Notes from a Traveller's Journal, during an excursion in Norway and Sweden. By the late J. Tomlin, etc

Front matter

NOTES KROAJ A TRAVELLER'S JOURNAL. NOTES FROM A TRAVELLER'S JOURNAL, DURING AN EXCURSION IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN. BY THE LATE JAMES TOMLIN, Esq., M.A., BARRISTER- AT- LAW. " Weep not, she says, at Nature's transient pain. Congenial spirits part to meet again !" Pleasures of Hope. PRINTED FUR PRIVATE CIRCULATION, BY G. WOODFALL AND SON, ANGEL COURT, SKINNER STREET. 1852. THIS VOLUME, SELECTED FROM THE NOTE BOOKS OF HER BELOVED SON, IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO HIS MOTHEK, BT HIS ATTACHED BROTHER, UEOltGE TADDY ToMLIN.

Preface

. At the request of some of my late Brother's friends, I have selected the contents of the following pages from liis Journal, which he had, at the time of his decease, only roughly arranged. Many interesting details from his Diary are given as foot-notes, as I was unwilling to interpolate his unfinished narrative. 17, Great Cumberland Street, Hyde Park, December, 1851. NOTES FROM A TRAVELLER'S JOURNAL.

Chapter I

The world is a grand tutor, hut not so grand a one as solitude ; we move with the one to learn its ways, and with the other to learn ourselves : it is solacing to flit a while in the sunny heams of fashion, to know that its Ught falls flatteringly upon all we do ; hut he who lives in it alone has hut the fruit of a forced and un healthy training to requite his pains; while he who draws himself away revels in the repose of nature, and listens to her pulsations till his own heart heats to the same measure. Yes, it is a charming thing to get away from tlie world, not hecause it does not please us, but hecause there is something which can please us better for a while, and sends us back again to the B <■> NOTES FROM A [Chap. I. world better than we left it. Let us come away from the crowd a little while, and look at other forms of life ; let us come to the mountain and the plain, where we can think of what we have left behind us, of what we have passed through, of where we are and what we are, and what we have before us ; let us all he guests alike, let us add to a common store and draw from a common liberality, and return well pleased with ourselves, with each other, and with the world.

But do not think you can rush at once from hfe and gaiety ; you must go step by step, and let yourself down by degrees, or you may have a fit of home-sick ness come over you, before you have well adapted yourself to such altered ways. Take your place in the Hamburg packet, and you will have some hours with only yourself and a few passengers : there is the very thing ; from seeing thou sands and studying no one, you are at ouce reduced to seeing units, and therefore study them all : former abundance made you reckless of opportunity*; but * "Friday, July 6th, 1849.— Left London at 11 p.m. from the Tower Stairs, by the Princess Royal packet, for Hamburg. The vessel was heavily laden, aud dirty, and had on board fourteen of Strauss' German band. Fortunately the sea befriended us and was calm, or we should have been in a sad plight, with such companions as the German musi cians; they would not play at all— so that there was no reason to forget now, with only a little store, your eyes con it well over, and, by dint of management, it does more good than all the previous superfluity.

The days occupied by the voyage are not very many, even under the worst circumstances ; fine weather sends you smoothly along, with the sea-air giving you a famous appetite as a prelude to health and contentment; or rough weather sends you to your berth, and makes you anti cipate with pleasure the time when the voyage will be over; and it soon is over*. Arrived at the old free city, whose merchants still have a smack of the prince about them, you ramble among its queer old streets, and climb to the top of the tower of St. Michael's Church, whence the view extends over the quaint old that they were intruded upon us, having only taken fore-cabin place-;. My berth was so hot, that for the three nights we were at sea I wasvery little in it. Among the passengers were a Yankee and his wife, and a little Mulatto child of three years old, which gave rise to an exhibition of the prejudice existing between the Yankees and the Niggers." — Note Book. * " We reached Hamburg at six o'clock on Monday morning, having passed the Danish blockade ships at Heligoland about eight the pre vious evening.

