Norway, and the Norwegians

Chapter I

Preface — Copenhagen — Amager Market-people — Fredericsborg — Libraries — Picture gallery — Cronberg Castle — Gottenburg — Firth scenery — Laurvig — Holmestrand — Moss — Approach to Christiania — Passports superfluous — Modes of reaching Norway. Those who are most acquainted with the political and social prospects of Norway, are best aware that the civilization and the im portance of the Norwegians have been exceedingly underrated. Their place in the scale of nations has been but imperfectly made out. The best accounts of them (with the valuable exception of Mr. Laing's) have been those that have confined themselves to the geology and the physical appearance of their country ; and the VOL. I. B

Preface

. worst are those that have honoured their institu tions with condescending laudations. Of this latter there has been far too much. Many travellers have spoken positively contemptuously of them ; others have damned them with faint praise ; as if, in the essentials of civilization, they had differed in kind from ourselves. The natives themselves complain of this, and accuse us of ranking them with the uncultivated nations. They seem to be continually in anticipation either of some expression of disparagement, or of some patronising encomium. They wish to be known as something better than hardy peasants and hospitable mountaineers. It is not those who talk of their warm hearts, and their Auroræ Boreales, that they put their chief trust in. They love to be known for their in stitutions, rather than for their mountains ; for things social, rather than for things geological.

The civilization of Norway differs from that of England, as that of Inverness does from that of London ; not as the stages of culture in Ispahan and Paris differ from each other. It is a difference of degree, not of kind. The two countries are on different steps of the same ladder. They are on the same pair of stairs, and between the same landing-places. Socially speaking, the Norwegians are something better than the neigh-

PREFACE.

. 7 bours of the Laplander ; politically speaking, they are something more than a province to the Swede. For all this, the most lax notions are afloat in regard to their habits of thought, their science, their literature, and their political prospects. Little or no interest is taken in their destinies. And yet they are pre-eminently a rising people, full of youth, and hope. They augur well of their fortunes themselves, and feel that day by day they improve. Surely, the working of the most democratic constitution in Europe should be observed ; a European America (on a small scale) must be worth visiting. For my own part, I am about to write upon Norway, as a man writes the memoirs of a familiar friend; less with the intention of giving a detailed account of his actions, than with the hope of setting his general character in a true light, and of clearing away certain misconceptions concerning it.

But though I think well and feel warmly in its favour, I wish to indicate the subject rather than to exhaust it, to stimulate the curiosity of my countrymen rather than to satiate it. My work is more of a sketch than a treatise, an outline rather than a full and correct likeness, a chain of desultory observations rather than a regular dissertation.

PREFACE.

. I say to my reader, not — come and hear, but — go and see. I stand up most strongly for the civilization of Norway ; but between civilization and refinement I draw a wide distinction. Themistocles could not play upon the flute, but he could elevate a small city into a great one. The Norwegian M.P. legislates for the welfare of his country, though he smokes in the drawing room. A nation may possess refinement, that possesses nothing besides. My impressions regarding Norway are well nigh five years old ; and I must be excused if I, occasionally, describe from remembrance. I had no notion, whilst I was there, of writing a book. Upon things that made but a slight impression I shall, perforce, be sketchy, and make up for being so, by writing con amore respecting points which struck me strongly.

I believe that the very truest characteristics of a nation are thus preserved ; inasmuch as, from the nature of the case, it is only the more pro minent traits that take root in the memory. In the month of March 1833, I left Hull for Hamburg, and in the May following started from Hamburg for Copenhagen. The steamer to the latter place runs from Kiel and Lubeck alternately. The road between Hamburg and Lubeck is too bad to be tolerated, and, although COPENHAGEN. the distance is not more than forty miles, we were all night on the way. For this the jealousy of the Danish government may be thanked, which is unwilling to see any facility of inter course between Hamburg and Lubeck, lest the trade of its own town, Kiel, should be thereby diminished. Yet the places might bear a rail road between them.

