Ticket No. "9672"

CHAPTER II.

Dal is a mod­est ham­let con­sist­ing of but a few hous­es; some on ei­ther side of a road that is lit­tle more than a bri­dle-​path, oth­ers scat­tered over the sur­round­ing hills. But they all face the nar­row val­ley of Ves­fjord­dal, with their backs to the line of hills to the north, at the base of which flows the Maan.

A lit­tle church erect­ed in 1855, whose chan­cel is pierced by two nar­row stained-​glass win­dows, lifts its square bel­fry from out a leafy grove hard by. Here and there rus­tic bridges cross the rivulets that dance mer­ri­ly along to­ward the riv­er. In the dis­tance are two or three prim­itive saw-​mills, run by wa­ter-​pow­er, with a wheel to move the saw, as well as a wheel to move the beam or the tree; and seen from a lit­tle dis­tance, the chapel, saw-​mills, hous­es, and cab­ins, all seem to be en­veloped in a soft olive haze that em­anates from the dark-​green firs and the paler birch­es which ei­ther singly or in groups ex­tend from the wind­ing banks of the Maan to the crests of the lofty moun­tains.

Such is the fresh and laugh­ing ham­let of Dal, with its pic­turesque dwellings, paint­ed, some of them, in del­icate green or pale pink tints, oth­ers in such glar­ing col­ors as bright yel­low and blood-​red. The roofs of birch bark, cov­ered with turf, which is mown in the au­tumn, are crowned with nat­ural flow­ers. All this is in­de­scrib­ably charm­ing, and em­inent­ly char­ac­ter­is­tic of the most pic­turesque coun­try in the world. In short, Dal is in the Tele­mark, the Tele­mark is in Nor­way, and Nor­way is in Switzer­land, with thou­sands of fiords that per­mit the sea to kiss the feet of its moun­tains.

The Tele­mark com­pos­es the broad por­tion of the im­mense horn that Nor­way forms be­tween Bergen and Chris­tia­nia.

This de­pen­den­cy of the pre­fec­ture of Bats­berg, has the moun­tains and glaciers of Switzer­land, but it is not Switzer­land. It has gi­gan­tic wa­ter-​falls like North Amer­ica, but it is not Amer­ica. The land­scape is adorned with pic­turesque cot­tages, and pro­ces­sions of in­hab­itants, clad in cos­tumes of a for­mer age, like Hol­land, but it is not Hol­land. The Tele­mark is far bet­ter than any or all of these; it is the Tele­mark, not­ed above all coun­tries in the world for the beau­ty of its scenery. The writ­er has had the plea­sure of vis­it­ing it. He has ex­plored it thor­ough­ly, in a kar­iol with re­lays of post-​hors­es--when he could get them--and he brought back with him such a vivid rec­ol­lec­tion of its man­ifold charms that he would be glad to con­vey some idea of it to the read­er of this sim­ple nar­ra­tive.

At the date of this sto­ry, 1862, Nor­way was not yet tra­versed by the rail­road that now en­ables one to go from Stock­holm to Dron­theim, by way of Chris­tia­nia. Now, an ex­ten­sive net­work of iron rails ex­tends en­tire­ly across these two Scan­di­na­vian coun­tries, which are so averse to a unit­ed ex­is­tence. But im­pris­oned in a rail­road-​car­riage, the trav­el­er, though he makes much more rapid progress than in a kar­iol, miss­es all the orig­inal­ity that for­mer­ly per­vad­ed the routes of trav­el. He miss­es the jour­ney through South­ern Swe­den on the cu­ri­ous Gotha Canal, in which the steam­boats, by ris­ing from lock to lock, man­age to reach an el­eva­tion of three hun­dred feet. Nor does he have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to vis­it the falls of Trol­letann, nor Dram­men, nor Kongs­berg, nor any of the beau­ties of the Tele­mark.

In those days the rail­road ex­ist­ed on­ly up­on pa­per. Twen­ty years were to elapse be­fore one could tra­verse the Scan­di­na­vian king­dom from one shore to the oth­er in forty hours, and vis­it the North Cape on ex­cur­sion tick­ets to Spitzberg.

In those days Dal was, and may it long re­main, the cen­tral point for for­eign or na­tive tourists, these last be­ing for the most part stu­dents from Chris­tia­nia. From Dal they could wan­der over the en­tire Tele­mark and Hardan­ger re­gion, ex­plore the val­ley of Ves­fjord­dal be­tween Lakes Mjos and Tinn, and vis­it the won­der­ful cataracts of the Rjukan Tun. The ham­let boasts of but one inn, but that is cer­tain­ly the most at­trac­tive and com­fort­able imag­in­able, and one of the most im­por­tant al­so, for it can of­fer four bed-​cham­bers for the ac­com­mo­da­tion of its guests. In a word, it is Dame Hansen's inn.

A few bench­es sur­round the base of its pink walls, which are sep­arat­ed from the ground by a sub­stan­tial gran­ite foun­da­tion. The spruce rafters and weath­er-​board­ing have ac­quired such hard­ness and tough­ness with age that the sharpest hatch­et can make lit­tle or no im­pres­sion up­on them. Be­tween the rough­ly hewn rafters, which are placed hor­izon­tal­ly one above the oth­er, a mix­ture of clay and turf forms a stanch roof, through which the hard­est win­ter rains can not force their way.

Up­stairs, in the bed­rooms, the ceil­ings are paint­ed in dark red or black tints to con­trast with the more cheer­ful and del­icate hues of the wood-​work.