Heligoland rises boldly from the water, and presents a rido-e of cliffs as you pass towards the entrance of the Elbe. The Danish sailors appeared young, healthy, and good-looking, with fair hair, ruddy cheeks, and round chaw-bacon faces. We soon after passed Cuxhaven, with its lighthouse at the mouth of the Elbe. The banks of the Elbe are low, flat, and uninteresting; the water was highly phosphorescent."— Nute Book. B NOTES FROM A [Chap. I. gable-roofs, and the newer and less characteristic build ings that have sprung up since the great fire, and stretches away, north, south, east, and west, over the flat country that surrounds the city, tracing the course of the Elbe almost to the sea. Here you breathe the fresh, pure air, as it blows around and about you, and begin to dream that your ways are scarcely less free than it *.

But this is not the place to linger in ; here is too much art, too much fashion. So forget your old state and habits, and travel by the schnell post to Lubeck t- * " Landed at half-past six a.m. Streit's Hotel, on the Jungfernstieg, is good; the Hotel de l'Europe is, I believe, better. The former has the Alster water in front, and is surrounded by good well-built houses rather in the style of Park Lane. The old portion of the town is picturesque ; the antique gables fronting the street give it a striking ap pearance, different from most towns. There are many points in its archi tecture which remind you strongly of Spain; and the Church of St. Catherine has a tower like those seen in Biscay. I went to the top of the tower of St. Michael's Church, from which a view of Holstein is obtained, and a good notion gained of the uniformity and beauty of the town of Hamburg.

Before the great fire of 1842, its appearance must have been that of a town built entirely on one design and at one period, and must have given a good idea of the opulence of such a city, the abode of so many wealthy merchants. The canals are picturesque at some points, but at low tide they are of a most vile odour." — Note Book. t "July 10.— Started at eight a.m. for Lubeck by the diligence. Four carriages started, in the ordinary German manner, with passengers of all nations. The whole country is flat— a slight elevation is the exception. Rye and peas seem the staple products, but the chief por tion of the land is pasture land. The environs of Hamburg are prettily What a rich flat country you are passing through, with its deep-roofed barns and Dutch-looking houses, with its milkmaid-looking women and ostler-looking men, all savouring of the oily and rich comeliness of milk, and cheese, and butter.

It is a veritable land of cows, and fowls, and turkeys, geese, and tulips; and, oh, what a mentor sits perched on the ridge of almost every barn ! why, the black-winged crane is doing the very thing by instinct which we are doing from reason and long teaching. In Egypt he lives in crowds, my riads and myriads ; as the Nubian sees them flock to gether in the desert or on the river's bank, their flight darkens the air; they assemble, so say both the an cients and the modems, once a year on a certain mount called thence Gebel y Tayr, or the Hill of the Bird ; and, leaving only one of their number to keep possession, take their departure in countless thousands. But here we find these elsewhere gregarious animals en joying the reputation of being lovers of solitude, standing for hours on one leg, either on a barn or on the laid out in gardens.

Here you may see the storks' nests perched on the corners of barns, and the young storks standing up in them to try their wings. It is the same species of stork as in Egypt. Some times geese eggs are wantonly substituted in a stork's nest for her own ; and when the eggs are hatched, the whole assembly of storks meet together, and with their wings destroy the step-mother."— Note Book. [Chap. I. 6 NOTES FROM A ground, and pondering at their leisure. There is a marvellous instinct in birds, they are wonderful tell tales) but your stork may sometimes deceive himself; he is not so veritable an almanack as the robin ; how ever, the stork goes off at last to liis city home, and bears back with him the offspring of his retirement. So, leaving him to his ways, without noticing, half as much as it deserves, the quiet, picturesque, and Spanish looking old town of Lubeck, with its elegant spires, its curious remains, and its old red brick walls*, and doing no more justice to the little picturesque-looking strand of Travemiinde, with its quay and its lime-trees and its pretty white houses and green shutters, we go once more on the free and buoyant ocean.