The Danish steamer lies not at Lubeck, but three miles below that city, at Travemunde, on the mouth of the river Trave, from which it takes its name. We went aboard between five and six in the afternoon ; early the next morning passed by the islands Moen and Falster, and a little before noon came in sight of Copenhagen. The town itself lies low, and is masked towards the sea by the island of Amager, and the Three-fronted battery, which latter commands the harbour on all sides. However, the high masts of the shipping shew themselves at a great distance. On landing the steamer is invaded by the valets de place from the principal hotels, each recommending his own. Clamorous as they are, they by no means equal, either in pertinaciousness or number, the hotel harpies of France. No one who speaks German, and few who speak English, need be at all in commoded in Copenhagen on the score of language.

If you ask a porter in the streets a COPENHAGEN. question in German he will comprehend and answer you. At the Hotel d Angleterre, where I generally dined, I scarcely heard a Danish conversation. The mistress was an English woman, and her husband a Bohemian. The same, I beHeve, was the case at the Hotel du Nord. These are the two chief hotels. A third, upon a less ambitious scale, and with more reasonable charges, is the Hotel Lauenburg, kept by a Scotchman. The passports, which it was necessary to take with you from Hamburg, and to change at Lubeck, must now be given in to the police. A fortnight may be passed very pleasantly in Copenhagen ; indeed to one who would see every thing in the city worth visiting, a much longer time is absolutely indispensable. It is, without exception, the cleanest town I was ever in.

One quarter of it is laid out for the residence of the sailors ; and that with the utmost uniformity ; all the houses are alike, all are clean, neat, and regular. Compared with the rest of the city, they appear low-roofed. In Harwich and Co penhagen the grass grows in the streets, a sign of decayed commerce which I have read of often, but witnessed no where else. The Palaces form the grand square of Copenhagen; from these runs an equally noble street, the Ama- AMAGER. 7 lien Gade. The Royal mansion, a beautiful and extensive Italian building, stands in the middle of the town. There is no lack of royal residences. Four miles on the road to Elsinore, and overlooking the sea, is a castle and park, of which the latter is thrown open to the public. I visited this one Sunday; hundreds of people of all ranks and ages, were enjoying themselves on its lawns and under the shade of its venerable trees.

A party of Swedes, the women con spicuous from being dressed all alike, and all in white, had come over from the opposite town of Lund ; they served to show off in contrast to the red petticoats and spangled head-dresses of the Amager market-people. The island, or peninsula of Amager, is the Battersea of Copenhagen. Its inhabitants are chiefly gardeners, and of Frieslandic extraction. They retain the costume of the province from which they came. This consists of a multiplicity of crimson woollen petticoats, somewhat short in their make, worsted stockings, blue aprons, and high spangled caps. Their fashion is the fashion of the Bavarian broom-girls, but their colours are the colours of the rainbow. As the Vier landers are to Hamburg, so are the Amagrians to Copenhagen. A noble castle, Fredericsborg, stands within LIBRARIES. two miles of the city, and overlooks it.

An avenue of lime-trees leads to it. Below lies a garden rather than a park. The public have free access to the grounds. From the terrace is a fine view of the whole of Copenhagen. Every thing at Copenhagen, with the exception of the arsenal, which is jealously guarded from the eyes of foreigners, is perfectly accessible. The Royal library, one of the finest in Europe, both in respect to the number of its volumes, and the value of its manuscripts, is so liberally thrown open, that a foreigner has only to introduce himself, in order to be enabled to pass as much time as he likes in the reading-room. There lie the fifty Pali manuscripts, brought by Professor Rask from Persia, still undeciphered. There lie also some Gaelic manuscripts of undetermined antiquity and value ; but which, I fear, no Irish antiquary has been zealous or learned enough to unravel.

A second library, the Clausonian, consists chiefly of books upon Natural History. I have been told that more books are printed in Copenhagen than in any town of the same size in Europe. In the Royal library, Mr. Elliot, a Scandinavian traveller, had occasion to speak with Professor Rask, its keeper. Now the one was a bond fide Englishman, and as such might be presumed to know something of his mother- PICTURE GALLERY, 9 tongue, whilst the other had written an English grammar for Danes, and a Danish one for Eng lishmen. Thus, as men occasionally understand the subject they write books about, a competent knowledge of English might be presumed on both sides. But what did these two linguists do ? They had both been in the East, and for that reason spoke Persian. Men will show off with out-of-the-way languages when they can.

