m 6IL5: ItK YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, DURING The Years 1834, 1835, and 1836; MADE WITH A VIEW TO INQUIRE INTO THE MORAL AND POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THAT COUNTRY, AND THE CONDITION OF ITS INHABITANTS. BY SAMUEL LAING, ESQ. LONDON: ralNTED FOB. LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMAN, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1836. London : Printed by A. Spottiswoode, New- Street- Square. INTRODUCTION. Norway has been visited and described by von Buch, Dr. Clarke, and other travellers of science and talent ; but these enlightened observers have naturally directed their attention to the geology, botany, and sublime natural scenery which the country presents in the most interesting forms, and have bestowed little of it on the social condi tion and state of the Norwegian people. They are, however, the most interesting and singular group of people in Europe. They live under an cient laws and social arrangements totally different in principle from those which regulate society and property in the feudally constituted countries ; and among them, perhaps, may be traced the germ of all the free institutions which distinguish the British constitution at the present day. They present to the political philosQpher the singular spectacle of a nation emerging suddenly from un der the hand of an uncontrolled and absolute sovereign power, with their civil liberties and social arrangements so well adapted to their con dition, and so well secured by their ancient laws, A 2 IV INTRODUCTION. that the transition from despotism to democracy was unmarked by any convulsion, or revolutionary movement, or important change in the state of society and property. The remarkable firmness, moderation, and judgment with which this people have exercised the legislative power, vested by their constitution entirely in their representatives, place them, in the moral estimate of European nations, in a much higher rank than those who have re ceived a much greater share of the public atten tion in this country. Norway has a claim morally and poHticaUy upon the British nation, which renders her social con dition and her present constitution of peculiar interest. In 1813 our government was party to a treaty with Sweden, — the foulest blot, perhaps, in British history, — by which we agreed, in consi deration of Sweden joining the Allied Powers against Buonaparte, to give Sweden the kingdom of Norway, of which neither of the contracting parties had at that moment possession, even as military occupants of the territory, and far less any shadow of rightful claim to it. It would be a case in point, as far as regards principle, if Russia and Denmark were to conclude a treaty for giving to Russia the kingdom of Ireland. Providence sometimes will not allow our measures to be so flagitious as we design them. The Norwegians declared themselves an independent nation upon the Danish monarch renouncing the sovereignty INTRODUCTION. of Norway, framed a constitution, and proclaimed the son of their former sovereign king. The Danish prince abdicated his newly acquired crown rather than engage in so unequal a contest with Sweden and England ; and these two contracting powers redeemed in so far the character of their private nefarious treaty, that the Norwegian nation was not, as in the case of Poland, handed over like a herd of black cattle from one potentate to another, but their distinct national existence was acknowledged, their new constitution was accepted of on the 17th of May, 1814, and solemnly sworn to by the proposed monarch, the late king of Sweden ; and on these conditions only, viz. the distinct existence as a nation of the kingdom of Norway, and the preservation of its constitution as sworn to, were the two crowns of Norway and Sweden united — under the guarantee of this country, as one of the Allied Powers, to support each party, the Kings of Sweden and the Norwegian nation, in their just rights. Great Britain is therefore morally and in honour bound to preserve the national independence of Norway, and her singu larly liberal and well constructed constitution. Norway never can become a province of Sweden nor be deprived of her present constitution, while there exists in the British cabinet honour or re spect for its own guarantee ; and abhorrence in the nation of a participation in a measure which would have been in principle and in effect exactly similar A 3 Vl INTRODUCTION. to the partition of Poland, but for the redeeming circumstances of our recognising and guaranteeing the independent national existence and free con stitution of Norway. The writer of the following observations aims at a higher object than the amusement or instruction of those who may read them. He would draw the attention of this country, if he had the ability to do so, to the important duty which, by the transactions of 1813 and 1814, we are moraUy bound as a nation to perform to this handful of free and happy people living under a liberal con stitution, flourishing under their own legislation, and making no demands, asking no favours, from the other governments of Europe, unless that Great Britain should watch over the guarantee she has given for their independent existence and the enjoyment of their constitution of the 17th of May, 1814. London, Awffust 12. 1836. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. ] Norway interesting from its peculiar Law of Succession. — Steam-Boats. — Gottenburg. — Trollhsetta Chris- tiania. — Money — Fish. — Slaves Cariole travelling. — Myosen Lake. — Farms. — Houses. — Haymaking. — Ladies' Side-Saddles. — Laurgaard. — Goats. — Log- Houses. — Norwegian and Scotch Highlanders. — Con dition, Property, Food, Lodging compared Timber Duties. — Snow. — Dovre Field. — Mill Sneehaette. — Game. — Fishing. — Norwegian Inns. — Saekness. — Sundset. ---... CHAPTER II. Dronthiem. — Inn. — Cathedral. — Town. — Shipping Library. — Saxon and Norman Arches. — Gothic Ar chitecture. — Stordal. — Colonel George Sinclair. — Rocking Stones Levanger. — Dronthiem Fiord and Bothnian Gulph. — Norwegian Farm. — Hops. — Stik- klestad. — Date of the Battle corrected by an Eclipse. — Vserdal. — Peasants. — Cross Roads. — Snaasen Vand. — Steenkjier. — Scotch Farmers. — Norwegian Farms. — Value, Size, Taxes, Harvest Work, Ploughing Gigot Sleeves. — My Winter Quarters. - - 63 Vm CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. Page Brusved Gaatd. — Polite Manners of the Lower Classes. — Breed of Cattle Bible Society. — Potato Brandy. — Earthquakes in Norway. — Norwegian Constitu tion. — Storthing, — Qualifications. — Election Men. — Representation. — The Power of the Legislative. — Attempts to alter the Constitution defeated. — Amalga mation with Sweden not desirable. — Veto of the Executive suspensive only. — Constitutional Principles generally diffused The Press Newspapers. — In fluence. — Free in Norway. — Not in Sweden, - 108 CHAPTER IV. Theatrical Representations. — Holberg. — Winter. — Sledge-driving. — Snow-skating. — Laplanders Rein deer Venison. — Reindeer Farming. — Expensive Wed dings. — Betrothals. — Checks on Population. — Housemen. — Illegitimate Children. — Their Condition in Norway. — Light and Darkness in Winter sublime. — English Poor Rates. — Use of Coal instead of Wood for Fuel. — -Effect on the Condition of the Poor. — Family Room or Hall of a Norwegian House in the Morning. — State of Manners among the People. — Forms of Politeness. — Station of the Female Sex in Society. — Female Employments. — Small Estates. — Number of Landholders in Scotland and Norway com pared. — The Effect on the Condition of the Females of the small Estates. — Berend Island Coals White Bears. — The Fair. — Sobriety Crimes. — Yule. — Norwegian Entertainments. — Arrival of a Sledge Party. — Ease and Uniformity of Living. — Norwegian Church. — Incomes. — Education. — No Dissent. — Confirma tion. — Sunday. — Observance in the Lutheran Church. — Educated Labourers in England in a worse Condition than uneducated Remedy. - 139 CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER V. Page King's Birthday. — Manners of the Middle Class. — Ball and Supper. — Loyalty. — Jealousy of National Inde pendence. — King's Style. — Carl III. or Carl XIV. ? — Budstick. — Hue and Cry — Remarkable Landslip Peasantry. — Udal Property. — Udal Laws. — Early Maturity of Udal System. — Civilisation of the Northern Invaders. — Scalds. — The Grey Goose. — Its Enact ments. — Jury Trial. — Its Origin in Udal Law. — Present Administration of Law. — Court of Arbitra tion. — Sorenskrivers' Court. — Jury. — Christian V. — Law Book. — Liberal Institutions for 1687. — Ireland and Norway. — England and Denmark. — Punishment of Death abolished. — Loss of Honour an effective Punishment. — Stifts Amt Court. — The Hoieste ret Court a Part of the State. — Peculiar Principle of Re sponsibility of Judges. - - - - 194 CHAPTER VI. Another Fair. — Skins. — Dogs bred for Fur. — Books at the Fair. — Bible Society's Operations counteract the Diffusion of the Bible in Foreign Lands. — Laplanders. — Peculiar Race. — Present State. — Numbers. — Lan guage. — Value of Stock required to subsist a Laplander. — The Fjelde Life. — Its Attractions — Corn Banks Thrashing Machines. — Probably a Norwegian, not a Scotch