But, stay a moment ! you come from a land stamped with the mark of pestilence ; you are, unknown to yourself, tainted, and must endure to become an ex communicated man — free Englishman as you may be, you are shown the spires and towers of Copenhagen from the roads outside the harbour, and are then * " Lubeck is approached by a very handsome bridge, and there is a picturesque old gateway by the road which skirts the walls. Lubeck presents much the same features as Hamburg, only on a smaller scale; it has five steeples of singular height and proportions, and the gate towards Travemiinde is flanked with antique and Norman-looking brick towers. This is the birth-place of Ostade and Sir Godfrey Kneller." — Note Book. taken back, and, with a musket pointed at you, are landed at a little dog-kennel of a house, fitted with a high double palisade for your better con finement, at the village of Klampenborg, and the green flag of infection floats over your head*.

Your fellow-passengers — unless, may be, some favoured mi nister of diplomacy is set free — are thrust with you into the prison-house, and have, hke you, to beguile the days of purification as best they may: here you have those who can amuse themselves and those who cannot; but it is a pleasant thing to find how small is the number of the latter under such circumstances. The hand of power has forced you within its circle of tyranny, and keeps you there during its pleasure ; you are the world to each other, and you must sing, or dance, or play leap-frog, or jump, or skip, or hop, or run, or smoke, draw, lounge, or be idle, according to your mood and capability. Like children, you * " Embarked at Travemiinde— a neat little watering-place — on board the steamepfor Copenhagen, which place we reached at eight a.m. on the llth, but were not allowed to land on account ofthe cholera.

We were taken back to a place about ten miles off, called Klampenborg, to be five days in quarantine. The quarters were not so bad; there were fifteen men and one lady all cooped in and guarded. A Dane was let out, whereupon we immediately wrote to the English Consul, and a Frenchman of the party to the French Ambassador. I set my flies in order for fishing, and began Swedish." — Note Book. number the days that shut you out from liberty, from all you long for; at last you number the hours; the doctor comes, he shakes you by the hand, as though he would say, " This joke is ended : " you burst from your prison, and are soon seated in a char-a-banc — and a curious and characteristic vehicle it is, looking like a respectable waggon dressed in its Sunday trickery — and are on your way to Copenhagen.

But you are only half free yet; you may wander up and down through the length and breadth of Denmark, but are not yet purified enough for Sweden ; five mortal days more must you linger in a city, whose recherche morsels you could easily exhaust in two. You haunt the museum of Thorwaldsen, and see the honour which the nation pays to genius ; you dream over the forms of his dreamings, your soul bows before the angelic font in the Marien Kirehe, your eye runs with in terest, or perhaps with ennui, over the curiosities of Rosenberg, and you are delighted with the worthy and agreeable professor at the Museum of Antiquities * ; * " Hotel Royal at Copenhagen, very fair in quality. Went to Thor waldsen's Museum: some of his works very lovely; others I do not think anything very extraordinary. In the evening to Tivoli, price of admission one mark, plenty of amusement for the money.

The town is dirty, the sewers are under boards, and the stench dreadful; houses picturesque and old. On Monday went over the Christiansborg Palace; but you are panting all this while not for the works of man so much as the face of nature ; you are weary with staying, and, spite of the Anglicised and civil landlord, you leave the Hotel Royal with scarcely less delight than the prison at Klampenborg, and sail away for Sweden*. plenty of room; the Rittersal good size, the pillars of sham marble; but the place is not worth the time and trouble of visiting. Tuesday, went to the Gallery of Antiquities, well worth a visit ; all the objects are arranged chronologically, from the rudest stone to the most finished piece of work manship. The professor was very civil, and a first-rate cicerone. The Rosenberg Palace is somewhat like the green vaults of Dresden, being full of objects of vertu, some very curious.