In the picture-gailery I passed two long morn ings; it has the credit of being the finest collection north of Dresden. For much information, and for several very agreeable visits during my stay in Copenhagen, I have to thank the family of General Bornemann. Through his kind offer of letters of introduction in case I visited Nor way, I decided upon seeing Christiania in pre ference to Stockholm or St. Petersburg ; points upon which, at my departure from Hamburg, I had not made up my mind. Before a traveller can leave Copenhagen he must procure a certificate, signed by a house keeper, to show that he is not in debt to any one within the town ; or that, if he be, the house keeper in question will be responsible. The same is the case at St. Petersburg. Moreover, a passport is required for an admission into the Swedish territories. b5 CRONBERG CASTLE.

The steamer starts from Copenhagen to Chris tiania once a week, in the afternoon or evening. Before the sun had set we passed the venerable and picturesque castle of Cronberg, overlooking the Sound. Here it was where either Havelok, or Ogier, one of the old Scandinavian sea-kings, was found by an intruder, some five hundred years after his death, sitting in a subterranean vault, over a marble table. His cheeks were supported by the palms of his hands, and his elbows rested on the table; but his beard had waxed long during his confinement, had pierced the solid marble of the table, and was growing downward towards the ground beneath. The hero had sat so for many centuries, musing on the degeneracy of his countrymen. When the intruder entered he rose up. The marble was shivered like ice, as he drew his beard through it ; and in a terrific voice he told the stranger that he was glad that men were yet in Denmark.

I cannot say what the truth may be ; I tell the tale that was told to me. Here, or hereabouts, too, it was where Hamlet took notes concerning his uncle's behaviour, and Tycho Brahe made observations upon the heavens. COTTENBURG. A little before noon the following day we reached Gottenburg, the Liverpool of Sweden. In the days of its glory it was supposed that it would swamp the trade of Copenhagen. Things, however, went but indifferently with the more speculative merchants, and the credit of the town ran retrograde. Canals are cut along, and in the middle of the streets, just as the Liffey runs through Dublin, or the Welland through Spald ing. The grand scene of Sweden, the falls of Trollhatta, or the wizard's cap, lie at no great distance from Gottenburg; indeed, the whole neighbourhood, if it in any respect resemble the approach to the town, must be very beautiful.

We landed for about an hour, just as the town was filling with the retinue of the Crown Prince of Sweden, then on a circuit through his father's dominions. The appearance of the houses was intermediate to that of the Danish and Norwegian residences. The floors were not sanded, but strewn with chopped juniper tops. A new lan guage, very stately and sonorous, and compared with which the Danish seemed querulous, and the German cumbrous, now greeted my ears. I heard Swedish spoken for the first time. Got tenburg and Trollhatta are known to English men, who know no other parts of Scandinavia. Sir John Moore's expedition to Sweden took FREDERICSVÆRN. place on that part of the coast. Stromsoe, lying between Gottenburg and Norway, is a fashionable sea-bathing place, the only one of the kind in the North.

I speak of it from report. It is the Brighton of Sweden, and consists of a single hotel. The next morning I awoke, and found myself off Fredericsværn, at the entrance of the firth of the Christiania. We had the promisees a fine sunny day, and eighty miles of sailing before us. By the word firth, I mean what the natives called a fiord, i.e. an inland projection of the sea. The Scotch firth is the same word, and means precisely the same thing. It is a pity to talk Norwegian, and say a fiord, when firth, a word of our own language, will do as well. I shall talk then in future of the Firth of Christiania, the Firth of Drammen, just as a Norwegian traveller, in Scotland, would, if he were a sensible man, not talk of Tay-Jiord, or Forth-fiord. Firth scenery is the grand characteristic of Norway.