Invention. — Fences in Norway. — Description. — Advantages. — Economy. — Russian Population. — Power. — Policy. — Value to Russia of a Sea-Coast. — Northern Provinces of Finmark and Nordland. — Their Connection with Norway — with Russia. — Probable Views of Russia on that Part of Scandinavia North of the 62° of Latitude Importance of such an Acquisi tion. — Indications that it is contemplated. - - 241 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. Page Emigrants of small Capital. — Norway better than Canada. — Land cheap. — Labour cheap. — Houses good. — Mode of purchasing Land. — Bank of Norway. — Pecu liar System of Banking. — Moral Condition as affected by the general Diffusion of Property. — Physical Condi tion. — ¦ Lodging compared to that of the Scotch Pea santry. — Food. — Living in a Norwegian Family of the middle Class. — Use of Spirits. — Temperance Societies. — Gravesend Smacks. — Bothy for Farm Servants. — Bed-clothes. — Foreign Luxuries. — Cheapness. — Bond ing System. — Clothing Household Manufactures. — Advertisement of a Farm to be sold. — Value of Money. — Climate. .... - 274 CHAPTER VIII. Fishing in Norway. — Hire a Farm. — Description. — Ancient Fresh-Water Lakes Midgrunden Gaard. — ' Farming. — Rent. — Asiatic Origin of Scandinavians Laplanders, Celtic. — Use of Horse Flesh. — Hereditary Attachment to the Horse. — Berserker. — Peculiar In toxication. — Domestic Servants in America — in Norway. — Housekeepers in Families. — Provisions. — Capercailzie. — Ptarmigan. — Jerper. — Bear-shooting. — Hybernation of Animals. — Condition of Bonder Class. — Equality of Manners. — Excursion to Snasen-Vand. — Ancient Sea-Beach above the present Level of the Sea. — Excursion through the Fjelde. — Bark Bread. — Vasra Lake. — Shjaekkerhatte. — Bivouac. — Shjaekker Valley. — Trees at various Elevations above the Sea Furu. — Gran. — Birch. .... 304, CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER IX. Page Orkney and Zetland belonged to Norway. — Pledged for Fifty Thousand Florins. — Tradition Claim to redeem these Provinces. — Torfaeus. — Christian V. — Buona parte Dr. Clarke. — Saga. — Sea King Swein. — His Adventures. — Jarl Rognvald Cathedral. — Churches in Romney Marsh. — Free Institutions. — Kings. — Harald Haarfagre. — Hakon. — Former Classes of So ciety. — Sigurd Sir. — Manners described in the Saga. — Dress of Sigurd Sir Are the Priest. — Scalds Alliteration. — Authorities of Saga. — Kuads. — Nor wegian Literature. — Road from the Dronthiem Fiord to the Bothnian Gulph Important Basis for the Mili tary Defence of Norway and Sweden. — King's Visit by this Road to Norway, compared with that of George IV. to Scotland. — His Visit to the Field of Stikkleslad. — His Reception by the Norwegians Triumph of Con stitutional Principles. — The Election in our District for the Storthing. — Distillation of Spirits from Potatoes. — Effect of the free Distillation on Population and Pro perty. — State of Sea-side Population. — The Winter Fishing at Lafoden Use of Nets in the Cod Fishery. — Regulations. — Herring Fishery. — Bonder or Agri cultural Population. — Fjelde Bonder. — Their Con dition. — Ancient Families. ... 349 CHAPTER X. Lapland Girl — Slighted by the Norwegians — Condition. — Visits from Laplanders. — OphthaHnia. — Reindeer. — Sledges. — Speed. — Powers of Draught. — Reindeer cannot endure Wet. — Cannot live in Scotland. — Buy a fat Reindeer for killing Lapland Butcher. — Weight of Four Quarters. — Cold. — Birds Wolves Tra velling Dress in Winter. — Journey to Dronthiem. — Vollan Ovne. — Jerkin. — Winter Scenery in the Xll CONTENTS. Page Glens. — Sledge-driving. — Winter on the Fjelde. — Substitutes for Hay in feeding Cattle. — Acquired Tastes of Cattle. — Remains of old Buildings on Dovre Fjeld. — Picts' Houses in Scotland. — Guldebrandsdal in Winter. — Hammer. — Sunshine as hurtful as Frost to the Crops in Norway. — Complete little Estates. — How an English Family could live here. — American Towns. — Norwegian Horses. - - - 409 CHAPTER XI. Christiania. — Fiord Frozen. — Population. — University. — Students. — State of Education in Norway. — The Meeting of Storthing. — Number of Members. — Prin ciple of Reform of the Representation always acting. — What Description of Persons in this Storthing Pay of Members. — The Lagthing or House of Lords. — How elected. — What Description of Persons. — Storthing properly three Houses of Parliament. — Mode of Pro cedure with Bills Rejection of Royal Propositions for a Veto and Power to naturalize. — Chambers. — Dress. — Appearance of Members. — Speaking. — Examples of Procedure. — Ornaments of a Statue of Odin. — Booty of an ancient Vaeringer. — Question before Storthing how to dispose of these. — Return of Bank of Norway to Cash Payments. — Debate in Storthing How de termined. — Influence ofthe Press. — Simplicity of Pro cedure in the Storthing. — Constitution works well. — By whom framed. — Guaranteed to Norway by England. — Treaty of March, 1813. — Character of our Proceed ings. — Bound in Principle to guard the Independence and Constitution of Norway. — Conclusions. — Best Structure of Society. — True Checks on Over-Popula tion. — Only Remedy for the Condition of the Irish People. - . . - . 4,4.0 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, THE YEARS 1834, 1835, 1836. " O fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint 'fp 'Tf vF tF * * extrema per illos Justitia excedens terris vestigia fecit." ViR. Georg. II. CHAPTER I. NORWAY INTERESTING FROM ITS PECULIAR LAW OF SUCCES SION STEAM-BOATS. GOTTENBURG. — TROLLHjETTA. CHRISTIANIA. MONEY. — FISH. SLAVES. CARIOLE TRAVELLING. MYOSEN LAKE. FARMS. HOUSES. HAYMAKING. — LADIEs' SIDE-SADDLES. — LAURGAARD. GOATS. LOG-HOUSES. NORWEGIAN AND SCOTCH HIGH LANDERS CONDITION, PROPERTY, FOOD, LODGING COM PARED. TIMBER DUTIES. SNOW. DOVRE FIELD. MILL. — SNEEH.ffi;TTE. — GAME. FISHING. NORWEGIAN INNS. SJEKNESS. SUNDSET. Hull, July 7. 1834. Norway is a country peculiarly interesting to the political economist. It is the only part of Europe in which property, from the earliest ages, has been transmitted upon the principle of partition among all the children. The feudal structure of society, B 2 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. with its law of primogeniture, and its privileged class of hereditary nobles, never prevailed in Nor way. In this remote corner of the civilised world we may, therefore, see the effects upon the condi tion of society of this peculiar distribution of pro perty; it will exhibit, on a small scale, what America and France will be a thousand years hence. From a period coeval with the establishment of the feudal system, the land and the people of Norway have been under the influence ofthe mode of succession which those countries have only recently adopted. What effect has this produced on the state of society ? on the condition ofthe lower and middle classes in this peculiar community ? what on the arrange ment and distribution of its landed property after a thousand years of division and subdivision? A single fact, brought home from such a country, is worth a volume of speculation. Ihadlong entertained a wish to visitNorway, partly to investigate the social condition of a people living under institutions so ancient and peculiar, and which have recently been adopted by two of the greatest of modern nations, and partly from the historical in terest which we attach to every thing Norwegian. Here we expect to see the original type of institu tions, customs, and domestic usages which England received by the Norman conquest, and the long previous occupation of a large portion of her terri tory by invaders of Norwegian race. Few readers of the historical events of the middle ages rise from the perusal without a wish to visit the country from which issued, in the tenth century, the men who RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 3 conquered the fairest portions of Europe. Such were the objects, to investigate which the writer was induced to spend nearly two years in this re mote part of Europe ; and he will now, in the form of a journal, communicate the result of his inquiries. Gottenburg, July, 1834. — Steam-boats interfere most particularly with the vocation of the traveller who sets out in quest of all sorts of adventures and perils by sea and land, and hopes to edify and astonish his friends at home bythe narration of them. These mail coaches of the ocean deliver him and his portmanteau, on the other side ofthe North Sea, within twenty minutes ofthe appointed time, with out more adventure, and with considerably less trou ble, than if he were journeying in the coach from Charing Cross to Greenwich ; and he finds himself with his hands in his breeches' pockets, whistling along the quay of Gottenburg, before he is well aware that he has left the favourite corner in his old accustomed coffee-room, and has actually accom plished a voyage across the salt seas. The fare by the steam-packet from Hull to Got tenburg is about seven pounds sterling ; and we , accomplished the passage in seventy-two hours, with favourable weather and a smooth sea. There were only five passengers on board, and, I understand, seventeen are the greatest number the vessel ever conveyed to Gottenburg. This, of course, would be a ruinous trade for a steam-vessel ; but