Wednesday, sauntered about the town with three men of the name of Green ; looked again at Thorwaldsen's Museum, which is certainly the chief attraction of Copenhagen; dined at the Restaurant Pernet; had a good dinner — soup, fish, roast beef, lamb cutlets, and chicken — cost about three shillings. Went to the Fredericksborg Palace. Grounds laid out in shady walks; the palace looks like a large white manufactory. Kehlet's gardens near it; neat little flirting boxes, and a kind of whirlabout, called ' Carousel,' which is turned by a horse underneath, and is very popular. Went afterwards to Tivoli, where there is a good band. A programme of the music is sold at the door for about twopence; there is a small theatre, and we had some very good fireworks. There was an exhibition of dissolving views, half a mark extra.

Heard the national air, ' Tapfer Landsoldat,' and came away about eleven. After twelve they let loose large bull-dogs in these gardens, to clear them of any stragglers remaining. The master of the Hotel Royal was very civil, and speaks good English, but Danish is the only language of any use here." — Note Book. • " Thursday, 19th.— Left Copenhagen by the steamer for Gotten burg, and passed through the sound by Helsingborg, and the Castle of Kronberg, of Hamlet celebrity. We did not after this pass sufficiently near the coast of Sweden to see much of its beauties, if there be any ; B At last your journey seems to have commenced, and with satisfaction you cast your eyes about you on the new scene, and open your ears to an un known language. It is not yet eight o'clock when you arrive at Gottenburg; men come with trucks, and you see your luggage carried off, and follow it to but it has not, I believe, much to recommend it.

Arrived at Gottenburg, aster a comfortable night on board, and went up to the hotel. The house had a most deserted look ; no one spoke aught but Swedish, of which we knew but a few words. Five of us English were turned into the Contoir to wash and shave, the hotel being filled with the suite of Sir Thomas Cartwright, the British Minister. After this we went to a restaurant, the Prinz Carl, to breakfast, good and cheap, as well as requisite, for in the hotel there is little feeding, and all the eating is dime nut. Called on Mr. Engstrom, the consul, with a letter of introduction; heard his account of the Alten, and determined to take that route. Saw the King, the Crown Prince, and the Prince Gustave go to a public dinner, which was given to them. Much salute firing. The soldiers are fine men, but rather loutish.

Had a Swedish lesson from the daughter of my landlady, a pretty-looking damsel. In the evening got up a concert, which, considering we had not ten words in common, was not amiss. She and her two sisters played and sang. I bought 250 cigars for about thirtyfive shillings. The duty here is eighteenpence a hundred. Sunday, 22nd. Went into both the churches; the service is very much interrupted by people passing in and out, and the minister does not look very dignified. He wears bands, and a long black scarf, about a foot in width, suspended behind his shoulders, and reaching nearly to the ground. At the com munion table he held in his hand a tumbled-looking dinner napkin ; there was a crucifix over the altar, and an organ at the west end of the church. The English chaplain was away for six weeks, and, consequently, there was no English service.

Gottenburg is situated in a bay, or inlet, with picturesque hills rising round it and forming a natural amphitheatre."— Note Book. the hotel, v.hose name you have not as yet learned to pronounce. If anything can give you an idea of Babel, it is landing in a new country, and hearing a language gabbled so fast that your little knowledge of it dwindles to utter ignorance ; but there is nothing approaching to an adventure; the people are always good humoured, if you will but laugh and look plea sant with them ; and, moreover, they never know, and possibly never imagine, how utterly your mind is a stranger to the words you hear. There is not the bustle at a Swedish hotel that greets you in England or in the more frequented countries of Europe ; there is no porter to announce your arrival by a heavy-pull at a deep-sounding bell.