There is no tide in the firths, so that their surface is generally smooth and glassy. There is no regularity in the outline of their shores, so that they extend their branches and wind far inland, and when seen from the land appear like lakes, rather than parts of the ocean. There is boldness and FIRTH SCENERY. beauty in their banks, which are generally weather-beaten primitive rocks, either rising abruptly from the sea, and so presenting a broad blank front to the billows, or sloping downward covered with trees and verdure, and there is infinite loveliness in the clusters of innumerable islands and islets which rise from their surface, and bear vegetation of all hues and odours. The waters of a Norwegian firth are as transparent as the clear sky that they reflect. The character of the voyage changes upon passing Fredericsværn.

The vessel now stops at the towns it passes by, in order to take up new passengers. The company increases every half hour. It comes fresh and fresh. The day gets brighter, and an awning is put up over the deck. We begin to enjoy the travelling for its own sake. We wax sociable. We look like holiday people rather than voyagers. Eight hours of salt water lie before us without the possibility of sea-sickness. There are on board about three Englishmen travelling for pleasure, two or three Germans, and a Frenchman upon busi ness, Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, ad libi tum. There is not a band of music as there would be in a Herne Bay steamer, and it is easily dispensed with. We talk to one another. LAURVIG. If you meet an educated Norwegian the chances are that you will be surprised at the fluency of his English.

So it is if you sit next to a Swede; his politeness will delight you. Voltaire called them the " Frenchmen of the North," and thought he paid them a compliment in doing so. The truth is the compliment, as far as credit for politesse may be considered as such, was on the side of his own countrymen. Swedes are as polite again as the Frenchmen. With the ex ception of a few isolated Poles, whom I have never met without being struck by the elegance of their behaviour, the Swedes are the first of men in point of manners. Fredericsværn should be looked at. There lies the Norwegian navy, and there is the naval academy. Opposite, but out of sight, is Fredericshall, where Charles XII. was killed. A little beyond, on the side of Fredericsværn, is Laurvig, famous for the capture of lobsters, and the growth of potatoes.

The lobsters supply theEnglish market, and are bought up by English monopolists ; the potatoes go to the distillery, and are converted into whiskey. We stop for passengers both at Fredericsværn and Laurvig. We stop also at Tonsberg, the oldest town in Norway, and the one which, in proportion to its inhabitants, boasts of the greatest quantity of shipping. HOLMESTRAND. 15 Dinner is now over ; several cigars are to be smoked. The vessel is off Holmestrand, the most beautiful part of the firth. The rocks here are higher, bolder, and more perpendicular than at any other point. Holmestrand, like the places already mentioned, is a third-rate Nor wegian town. On the other side, a little farther up, is Moss. In all probability some Havre vessels will be lying there for wood. Both Holmestrand and Moss sent their quota of passengers to the vessel, which is now pretty well filled.

I forgot to mention that it is called the Crown Prince: there is another, which rejoices in the name of The Constitution. Three more miles, and we shall have reached Christiania, of which we are already almost in sight. But first we have to touch at Drobak. When people say that they have been to Drobak, they generally get smiled at. There is some mystery connected with the place which I have failed to fathom. Yet even Drobak has its shipping and its trade in wood. There are generally some auks to be seen swimming about in the neigbourhood. The firth now has divided itself into two branches ; the vessel keeps to the one on the right hand ; the other would have taken it to Dram- APPROACH TO men, a town of more importance than any I have hitherto noticed. A white fortress is now visible; we are in sight of Christiania.

So beautiful has been the scenery, so fine the day, and so agreeable the company, that one regrets that the journey is terminating. The farther inland you sail, the smoother becomes the water, the more tranquil the breeze, the islets become less weather-beaten and more green, and the shores on each side less distant. The beauty of the scene increases at every winding of the firth. The islands too in the neighbourhood of the larger towns get inhabited, so that sheep may be seen grazing, and fishermen's children run to the water-side to stare. To the honour of Norway be it said, that strangers can travel through it without a pass port. Those that have but little luggage with them (as was my own case) can step ashore at once. Within five minutes after the landing of the vessel I was in the Hotel du Nord.