the owners are secured from loss by a contract with the British and Swedish post-offices. They receive four thou- B 2 4 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. sand pounds for conveying the mails to and from Gottenburg once a week, during nine months of the year. This is a very limited intercourse between the two countries. Hamburgh, being the centre of exchanges and of mercantile affairs for the north of Europe, is the route which men of business prefer both for themselves and their letters. Our Nor wegian steam-packet mails are very ill regulated. The steam-packet from Copenhagen and Gotten burg to Norway was leaving the latter port while we were entering the river, so that our mails and passengers for Norway, although arriving at the proper hour, will be detained here a week. It appears extraordinary that three millions of people, so near to our coast, requiring all the arti cles which we manufacture, and having commodities which we specially require, — wood and iron, — should have so little correspondence with Britain. At one of our country post towns there are pro bably received and delivered more letters in a day than are transmitted to or from Scandinavia in a week. This surely implies something wrong in the commercial relations between the two coun tries. I have passed a pleasant week at Gottenburg. I became acquainted at the table-d'hote with a Swedish gentleman from Sundsval, on the Both nian Gulf, who spoke French and German ; as he had also a few leisure days to get rid of, we re solved to visit together the Falls of Trollhaetta. We set off at eight in the morning, in a little steam boat which plies up and down the river Gotha : RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 5 her machinery, I observe, was made at Dundee, possibly of Swedish iron. The day was beautiful ; the sun sparkling in the water ; the boat running swiftly along, and the passengers numerous, gay, evidently good-humoured folk, who had set out determined to enjoy themselves. Between eating, drinking, smoking, admiring the scenery, and three-card Loo, we got on very successfully ; and in eight hours were landed at the hamlet of Lilla Edet. The scenery on the Gotha is not fine : marshes on each side reach to flat fields, bounded by hills skirting the river-valley, at the distance of half a mile on each side. These hills are mere knobs or hummocks of gneiss, scantily covered with soil, and with edges of granite occasionally shoot ing up through it. As we approach Lilla Edet the hills close in, and the scenery resembles the tamest views on the Cumberland Lakes. It is water sleeping between" green banks and woods, and the current is scarcely perceptible till near Lilla Edet. We landed on the right bank, the river ceasing to be navigable on account of rocks in the channel. Having hired a four-wheeled vehicle and a pair of horses, we drove about six teen miles to a ferry, where we crossed to the locks of the celebrated Trollhsetta Canal, at the foot of the great waterfall. Our road was over an open country, apparently well and carefully cultivated in the plain and valleys ; but the hills, although of small elevation, are bare knobs of rock shooting up through the earth, without a particle of soil on them. These naked ribs of gneiss and granite run B 3 6 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. through the country, like the bare bones of some giant-skeleton, leaving between them small inter vals skinned over with a thin covering of soil, and forming, together with the river-valley, the only parts ofthe country capable of cultivation. Every patch of soil seemed occupied. The rest of the country in view, to the extent, I should think, of four fifths of the surface, was naked rock, without even moss or heath. When a country containing a great extent of such land is compared as to the number of inhabitants with other regions, it is to be remembered, that of the square mile of 640 acres there should be thrown out of the account perhaps 200 acres or more, as bare rock, or waters producing neither subsistence nor employment for man. With this allowance, I should suppose, from the many odd nooks and corners in which houses are set down, and attempts made at cultivation, where six or eight sheaves of corn only could be raised, that land is scarce even in proportion to the population ; and that every square mile of what really is land is inhabited as densely as in other cultivated countries. Small patches of soil between the rocks, which, in a territory where good soil was plentiful, would be neglected as inconvenient, are here occupied. Without some correction of this kind, the statements ofthe number of inhabit ants to the square mile in different countries fur nish no correct data for comparing the agricultural industry of one country with that of another. The canal of Trollhaetta did not appear to me a work of such great magnificence as it is often con- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 7 sidered. The idea originally formed by Charles the Twelfth was undoubtedly bold, and superior to his age. The splendid inland sea called the Wenner is connected on one side by a chain of lakes with the Baltic, and on the other by the river Gotha with the North Sea. The Falls of Trollhaetta, on the Gotha, are the only impediment to a free na vigation from the ocean into the Baltic. The idea of overcoming it by a series of locks was the con ception of a great mind, but the execution is la mentably defective. The locks strike the eye at once as too narrow for vessels of sufficient breadth of beam to navigate the Baltic, the North Sea, or even the Wenner, yet unnecessarily wide for canal boats or river barges. This defect appears ex traordinary ; since,* great as the undertaking was, the execution consisted simply in excavating a very hard and solid rock, in which every inch quarried was gained for ever, and any dimensions whatever could have been given by patience and gunpowder. There were none of those natural difficulties to contend with, such as soft soils in the sides, loose sands or gravel, slips of clay, springs, rivers, valleys, or hills to turn or surmount, and all that variety of obstacles which place canal engineering among the highest efforts of human intellect. As a work of art, the Trollhaetta cannot be placed by the side of the Caledonian Canal ; the difficulties were vastly inferior ; and in the execution of the locks, lock-gates stone-work, and in the finish of the whole, it cannot be compared to its rival, which, in its present state of perfection, is undoubtedly B 4 8 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. the finest work which Scotland can show to the stranger. In consequence of this defect in the Trollhaetta Canal, it is proposed to excavate another of greater width of lock by its side : it is not pro bable, however, that such an undertaking would ever defray the expense. Commerce is somewhat wayward, and will not take the road which go vernment and ministers point out. The Troll haetta and Caledonian Canals are similar in one respect ; both, in proportion to their cost, are almost equally useless. The Trollhsetta, how ever, serves to convey wood from the Wenner Lake to the saw-mills at the Falls, and from the mills to the navigable part of the Gotha, The north and west coasts of the Wenner are the prin cipal districts for timber. TRe blocks of wood, that is, the trunks of the trees divested of bark and branches, are floated down the rivers which run through the forests in the back country, and fall into the Wenner in the neighbourhood of Carlstadt : they are there shipped in schooners and sloops, which carry from fourteen to forty dozen blocks ; and they are transported, at the freight of five dollars banco per dozen, to TroU- hastta, where they are sawed into planks. The saw-mills are erected on the very edge of the ca taract. The boldness of their situation is one of the most striking features of Trollhsetta. The -Falls are the most magnificent in the north of Europe ; but it were idle to attempt to describe the scenery. Trollhaetta is a village containing nearly a thou sand inhabitants, and a large and good inn. A RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 9 party of actors from the opera-house at Stockholm, unfortunately for us, possessed the best accommo dations. These French of the North, as Voltaire calls the Swedes, are as fond of the theatre as the Parisian French. I found the mate of our steam boat reading " Medea en Opera ;" and all the saw mill population of Trollhaetta were opera going people. Our accommodations at this good inn were consequently not of the best ; and I found, in bed at least, ten thousand good reasons for getting up long before sunrise. I advise the tra veller who may visit Trollhsetta for its sublime scenery to do the same, and see the falls amid the morning mists, and before living things are a-stir- ring. The enormous chasm through which this great body of water rolls from the Wenner, makes the artificial canal beside it appear a mere scratch on tiie surface ofthe earth. A time must have been, however, when this chasm itself was only a scratch on the granite ; for all the rocks around and above it are water-worn, and have been long submerged, apparently under running water. One remarkable place is shown