Some busy huckster is plying his trade on the spot where you would expect to find the porter. and looks at you, with a vacant eye, as you try your first inquiry, in some language as new to him as it is to yourself; you make your bow to him, don again the hat, which, according to the custom of the land, had been taken off, and mount the flight of stairs with a bewildered and undefined notion that the place is deserted, and that the luggage-porters have made some blunder, and brought you to a " house to let," instead of to an hotel. Arrived at the first [Chap. 1. NOTES FROM A floor, you still cannot see a living creature; a smile and a look of inquiry are exchanged with your com panions, and you follow one another along a passage paved with clean flagstones, and running between two irregular sets of doors, with an occasional window ; at length, after having accomplished the circuit of a considerable quadrangle, without meeting either an open door or a living creature, you again stand on the top of the stairs by which you mounted.

Tbis does not look like a promising welcome, and a little talk with the porters fails to make it much more in telligible. At last a door opens, and you are face to face with tlie housekeeper and the housemaid; but there is no room; the king is coming, the English minister is coming, the rooms are all bespoken, every body is coming, and your little stock of Swedish words and remonstrances is soon exhausted. There is no help for it : perhaps there is a hope of some private lodging, or there is an hotel opposite ; it is wise to go and try that ; the same answer greets you there — no room. What a droll scene ! How is it to end ? You go back to the Gotha Kel] are, with a new thought ; a wash and a shave would make you presentable ; but there is no room to be had, even for a Httle while. After much discussion, you are admitted into the contoir, which serves also as sleeping-room for the land lord, and he is in bed, unprepared for such an in trusion.

There seems nothing left but to retreat; when, to your delight, you are scarcely outside the door, before a httle man, with reddish hair and a smart dressing-gown, addresses you with a word or two of encouragement, looking all the while as if he was not quite awake himself, or did not quite know what to make of his visitors. Does he speak French ? Un peu ! What a comfort ! take courage : adversity gives you hardihood ; you go in ; the httle office is soon evacuated in your favour, and your luggage occupies a good portion of its space. Then comes the business of washing ; a small basin and a limited supply of water are not luxury, but they must do. While the cleansing operations are going on, all the household come in to look at you, and as suddenly retire. As to breakfast, whatever thought or intention you might have had to order it at the same hotel is dis sipated the moment you see the landlord's own fare brought in, consisting of a glass of cold milk, some black-looking bread, a httle raw salmon, and some thin slices of cheese.

The Prinz Carl is the restaurant, und there breakfast is to be had. Breakfast at the Prinz Carl is a meal at which the [Chap. I. 14 NOTES FROM A partakers sit a la table d'hote, but eat a la carte, with a good share of comfort, and at a moderate cost. This over, instead of sauntering idly round the town, you should follow the advice which was given us by a Spanish merchant, " When you are going to stay at a place for a day or two only, lose no time in presenting your letters," — and present yourself and your letters to the excellent consul, Mr. Engstrom. If any among your party are fishermen, let them seek the honour of being acquainted with two most worthy brothers, who own the fishing of a small river called the Falkenberg, in which salmon, though small — seldom weighing more than twelve or sixteen pounds — are so numerous that a good fly-thrower may land his ten or fifteen a day ; and, if fortune favours you, you may partake after wards of the hospitality of their country-house, about a mile from the town ; and you will find that an Eng hsh welcome flourishes far away from its native home.

But you will hear accounts of the north, of its scenery, of its sport, which will make you long to depart ; and as the land journey to Christiania offers no temptations, you will again take the steamer, and again find yourself reading new pages of human character, as they are alternately held before you by the peasant, the actress, or the princess. Do not be alarmed at Chap. I.] 15 TRAVELLER'S JOURNAL. passing a comfortless night in any spot you can find unappropriated. You will pass many a rougher one, before you again relapse into the luxuries of home ; and in the morning you will awake in smooth water, with your first sight of a Norwegian Fjord*. You will see many finer than that of Christiania ; but as it is the first, let it have the honour of speaking for its class. The Fjords, or long narrow arms of the sea, indent the whole coast from this point to the North Cape ; and many of them offer a foreground as grand as any of the lakes of Europe.