There is no great choice as to the mode of reaching Norway. Sailing vessels of course find their way thither from several parts of England. From Colchester a vessel arrived at Christiania, during my stay there, after only three days' CHRISTIANIA. voyage. The mail-packet sails from Harwich to Gottenburg, and is about a week, upon an average, on the way. It has accommodation for a single person, the charge, including provisions, being six pounds. Single-masted lobster-vessels, belonging to Mr. Howard, who monopolizes all the shell-fish from Laurvig, to Christiansand, sail from Manningtree to Nye Hellisund, near Fridericsværn, at frequent though irregular intervals. In one of these I returned. Upon the whole the steam-conveyance is the surest and the most agreeable ; and it is the only one by which a lady can at all travel.

However, the vessels north of Copenhagen run during the summermonths only. The lobster-vessels have completed their passage in four days, and have been three weeks about it. Still they are difficult to sink, and may be trusted on the score of safety. I am writing now as things were five years ago ; since then an alteration has taken place, for I observe that Mr. Laing embarked in a Post-office steamer, and not in a sailing vessel ; from Hull, and not from Harwich. Had I been inclined to sail from Hamburg to Norway, there were not wanting in that port vessels bound both for Bergen and Drontheim, as well as for Christiania.

Chapter II

Three Norwegian capitals — General appearance of Christiania — The Fortress and its Terrace — The Promenade— Penal labour— The Viceroy's Palace— Observatory— Public Library— Begging— Watchmen— Dress of the People— Houses andFurniture— Meals— Mode of living in Christiania during summer— Hotel— EnglishTravellers— Athenæum— Lyceum —Musical Meetings— Rifle Club— Theatre— Ohlenschlager — Representation of the Merry Monarch — Kongshaven — Expenses. Three towns, Bergen, Drontheim, and Chris tiania, are equally the capitals of Norway. Within a thousand or two inhabitants, the popu lation is the same in them all. It amounts to about twenty-three thousand. Bergen stands pre-eminent in point of trade and wealth ; Drontheim boasts of the most national antiqui ties, whilst Christiania, is, comparatively, a modern town.

But the last is the seat of the court when the Viceroy is in residence; it is the seat of the University, and it is, moreover, the city wherein the Parliament meet and hold their sessions. In point of refinement it far surpasses CHRISTIANIA. 19 its rivals. It looks less like a foreign town than any place I have visited ; it looks also less like a Norwegian one. The proportion of wooden houses is smaller than a traveller might expect. The grand secret of the peculiar appearance of foreign towns consists, to my mind, in the number of gable-ends that look upon the streets, and their absence of sash-windows ; whilst English houses stand sideways, and scorn latticed lights. Avenues of trees on each side the street do something in contributing towards an un-English aspect. Avenues, however, we have at home ; as in Oxford.

Christiania has gable-ends and lattice-windows in abundance, but no avenues. The complexion of the city is rather pale than florid. There are not many houses of red brick, but a multitude that are either white-washed or glazed. Outside the windows, and at right angles with them, projects a double mirror ; this gives the inmates a view of what passes in the streets. The same is the case at Copenhagen, and I have seen such things in single houses at home. No one need look out of a window. This is an important exemption, since the Norwegian casements are, in general, double for the sake of warmth. Window-breakers may thus smash two pains with one stone ; a great advantage for mobs on illumination-nights. CHRISTIANIA, The inhabitants reside in only parts of houses. Hence street-doors are less common than large arch-ways leading to yards, into which the dwelling houses, for the most part, open.

There are no houses of towering altitude. Two whity-brown stories is the orthodox height. Nothing very gay in the shop-windows ; the vender's name and profession are not lettered so neatly as they might be. The familiar placarded eulogiums of Warren's Blacking, with their irascible cat, and the reflecting boot, in black and red, are occasionally visible. I hear that the same may be seen on the Pyramids and on the wall of China. The largest open place is the Market, about the size of Bloomsbury-square. The streets are about the breadth of Long Acre. They are well paved, and the kennels keep within their banks. The light of modern days, gas, has yet to break upon them. Wherever four streets meet there is a well, and wherever there is a well there are palings round it. People congregate at these points less than might be imagined.