to strangers, because the king and other great personages have inscribed their names in it ; but it is much more remarkable, because it could only have been scooped out into such rounded and polished hollows in the hard substance of the primary rock by the continued action of water in motion over it for a length of time beyond ima gination. When my Swedish friend awoke, we recrossed 10 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. the river below the falls, and set off to regain the steam-boat. He drove our little calash, which looked like a bundle of hop-poles upon axle-trees ; and, certainly, no English coachman would have taken his vehicle down such steeps as we rattled over at full speed. I thought at first the gentleman was trying my nerves at the risk of our necks, but I saw every person on the road proceeding in the same way. It is the serious, sober way of driving in this country, to take every slope, although it should be as steep as the roof of a house, at full gallop. The carriages are light, the horses small, active, and in excellent wind. They finished their stage, at their utmost rate of exertion, without panting or distress. Gottenburg resembles some of the old decayed towns of Holland, with its wide streets of good houses, canals in the middle of the streets, and nothing stirring either in the streets or in the canals. Few places have suffered greater vicissi tudes. It had a flourishing herring fishery; but the fish disappeared from the Skaggerack, and never returned. It had an East India trade, which failed ; and during the last war it had a third period of prosperity, which vanished with the return of peace. The population is about 16,000 ; and there is a suburb, called Clippen, extending more than two miles below the city, which contains, probably, as many more. They are of the labouring and sea faring class. The shipping come no higher up the river than Clippen. The little cabins of the inha bitants of this suburb are built upon bare granite. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 11 with scarcely soil enough for gardens ; they are set down like so many wooden boxes on the side of the hill,- without any regularity. In threading my way through these crowded habitations, I observed that the meanest had a wooden floor and good windows, ornamented with the fringe, at least, of window- curtains ; and flower-pots, with pinks and other com mon flowers, well cared for, were in every house. These trifles indicate some degree of taste and lei sure among the labouring classes. At Gottenburg I put up at the hotel of a Scotch man, Mr. Tod, who has been settled there for many years. I found the accommodation good, and ex- pence moderate. Christiania, Monday, July 21. 1834. — I am at last in Norway. I embarked at Clippen on Satur day in the steam-packet Gustav Adolph, com manded by an officer of the Norwegian navy, with a lieutenant under him. I paid five dollars of Nor wegian money, or about twenty shillings sterling, for my passage from Gottenburg. The other pas sengers had all come in the vessel from Copen hagen. The sudden disjunction of Norway and Denmark left, of course, much business to be ad justed between individuals of the two countries : it occasioned much distress and loss t® persons having connections and property in both ; and it still pro duces a constant intercourse. We had beautiful weather, but saw little of the coast, as the steam- packet crosses the Skagerrack in a direct course from Gottenburg to Fredericksvarn, where we ar rived in the morning, and were removed into a 12 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. small coasting steam-boat, which takes passengers along the coast from Christiansahd to Christiania. It was pleasing to see the numbers of people avail- ins: themselves of this steam communication, and going from town to town. At Tonsburg, Holme- strand, Droback, Moss, and other places, we re ceived and put on shore passengers in considerable numbers. This is a country for steam navigation to produce its greatest benefits. The long fiords running into the heart of the Peninsula, and the immense extent of sea coast, defended by chains of islands and rocks just above water, which break the swell of the main ocean, and afford a kind of inland navigation, are precisely the waters fitted for steam navigation. The government appears aware of its value, and is making great and judicious ex ertions to promote it. The vessels are commanded by naval officers ; the fares are very moderate ; and in all that regards the management and comfort of passengers they equal our own. In a country too poor to have any competition in such expensive enterprises, it is, perhaps, wise in government to undertake them. Private speculators might, by in judicious avidity, prevent the establishment from taking root. If it should prove losing as to money, still the advantage to the country would justify the expenditure. A steam-boat costs less than a re giment : — which adds most to the wealth and strength of such a country, as Norway ? We arrived at Christiania in the evening, wind ing through its long fiord amid scenery quite new to me and delightful. The fiord, which in some RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 13 parts does not exceed the breadth of a moderate river, is so enclosed with woods and rocks, that we think it terminated, when, in a few minutes, we come to an expanse of water, studded with little ' islands, which appears to run up towards the moun tains, farther than we can see. Christiania is si tuated at the head of the fiord, on one of these expanses. I was surprised to find, last night on my arrival, that I had to go through all the ceremony at the custom-house of having my baggage visited, as if I had come direct from a foreign country, and not from part ofthe same kingdom. The Norwegians, it seems, keep themselves and all their establish ments perfectly and even jealously distinct from Sweden. I have got into the Hotel du Nord, apparently a great inn, and well kept. Christiania, Tuesday, July 22. — The money here is on a better footing, at least for the stranger, than in Sweden. The dollar, worth Ss. lOd. ster ling, at the present exchange, is divided into five marks, or orts, of twenty-four skillings each ; and there are notes of one dollar, half a dollar, and twenty-four skillings, all printed on white paper. The notes of five dollars are on blu|p paper, of ten on yellow, and of fifty on green. For sums below twenty-four skillings there is a copper and silver coinage of two and one skilling pieces. All this is very clear. — The weather is so excessively hot, which I did not expect in Norway, that in the middle of the day I could do nothing out of doors. 14 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. I strolled to the fish market, and found salmon and trout, eels, flounders, mackarel, gorebills, whitings, sethe or gadus virens, and other sea fish. I doubted whether these were caught so far up in these fiords ; but the lobster, which of all others can least support fresh water, is in abundance. The town has but a dull appearance : the streets, to prevent fires from spreading, are very wide ; so that a few pedestrians, with one or two carts, make no appearance. The shops have no great show externally, and altogether the town looks deserted; and at this season it probably is so. One thing here is very revolting to good taste and good feeling. The convicts or galley slaves are employed, sometimes along with other la bourers, in all parts of the town ; and two or three times a day you meet a gang of them going to, or returning from, their work. I saw a party marched into a house, from which I had be fore heard music with female voices, with which the clanking of the chains did not exactly har monise. They seem chained, too, in a brutal way, with iron collars round their necks and legs, which have projections, that must prevent their resting in any position. Some appear to be of an age too young to be irreclaimable ; but if they are all offenders who had deserved death, it would pro bably be better for society that they should suffer it, than that the public should be accustomed to the spectacle of the lowest degree of human wretchedness, without feeling any sympathy or emotion, which must be the case, if it be a daily RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 15 spectacle. I see them employed in mending boats, sawing wood, carrying mortar, and such work as necessarily brings them into communication with other labourers. They are even speaking to the children and women in the streets. It is not wise, and certainly not pleasant, to have these male factors constantly before the public. They lose all sense of their disgrace, and perhaps the citizens do the same. Christiania, Wednesday, July 23 The wea ther excessively sultry, which is unusual here. After considering and consulting about my mode of travelling, I have to day bought a little second hand cariole, for which, with the harness, I have paid twenty-five dollars, or about 31. 