The rocks rise from the water's edge to a height of two or three thousand feet, and towards the north are frequently variegated with snow and studded with overhanging glaciers. A few huts dispersed singly, or sometimes in a nest, which may be called a village, are the only signs of human habitation ; and to see more than a few goats browsing on the side will very soon cease even to be expected. A * " Monday. — Went on board the steamer for Christiania; sea rough, but keeping very quiet I escaped being sick. Had on board per sons of all nations — an Italian company, and a Norwegian actress, and the Princess Lobanoff of Russia. A strange scene at night in the berths, which ended by my getting a shake-down on the floor of the cabin. Tuesday. — Woke in smooth water, which was a great comfort. The vessel had been lying to for two hours on account of a fog, and now went calling from side to side of the Fjord." — Note Book. fresh wind, which reminds you of its icy journey, is often careering about the hills ; and your mind seeks to look on and study the bold handiwork of nature.

The boat traverses the Fjord from side to side, setting down and taking up passengers ; the only considerable place is Drobak, looking like some Canadian settlement of log-houses. This Fjord is picturesque, but there is nothing about it that can be called grand ; and about two o'clock you find yourself in sight of Christiania. Your luggage is landed in a large barge, yourself in a boat ; and the worthy people pass your luggage without more annoyance than a httle delay. You have been admiring for the last half-hour the picturesque position of the capital, nestled, as it is, at the foot of the hills, and at the end of the Fjord, with its large white palace in the background, and the country houses of the merchants skirting it ; and you now walk through its streets to the hotel, with that look of curiosity which is ever alive on landing in a new country.

The town is well built and clean enough, and has little that distinguishes it from other towns of a similar character in Europe ; but its hospitality speaks to your heart. Delighted as you may be to look from the balcony of the Consul's house on the views over land and water, you turn with still greater pleasure to the hearty welcome within, and there you find a mixture of home and foreignness which sets you in a maze. Now you dance as though in tlie gay circles you have so lately left, and now you listen to songs such as you have dreamed were the melodies only of the mountaineer. In your pleasure you almost forget the purpose of your journey; you are so much nearer now to nature, you are so much further from affecta tion, that you almost say, " I can rest well contented here ; these are a happy people ; I may as well stay ; and, learning to be happy with them, fulfil the end of life."

But do not linger : this is but the first step ; and, if you find pleasure in having taken it, so much the greater is the inducement to go on, and look face to face at forms which the art of man has not ven tured to interfere with. But how must you go on ? You have already tra velled beyond the region of railroads, or coaches, or diligences : you have had enough of steam-packets ; you would look deeper into the country than its beethng coast ; you do not choose to walk ; for when the frame is weary the mind is apt to close its eye on the vast and the beautiful. You must adopt the fashion of the land, and purchase a carriole*. This * " Saw a carriole and harness at the hotel, and bought it for thirty dollars — bought three bottles of brandy, and had my box cut smaller. is a carriage of all others the best adapted for the roads you will have to traverse, and for the humour of your mind.

Its springy shafts save you from jolting, and its simple make secures it from mishaps. In fact, it is a neatly-constructed easy chair, placed on two wheels, and with a board behind to carry your portmanteau and the boy who will take back your horse. Your gun-case is strapped underneath, your fishing-rods on the shafts; your dog rides in luxury in a bag suspended from behind, your books are in a large pocket in the inside, your stock of bottles and provisions in leathern holders on the outside of the dash-board; under your seat is a screw-wrench, on the axle is strapped a smear-pot. There is just room left for yourself; and with a wide-awake on your head, the rope reins in one hand, some apology for a whip Went to see the Queen arrive. At the Riding School the Burgher Guard were drawn up. The uniform is yellow and blue, and they are called ' the canary birds.' Their horses were small, but strong and good.