity of my countenance--when all these considerations occurred to me, I confess they made me hesitate a little before launching out from Lillehammer.

However, the landlord of the post, a jolly and good-natured old gentleman, relieved my apprehensions by providing such a breakfast of coffee, eggs, beefsteak, fish, and bread, that my sunken spirits were soon thoroughly aroused, and I felt equal to any emergency. When I looked out on the bright hill-sides, and saw the sun glistening on the dewy sod, and heard the post-boys in the yard whistling merrily to the horses, I was prepared to face the great Amtmand itself. In a little while the horse and cariole designed for my use were brought up before the door, and the landlord informed me that all was "_fertig_."

Now, was there ever such a vehicle for a full-grown man to travel in? A little thing, with a body like the end of a canoe, perched up on two long shafts, with a pair of wheels in the rear; no springs, and only a few straps of leather for a harness; a board behind for the skydskaarl, or post-boy, to sit upon; and a horse not bigger than a large mountain goat to drag me over the road! It was positively absurd. After enjoying the spectacle for a moment, and making a hurried sketch of it, wondering what manner of man had first contrived such a vehicle, I bounced in, and stretched my legs out on each side, bracing my feet against a pair of iron catches, made expressly for that purpose. Fortunately, I am a capital driver. If nature ever intended me for any one profession above all others, it must have been for a stage-driver. I have driven buggies, wagons, and carts in California hundreds of miles, and never yet killed any body. Like the Irishman, I can drive within two inches of a precipice without going over. Usually, however, I let the horse take his own way, which, after all, is the grand secret of skillful driving.

My baggage consisted of a knapsack containing two shirts and an extra pair of stockings, a sketch-book and some pencils, and such other trifling knick-knacks as a tourist usually requires in this country. I carried no more outside clothing than what common decency required: a rough hunting-coat, a pair of stout cloth pantaloons, and an old pair of boots--which is as much as any traveler needs on a Norwegian tour, though it is highly recommended by an English writer that every traveler should provide himself with two suits of clothes, a Mackintosh, a portable desk, an India-rubber pillow, a few blankets, an opera-glass, a musquito-net, a thermometer, some dried beef, and a dozen boxes of sardines, besides a stock of white bread, and two bottles of English pickles.