18*. The Norwegian cariole is a little gig, just large enough for one person, and resting between two low light wheels, upon two cross bars of wood morticed in the shafts. They are made also with iron springs ; but I preferred the wood, as in tra velling it can easily be got repaired, which iron work cannot; besides, the shafts are so elastic, that the jolting is very slight on ordinary roads. Travelling, I am told, is very cheap ; only one ort, about 9\d. sterling, for a horse, per Nor wegian mile, which is no less .than seven of our degenerate English miles. One must, a few hours before starting, send off a forbud, in travellers' language " a courier," but in humble reality, a little ragged boy, who for four skillings, or l\d. a stage, precedes you in a baggage cart with your luggage, and leaves at each post station 16 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. a printed notice, in which you have previously filled up the number of horses you require, and the hour of your arrival. The station master sends notice to the farmers whose turn it is to furnish horses for this service, and is entitled to four skillings per horse for his trouble. The horses are always in readiness, if fair time be allowed by sending off the forbud the day before. A book is kept at each station, in which the traveller states how he has been served ; and these books are examined and signed regularly by the local au thorities, and checked by superior officers of the district, and any complaint of undue delay is examined into. This arrangement certainly makes travelling easy, even to a stranger unacquainted with the language ; but I have been beset ever since I landed with couriers, valets, or inter preters, offering their services. These gentry seem to think it an infringement upon their privilege, that a foreigner, especially from England, should presume to travel without one of them to hold his purse. I have bought a travelling map, have made the waiter fill up forbud notices for horses, all the way up to what appears, by this map, to be the centre, or highest point of the country, where the waters part, and the great valleys begin, which is near a station called Jerkin. I have packed up and sent off my luggage this evening, by the forbud, and off I go by day-break to-morrow. July 24. — Having set off this morning at four, I resolved to make a good offing at first from the metropolis, and jog on more leisurely when I RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 17 should get into the heart of the country. I there fore travelled until sunset, and stopped at this single farmhouse, on the side of the Myosen lake, 10^ Norwegian miles, about 75 English, from the capital. The house, I understand, is called Frognet. I have had one of those delightful days of which one never loses the impression, and which one only passes in the midst of novel scenery. The Myosen is a splendid sheet of water. Its scenery I would class with the pas toral, or beautiful, rather than with the sublime. Its coasts are well cultivated, and with the ex ception of a few rough promontories dipping into the lake, the slopes are easy, and the back country in view not strikingly high. The crops of oats, bear, flax, peas, and potatoes, along its coast, are beautiful. The houses appear good. I have not seen one that could be called a poor habitation. July 26. — I got to this farmhouse, which is called Holmen, last night, about 8^ Norwegian, or 58 English, miles from Frognet. The scenery of a river, as large here as the Tay at Dunkeld, filling the narrow valley in some places, and in others, form ing a long motionless lake amidst the woods, or rushing like a mountain stream through the gorges, affords many picturesque points of view. At the end of the Myosen lake, there is a small village called Lille Hammer, which was formerly a town of some importance. It is the first village I have seen in the country. The extent of cultivation in the Strath of the Myosen, extending up to this village, surprised me. It is not merely a fringe 18 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. between the hill and the shore, but reaches far back among the hills, and over the summits of the ordinary heights. I would compare its breadth to that of Strathmore in Forfarshire. The farming cannot be very bad, for the crops of oats, bear, and rye are excellent. Potatoes, which appear to oc cupy the place of the turnip in our farming, are clean, and well horse-hoed. Draining and clear ing new land of roots of trees and stones, are going on in various quarters, and lime was laid out at one place for spreading. Farms appeared to be of various sizes ; I observed many so large that a bell was used as in Scotland, to call the labourers to or from their work, which shows a certain regularity in their operations. Some are so small as to have only a few sheaves of corn, or a rig or two of pota toes, . scattered among the trunks of the trees. These appear occupied by the farm-servants, or cottars, of the main farm, paying probably in work for their houses and lands, as in Scotland. Very good houses these are ; loghouses of four rooms, and all with glass windows. The light does not come down the chimney, or through a hole in the wall, shut up at night with an old hat, or a pair of old breeches, as in some cottages in the county of Edinburgh. The division of the land among chil dren, appears not, during the thousand years it has been in operation, to have had the effect of reduc ing the landed properties to the minimum size that will barely support human existence. I have counted from five and twenty to forty cows upon farms, »nd that in a country in which the farmer must. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 19 for at least seven months in the year, have winter provender and houses provided for all the cattle. It is evident that some cause or other, operating on aggregation of landed property, counteracts the dividing effects of partition among children. That cause can be no other than what I have long con jectured M'^ould be effective in such a social ar rangement ; viz., that in a country where land is held, not in tenancy merely, as in Ireland, but in full ownership, its aggregation by the deaths of co heirs, and by the marriages of female heirs among the body of landowners, will balance its subdi vision by the equal succession of children. The whole mass of property will, I conceive, be found in such a state of society to consist of as many estates of the class of 1000/., as many of 100/., as many of 10/. a year, at one period, as at another. The state of Ireland is generally adduced as a proof of the evil which would result from the abo lition of primogeniture. There it is stated, the sons of the peasant marry and settle upon a portion of the father's farm, itself originally too small for one family, and by this system of subdivision, the whole class of peasantry is reduced to a lower state in respect of decencies, comforts, and enjoyments, than any population which is ranked within the pale of civilised life. It has always appeared to me, however, that the state of Ireland instead of being a case in point, proves the very reverse. There the land and other property is not dissemin ated in ownership, or in small portions among the mass of the inhabitants. It is notoriously held in c 2 20 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. very large masses, by a very small proportion of the population. The peasantry having no property nor any reasonable prospect of ever possessing any, have not those tastes, habits, modes of thinking, prudence, and foresight, which accompany the possession of property, and which altogether form the true and natural check upon the tendency of population to exceed the means of subsistence. The Irish peasant gratifies the natural propensity to marriage, precisely because being destitute of property, and of its influences on the human mind, he has grown up to manhood without any restrain ing propensity. Take the Irish peasant who mar ries so recklessly in his own country, because he is without the rudest tastes and habits of a person imbued with a sense of property, and place him in London, where his labour '^is worth ten or twelve shillings a week, he is no longer an indolent or im provident man. He indulges a taste for gin, por ter, tobacco ; for the alehouse meetings of his fellow-labourers ; for such clothing, lodging, food, as they enjoy ; and to marry improvidently, and by the expense of a family abridge his habitual enjoy ments, is as much out of the question with him, as with a man of the higher and educated class of society. The restraints of property are upon him. He is, in fact, an educated man ; for the real edu cation of the human mind is to be found in that which daily and hourly exercises the mental powers and moral character — in the possession of property. Reading and writing are but means of education, not even efficacious in all states of society. A man RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 21 may read and write, and yet have a totally unedu cated mind. He who possesses property, whether he can read and write or not, has an educated mind ; he has forethought, caution, and reflection, guiding every action ; he knows the value of self- restraint, and is in the constant habitual practice of it. It is this kind of education, induced by the diffusion of property, and of the civilising tastes, habits, and motives of action which attend its pos session, that will keep the population of a country within its means of subsistence. This sense of