In one cor­ner of the large hall stands a huge cylin­der stove, the pipe of which ris­es near­ly to the ceil­ing, be­fore it dis­ap­pears in the kitchen chim­ney. In an­oth­er cor­ner stands a tall clock which emits a sonorous tick-​tack, as its carved hands trav­el slow­ly around its enam­eled face. Here is a sec­re­tary, black with age, side by side with a mas­sive iron tri­pod. Up­on the man­tel is an im­mense ter­ra-​cot­ta can­dle­stick which can be trans­formed in­to a three-​branched can­de­labrum by turn­ing it up­side down. The hand­somest fur­ni­ture in the house adorns this spa­cious hall--the birch-​root ta­ble, with its spread­ing feet, the big chest with its rich­ly wrought brass han­dles, in which the Sun­day and hol­iday cloth­ing is kept, the tall arm-​chair, hard and un­com­fort­able as a church-​pew, the paint­ed wood­en chairs, and the spin­ning-​wheel striped with green, to con­trast with the scar­let pet­ti­coat of the spin­ner.

Yon­der stands the pot in which the but­ter is kept, and the pad­dle with which it is worked, and here is the to­bac­co-​box, and the grater of elab­orate­ly carved bone.

And, fi­nal­ly, over the door which opens in­to the kitchen is a large dress­er, with long rows of brass and cop­per cook­ing-​uten­sils and bright-​col­ored dish­es, the lit­tle grind­stone for sharp­en­ing knives, half-​buried in its var­nished case, and the egg-​dish, old enough to serve as a chal­ice.

And how won­der­ful and amus­ing are the walls, hung with linen tapestries rep­re­sent­ing scenes from the Bible, and bril­liant with all the gor­geous col­or­ing of the pic­tures of Epinal.

As for the guests' rooms, though they are less pre­ten­tious, they are no less com­fort­able, with their spot­less neat­ness, their cur­tains of hang­ing-​vines that droop from the turf-​cov­ered roof, their huge beds, sheet­ed with snowy and fra­grant linen, and their hang­ings with vers­es from the Old Tes­ta­ment, em­broi­dered in yel­low up­on a red ground.

Nor must we for­get that the floor of the main hall, and the floors of all the rooms, both up­stairs and down, are strewn with lit­tle twigs of birch, pine, and ju­niper, whose leaves fill the house with their health­ful and ex­hil­arat­ing odor.

Can one imag­ine a more charm­ing _posa­da_ in Italy, or a more se­duc­tive _fon­da_ in Spain? No. And the crowd of En­glish tourists have not yet raised the scale of prices as in Switzer­land--at least, they had not at the time of which I write. In Dal, the cur­rent coin is not the pound ster­ling, the sovereign of which the trav­el­ers' purse is soon emp­tied. It is a sil­ver coin, worth about five francs, and its sub­di­vi­sions are the mark, equal in val­ue to about a franc, and the skilling, which must not be con­found­ed with the En­glish shilling, as it is on­ly equiv­alent to a French _sou_.

Nor will the tourist have any op­por­tu­ni­ty to use or abuse the pre­ten­tious bank-​note in the Tele­mark. One-​mark notes are white; five-​mark notes are blue; ten-​mark notes are yel­low; fifty-​mark notes, green; one hun­dred mark notes, red. Two more, and we should have all the col­ors of the rain­bow.

Be­sides--and this is a point of very con­sid­er­able im­por­tance--the food one ob­tains at the Dal inn is ex­cel­lent; a very un­usu­al thing at hous­es of pub­lic en­ter­tain­ment in this lo­cal­ity, for the Tele­mark de­serves on­ly too well its sur­name of the But­ter­milk Coun­try. At Ti­ness, Listhus, Tinoset, and many oth­er places, no bread is to be had, or if there be, it is of such poor qual­ity as to be un­eat­able. One finds there on­ly an oat­en cake, known as _flat brod_, dry, black, and hard as paste­board, or a coarse loaf com­posed of a mix­ture of birch-​bark, lichens, and chopped straw. Eggs are a lux­ury, and a most stale and un­prof­itable one; but there is any quan­ti­ty of poor beer to be had, a pro­fu­sion of but­ter­milk, ei­ther sweet or sour, and some­times a lit­tle cof­fee, so thick and mud­dy that it is much more like dis­tilled soot than the prod­ucts of Mocha or Rio Nunez.

In Dame Hansen's es­tab­lish­ment, on the con­trary, cel­lar and larder were alike well-​stored. What more could the most ex­act­ing tourist ask than salmon, ei­ther salt or smoked--fresh salmon that have nev­er tast­ed taint­ed wa­ters, fish from the pure streams of the Tele­mark, fowls, nei­ther too fat nor too lean, eggs in ev­ery style, crisp oat­en and bar­ley cakes, fruits, more es­pe­cial­ly straw­ber­ries, bread--un­leav­ened bread, it is here, but of the very best qual­ity--beer, and some old bot­tles of that Saint Julien that have spread the fame of French vine­yards even to this dis­tant land?

And this be­ing the case, it is not strange that the inn at Dal is well and fa­vor­ably known in all the coun­tries of North­ern Eu­rope.

One can see this, too, by glanc­ing over the reg­is­ter in which many trav­el­ers have not on­ly record­ed their names, but paid glow­ing trib­utes to Dame Hansen's mer­its as an inn-​keep­er. The names are prin­ci­pal­ly those of Swedes and Nor­we­gians from ev­ery part of Scan­di­navia; but the En­glish make a very re­spectable show­ing; and one of them, who had wait­ed at least an hour for the sum­mit of Gous­ta to emerge from the morn­ing mist that en­veloped it, wrote up­on one of the pages:

“Pa­ti­en­tia om­nia vincit?”