In England, they would be general rendezvous. Gangs of twelve or ten would gossip around them. The streets are named, and the names are put up at their corners. People who promenade, ITS FORTRESS. do so, not in the streets, but on the terrace of the fortress. The fortress is a compact building, overlooking the sea ; from which its whitened walls are the first object in Christiania that a traveller catches sight of. What its value as a place of defence may be I leave others to decide. Its situation is commanding. The town has no walls. Running nearly from the quay to the castle is a raised terrace, parallel with the sea, with a row of lime trees on one side, and the firth on the other. It is the driest and most elevated part of the town. What the pier is to Boulogne, the terrace is to Christiania, viz. the grand promenade.

A dozen persons may walk abreast along its whole length. On a summer's Sunday, when the morning-service is over, it is the resort of all the beauty and fashion of the place. People cut you there that are all condescension in the East end of the town. There may a stranger learn the newest fashions of Scandinavia ; there he must appear in his best equipments ; there also may he not smoke cigars. This last restriction has however more to do with the gunpowder of the armoury, than the laws of bienseance. The terrace is a favourite walk even in the winter. There are no leaves on the trees, but there are Royston PENAL LABOUR crows in abundance. There is no approaching steamer to watch, but there are fishing-boats to look at. Diying the days of the cholera, it was a favourite walk of the valetudinarian, who eschewed the more tainted regions.

The sea breeze kept it healthy, and the elevation made it dry. A depot for military stores stands some what below. At, and about, the fortress work the convicts. Compulsory labour, without the walls of the prison, and under the eye of an overseer, is one of the Norwegian punishments. The prisoners are led to and from their appointed penal toil in gangs, two by two, and with a jail uniform, by way of clothing and designation. A drab slouch hat, a drab jerkin, with either the sleeves, or one side, of a darker colour than the rest, and reaching half-way down the body, is the prison livery. In Copenhagen, where the same system prevails, wooden shoes are worn, that clatter as the chains clank. I am not certain that this is the case in Norway. All the world may see them at work. This must either wound the feelings of a prisoner or harden them.

Hang a man in England, and in the case of nine criminals out of ten, the feelings on the part of the public will be those of sympathy for his fate, rather than detestation of his crime. AT CHRISTIANIA. 23 The pernicious tendency of this feeling has led social legislationists to advocate hanging within the prison walls, but before a sufficient number of witnesses. Dr. Whately, in his admirable work upon Secondary Punishments, is inclined to that opinion. The same writer approves of task-work in the open air, and (of course) in public. Is not this open to a similar objection ? An old man, for instance, is submitted to daily penal labour ; his person is recognised, the same persons see him led along the same streets, at the same hour, and at the same toil. Surely there is thus engendered a tendency to sympathise with him rather than condemn.

The task-work system is not without its objections. If you have a jail-bird, keep him to his cage. The Crown Prince is the Viceroy of Norway ; and, as such, has a palace in Christiania. There is nothing in its external appearance beyond that of a private house. Within, I have heard that there are some valuable paintings. The Vice-regal palace however is not one of the lions of Norway. The Observatory, lying at some distance from the Hotel du Nord, on the road to Drammen, is a quiet, unobtrusive building. Through the kindness of Professor Hansteen, who resides there, I was enabled to go over it, although of PUBLIC LIBR.\RY, the value of its instruments I was unable to judge. They were chiefly of German workman-i ship. The public library is even more accessible than the one at Copenhagen. It contains about 120,000 volumes.

Two librarians have the management of it. Get a respectable house holder to be your surety, and you may obtain from it whatever books you wish. It is free to the whole town, and not restricted to the University alone. I seldom called for a book without finding from six to ten persons waiting for a similar supply. The Norwegians do not buy books to sleep on the shelves. The library of Christiania accommodates about ten times as many readers as the Bodleian. The medical students have the run of a large hospital, a handsome building on the outskirts of the town, and of a Botanic Garden. There is a Military Academy, a building for the meet ing of the Storting (Parliament), a Custom house, and a Cathedral. Beyond these Chris tiania boasts no public buildings ; nor are those which I have alluded to such as would strike a person elsewhere.