property, as it may be called ; the instinctive desire to possess, to accumulate, forms the preventive check established by nature upon the tendency to excessive multiplication. This check is wanting in Ireland. By the artificial diffusion of property through society, under the feudal system of suc cession, the restraining influences of property are totally removed from the mass of that community, and the propensity to improvident marriage freed from the check which nature has provided against it. The state of a country in which the land is the property of eight or nine thousand individuals, out of a population of as many millions, cannot, surely, be the picture of what it would be, were landed pro perty, by a law of equal and naturali^uccession, dif fused through the whole body ofthe people. That the land so possessed would be frittered into por tions too minute for civilised existence, by a people imbued with the tastes, habits, and influences of property, is an assumption not borne out by any experience. It is not consistent with our observ- c 3 22 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. ation, for instance, that the ten children of a man of a thousand a year, would each, upon his death, build a house upon his share of the estate, and giving up every attempt to raise his income to what is necessary for the habits, tastes, and wants acquired when participating of his parent's vastly greater income, would live upon his hundred a year, and leave it at his death to be divided among perhaps ten other children. It is much more con sistent with our daily experience of human nature to assume, that the one would sell to the others, and turn his capital and industry to pursuits which would enable him to acquire what are to him necessaries of life, and to provide the same competence for his children : and this, in fact, we see done every day by co-heirs. An estate would no more be divided by heirs, than a ship is broken up and divided by heirs, unless it were the interest of the heirs to do so ; and if so, society would be a gainer by it. Norway, at all events, affords a strong confutation of this dreaded excessive subdivision of property. Notwithstand ing the partition system among children continued for ages, it contains farms of such extent, that the owner possesses forty cows, and must summon his farm-servants to work by a bell on the house-top. July 27. — I overtook, to-day, my forbud, or courier, and my luggage, of which I am veiyglad, there being no comfort or advantage in being a day's journey behind a razor or a clean shirt. Tra velling in N orway is not so very cheap. You pay indeed but one ort, or 9e?. sterling, for a horse per RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 23 Norwegian mile, but the traveller who has any luggage must have two horses. Then there is a fee of eight skillings to the station master for order ing the horses, as much to the two boys who take them back, four for the forbud cart ; in short, altogether it is 25. 4c?. per Norwegian, or 4sd. per English mile. One may travel all over Europe in the public conveyances at this rate ; the living on the road, however, is not very costly. I was charged only ten skillings (4^6?.) for dinner; for supper, bed, and breakfast, only one ort, about 1*. 5\d. My fare, to be sure, is not very costly ; bread, cheese, and eggs, and, above all, wild straw berries, in the greatest profusion, and so highly flavoured, that it would be a retrograde step in the science of good living, to cultivate them in gar dens. I have excellent coffee also, and plenty of milk. The traveller must expect no where on the Continent the cleanliness and nicety of the English inn, with every thing bright, shining, and smiling, from the landlady's cheek to the kitchen poker. There is nothing in England so peculiarly English, as the country inn. July 28. — I amused myself yesterday evening by walking over my landlord's farm. I suppose there may be about a hundred acres cleared of bushes, of which two-thirds at least are under grass, natural, not sown, and preserved for hay, which the people are now busy in making. As the land is dry, and has not been top-dressed, the quantity is very small in proportion to the extent, the natural grasses not attaining any length under c 4 24 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. such circumstances. The cutting is excellent. The ground is shaven as close as a gentleman's lawn or bowling-green. They use a shorter scythe blade than we do. If one considers the length of our common scythe blade, it will be evident that the heel of it only can cut close to the ground. The point and one-third of the blade are sticking up in the air, and what is cut by that part is cut too high. Look at one of our mowers at work- It is evident that he cannot, without great exertion and fatigue, keep his scythe close to the ground for its whole length. The point is in the middle of the stems of grass, and is working to waste, especially at the end of his sweep ; and if the point were prolonged in the direction in which the blade stands, it would be flourishing over his head. The short blade saves the ridiculous sweep, or semicircle of our mowers, one-half of which is working to waste, either of time or of grass. I understand, in making the hay, it being scorching weather, they left it as it was cut one day, next day turned the swaths with a great number of hands, and took it to the hayloft on sledges. These, made of light birch poles, are excellent for dragging hay or corn out of a field. They make no ruts, are so light that a horse can draw them over any ground, and they take a small rick of hay or corn out of the field into the barn or hay loft at once : there being a sloping ascent or bridge up to the loft above the stables, the horse walks at once into it with his load. A set of sledges is as necessary on every farm as a set of caits. The RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 25 ground is encumbered with loose masses of stone, especially in the woods, over which wheels could not pass. The hay when taken in is green, not yellow, it is merely withered grass, but I suspect, from the excellent wind and powers of exertion of the Norwegian horses, which get no other food, it is more substantial than our hay. These Nor wegian horses are beyond all praise, they scamper down hills as steep as a house roof, and in going up hill actually scramble. They make no ob jection whatever, if you have none, to any path or any pace ; they are the bravest of horse kind. The landlord was horse-hoeing his potatoe crop, which seemed clean and good. The potatoes all over the country carry a white flower. In whole fields not one with red or purple flowers will be seen. I do not know if this be a better or worse variety of the plant, or whether it be not the effect of the climate, which seems to have a tendency to produce every thing in the albino style. Horses, cattle, even children, appear white varieties of their species. After the farm work was over I went out with the landlord, his wife, his son, and his brother, to catch fish in the river, or rather the narrow lake which the chief stream of the Myosen forms in this part of its valley. We had a boat and a very poor net which we drew thrice, and caught fifteen very fine fish. I do not know their proper name ; but they were about a foot in length, shaped like a trout, with scales, but different when cooked, being white, firm, and good. I imagine they are the guinard, salmo lavaratus. They are 26 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. very plentiful in this river, which, by the by, from above Lille Hammer, where it expands into the Myosen lake, is of a very peculiar colour, like that of milk and water, and in this upper quarter it retains the same unpicturesque tinge. Hundorp, July 29. — At my last quarters I paid half a dollar for my dinner of eggs, straw berries, and milk, my supper of fish and straw berries, my bed, and my breakfast of coffee and strawberries. This, I believe, is about the general rate of expense and of fare that the traveller may expect. The bread of rye is good and substantial ; the milk, cream, and butter good and clean ; the cheese excellent. I reached this place early, still along the milky river. Few situations are more exhilarating than setting out before sunrise on a fine, warm, dewy morning, in one of those light carioles behind an active scampering pony, with every thing one requires between the two wheels, and rattling up hill and down dale, all in the cool air. In this upland district, the prevailing rock ap pears to be a micaceous schist. I measured some slates at this place, which were ten feet long, six broad, and not thicker than an ordinary slate. The people in the valley were all in motion this morning, going to Brandvold church, to some religious meeting. The men were clad in a home made grey cloth with bright-red woollen caps, and almost all were well mounted on spirited little horses. I met scarcely one on foot. The saddles, bridles, and housings ornamented in the style of RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 27 the middle ages ; the full flowing manes and tails of the steeds, and the grey clothing and scarlet caps of the riders, made the road appear as one may fancy it to have done in the fifteenth century. The women were on side-saddles, which had a slight rail or back half round the seat, so that they sat as on a chair, and had a step for supporting the feet. I doubt if the modern side-saddle be any im provement upon this ancient one, for safety, comfort, or splendour. Some were highly orna mented with crimson velvet seats, and must have been in their day very showy. I admired very much one damsel's horse furniture of old figured or embossed leather, which had been richly gilt, and reached down in peaks over the horse's shoulders and flanks. I have no doubt these are very ancient pieces of household goods. This is on the verge of a highland district, in the remote glens of which, we may suppose that property of that kind, and the custom of using it on a church festival three or four times a year, would long be retained. Laurgaard, July 30. — I reached this place at six this evening. It seems a nice clean house, situated where the main river of the Myosen, which is called the Laug, divides into branches running through narrow glens rather than valleys. It appears to be at the mouth of the Highland district. The old woman of the house intends to be civil ; she is milking a large flock of goats at the door, and has sent to the hill for fresh straw berries for my supper. On this promise of comfort. 28 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. I shall remain here for a few days. There is a right way to do every thing ; even, it seems, to milk a goat. You should turn its head towards you, put your left arm over its back, and milk it with both hands in that position, in which it cannot move. My old woman was teaching her grandchild this art. Goats seem a favourite kind of stock, and on every farm they appear much more numerous than sheep. The hills have no pasture for the latter, no heath or rough grass ; what is not bare rock is bush or tree. The goat will eat and thrive on the shoots of the dwarf birch, beech, and young fir; the sheep will not, and in winter it requires some hay. The goat then gets a bundle of dried leaves and shoots of the beech, which cost only the trouble of collecting and drying them. Every farmhouse at this season is surrounded with bun dles of these withered branches and leaves of beech tied together, and stuck upon poles to dry. The goat, too, gives some milk in winter when that of cows is scarce ; and that little may bear to be increased with water better than any other milk. August 4. — Irrigation is very extensively prac tised in these valleys, and through the whole of this long Guldebrandts' Dal. The water is con ducted in channels and wooden troughs to the head of each field. From the purity of these mountain streams, I suspect it is not for any en riching sediment they may deposit, as I see in the channels only pebbles or sand of crystallised rock : the object seems simply to moisten the roots of RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 29 the plants which, on these steep slopes, of which the soil and sub-soil consist of the open porous detritus of the overhanging rocks, must require this even in wet seasons, the rain running off or being absorbed as fast as it falls. August 6. — The room I occupy here is detached from the family house of the farm. It consists of four walls, each composed of ten logs roughly squared with the axe, and the edges chipped off, so as to make them octagonal. They are laid one upon the other, with a layer of moss between each, which keeps the interstices quite tight. The logs forming the side walls are notched above and below, and those forming the gable walls so as to correspond ; thus the head of each log touches the one below it at the corners, which are as tight and strong as any part of the building. Each log may be twelve inches square ; so that the walls of my apartment are a foot thick, and ten feet high. The soles and sides of the windows and the corners are lined with boards ; and in good houses the whole, I understand, is boarded or panelled inside and out : but I am in one of the dwellings of the middle or labouring class. ' There are three lat ticed windows in the room, which is eighteen feet square, and sixteen panes of coarsq glass in each window. The floor and ceiling are boarded ; the former, raised from the earth by a stone wall a foot or two high, according to the level, and rough cast with lime. The roof has a pitch of about two feet ; it is closely boarded over on the outside, and the boards there are coated with birch-bark 30 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. peeled off in large flakes. Above this is laid earth, about three inches deep, retained by a ledge of the same depth along the bottom of the roof A crop of grass, or of moss, growing on this earth, makes it compact. Many houses are roofed with tiles, and some with slates. The joiner-work in the window-frames, doors, floors, &c., is very rough, and ill finished, but all is wind and water tight. I give this minute description, because one hears so much of the log huts of America, and this is probably their mother country. It is very dif ferent, too, from the wooden tenement of the English labourer, which is but the skin of a house, having only the boarding, outside and inside, upon a hollow frame-work, without the solid log in the middle between him and the cold. The cost of such a house, with two rooms below and two above, does not usually exceed fifty dollars, wood and workmanship included. As the wood is on the farm, and any man can do the work, the num ber of houses about one steading is wonderful : I have counted eighteen. There is a distinct one for every thing, so as, in case of fire, not to have all under one roof. The family has a dwelling- house, consisting, on ordinary farms, of three rooms below, one of which is the kitchen, and the same above ; and at the end, with a separate entry, there is generally a better room, and one above reserved for strangers. Opposite to this dwelling is another with rooms above, and kitchen below, for the farm-servants and labourers. At a small distance from the family house, raised upon posts to ex- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 31 elude rats, is the sanctum ; — the gudewife's store room and dairy, where the provisions for the year are lodged. It is large and airy, with windows, and with at least two rooms for different objects. The rest of the square, into which the houses are ge nerally arranged for the convenience of winter attendance on cattle, consists of stables, cow-houses, barns for hay and corn, under which are generally the sheds for tools, carts, sledges, a cellar under ground for ale, and one of large size with double doors, like our ice-houses, for preserving the po tatoes. Every thing is under cover, and the spa ciousness of the offices surprises one accustomed to our crowded narrow stables and cow-houses. The Norwegians are a well-lodged people, as far as I have seen ; the poorest dwelling having good glass windows, separate rooms, and some sort of outbuilding, with conveniences of which I doubt if every house in Scotland can boast. Laurgaard, Aug. 8. — There is a beautiful, at least singular, kind of slate in this quarter ; it is as thin as sheets of copper, and has the same metallic lustre and colour. It is cut round, or in lozenges, and sits so regularly, thinly, and closely upon the roof, that the houses might have seemed roofed with copper, till I considered how i^nlikely it was that in this poor country it would be so applied. Steatite also is found in beds in the hill above this house ; it is quarried in slabs to line the vents of fireplaces, or be placed under stoves, and such like purposes. The hills appear to consist of mi caceous schist resting upon gneis. 32 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. I.jaurgaard, Aug. 9. I have seen as yet no old building in Norway ; no cottage, manor-house, country church, bridge, castle, or other structure of former days. Every thing appears to belong to the present generation. Even the commanding points, which in all other European countries pre sent ruins of castles, have never been so occupied here. The partition of property among the children has probably prevented even the nobles allied to the family of the monarch from building these, or any mansions of stone. That of the country, al though abundant, would be an expensive material, from its hardness and irregular forms ; and a costly erection upon an estate which was to be divided on the death of the owner would have been use less. Wood was the material at all times, for all classes of dwellings, from the palace of the mo narch to the peasant's hut. It was everywhere abundant and cheap. This circumstance has been more important than may at first appear in the destinies of the country. The chieftains, or no bility, had no strong-holds in which they could secure themselves and their retainers. When at variance with a more powerful neighbour, or with the sovereign, they, with their adherents, could only retire to their ships. Those expelled by Ha rold Haarfagre became thus sea-kings, and pillaged other countries, for want of stone castles in which they could, like the feudal lords in the rest of Europe, withstand an attack at home. The mo narch himself had no strength, scarcely even se curity, unless in public opinion. Harold Haar- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 33 fagre's son and successor, Eric, appears to have been expelled simply by the people being against him. King Olaf, the Saint, lost his power with his popularity, and could not obtain assistance from his discontented subjects to oppose Canute the Great. The same cause probably saved Nor way from much of the internal warfare which raged in the middle ages in other countries ; and it pre served, perhaps, many institutions favourable to liberty, which were transplanted, and have flou rished elsewhere. Laurgaard, Aug. 12 I live here on straw berries and milk, and trout, or rather char, being pink, not white like fresh water trout. Fish ap pears every where the basis of a Norwegian repast. Meat, even at the table-d'hote at Christiania, seemed secondary. The river or lake is re gularly resorted to. It is no sport for an Izaak Walton to fish trout here ; the mosquitoes would have eaten him alive while he was singing his madrigals. I got so stung in the evening's fishing, at Ellstadt, that I have not yet recovered from the irritation. In the afternoon I took a long walk up one of the glens, and came to a singular formation of rock : it is micaceous, but without the slaty fracture usual with rocks in which mica prevails. The masses are columnar ; and the ground is covered with regular-formed triangular cubes with the edges truncated, so as to render them hexa gonal. These masses, standing up in the earth with a fibrous texture, had so much the appearance of D 34 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. old stumps of trees with the bark on, that, till I had struck some of them, I could scarcely beheve them to be stone. One might almost fancy them petrified tree stumps : they are allied to asbestos. A hand specimen of that mineral, enlarged in all its parts, would give the best idea of them ; and the same mountain has steatite on its other side. A geologist who is a good pedestrian will find much to interest him in this tract of country. Laurgaard, Aug. 16. — I have been for some days taking long walks up the glens, and over the hills : the former contain some grand scenery. It is not the season for wolves to leave their haunts on the fjelde or mountains, else one would expect to meet them in these lonely woods. In a gloomy winter evening I would not send little Red Riding Hood on a message across them. Upon the hills, and the high table land of the country, the ground is covered with blocks of a conglomerate rock, in which pebbles of quartz, feldspar, and other crystal lised substances, are embedded. These blocks have been in motion, and subject to violent friction. They are not only rounded, but the pebbles of hard crystallised matter embedded in them are cut or rubbed flat on the surface. The action of the ele ments would never, in any series of ages, produce this appearance. They would wear equally the round pebbles and the matrix or stone in which they are embedded ; so that the former would retain their rounded figure on the side exposed to the air, as well as on those hid and embedded in the mass; and, being the harder substance, would present the semblance of round protuberances rising RESIDENCE IN >f0RWAY. 35 from it. The appearance above described can only be accounted for by some exterior friction acting violently on these blocks. One traces with difficulty the various footpaths and bye roads winding over these fjelde and hills, and is not aware, if he has never been in a high land country, that these slight scratches along the mountain side are worn by human ieet, and lead to little groups of farms in every glen : this and the next contain above forty. The district re sembles much one of the small highland estates in the north of Scotland, with a great number of small tenants or cottars scattered over it. It wants, however, the laird's mansion and farm, with the squalor and wretchedness of the turf-built hovels of our highlands. The farms are nearly of the same size, the largest not exceeding forty acres of in-field land, by which I mean land bearing crops of oats, bear, and potatoes, with patches of grass intermixed, and all fenced off. The smallest have not above four or five acres in cultivation. What is the condition of this Norwegian highland popu lation compared to that of the tenants on a high land estate in Scotland ? I cannot yet form a full estimate of the condition of the inhabitants of these glens ; but there are some j)oints bearing upon the subject upon which a sti'anger mayjudge as well as one long acquainted with them. In the first place, the highlands of Scotland are a better country for subsisting its inhabitants ; the soil is better. Here, it is the gravel of primary rocks washed down from the high grounds, and D 2 36 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. covered with a thin coat of earth. The crops are not strong, and, in these narrow glens, are pre maturely ripened by the gleams of hot sunshine reflected from the rocks. Harvest was begun in the month of July ; but a great part of the crop is evidently not properly filled, although dead ripe. In our highlands the crops on the moorish or clay soils will be scarcely in ear, and will not be ripe before October ; but the grain will be heavier, and the acre of land will produce more. It is also a great disadvantage to these highland farmers that they have not the hill pasture behind their grounds which ours have ; the stretch of unbroken, purple, blooming heath, outside of the hill dyke, on which cattle will pick up a living for great part of the year. Here, beyond the boundary of the farm, there is little pasture ; only huge masses of naked rock, with juniper and fir growing between them. I have not seen so much heath in this country as would shelter a covey of grouse, or subsist a score of black-faced wethers for half a day. Thus the condition of the people here, in relation to soil, climate, crops, and pasturage, ap pears less favourable than in the Scottish high lands. It is vastly better, however, in another respect — they have no rents to pay — being the owners ofthe farms they cultivate. Here are the highland glens without the highland lairds. It is, I am aware, a favourite and constant observation of our agricul tural writers, that these small proprietors make the worst farmers. It may be so ; but a population RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 37 may be in a wretched condition, although their country is very well farmed ; or they may be happy, although bad cultivators. The country around Rome was certainly better farmed under the Romans than it is now under the Pope. Was it a happier country then, when all the agricultural labourers were slaves working in chains, and driven to and from their work like beasts of burden ? Our West Indian co lonies were better farmed under the slave system, especially when fresh slaves could be imported from Africa, than probably they can ever be by free labour. Which is the happiest state of the popu lation ? Good farming is a phrase composed of two words which have no more application to the hap piness or well-being of a people than good weaving or good iron-founding. That the human powers should be well applied, and not misapplied, in the production of grain, or iron, or clothing, is, no doubt, an object of great importance ; but the hap piness or well-being of a people does not entirely depend upon it. It has more effect on their num bers than on their condition. The producer of grain, who is working for himself only, who is owner of his land, and has not a third of its produce to pay as rent, can afford to be a worse farmer, by one third, than a tenant, and is, notwithstanding, in a preferable condition. Our agricultural writers tell us, indeed, that labourers in agriculture are much better off as farm servants, than they would be as small proprietors. We only have the master's word for this. Ask the servant. The colonists told us the same thing of their slaves. If property is a good D 3 38 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. and desirable thing, I suspect that the very smallest quantity of it is good and desirable ; and that the state of society in which it is most widely diffused is the best constituted. I suspect that the object of wise laws should be to diffuse this general good through society, by promoting the distribution of property by its equal inheritance, not to concen trate the whole into the hands of a few by the law of primogeniture ; which, although well adapted to the artificial feudal system, is not fitted for the na tural and rational state to which society is advancing. The common sense of the majority of mankind would, I apprehend, in spite of the most curious and subtle argument, decide that the forty families in these two or three highland glens, each possessing and living on its own little spot of ground, and farm ing well or ill as the case may be, are in a better and happier state, and form a more rationally constituted society, than if the whole belonged to one of these families (and it would be no great estate), while the other thirty-nine families were tenants and farm servants. Add a few ciphers to the numbers, and you have Ireland, Scotland, England, with their millions of people, and their soil possessed by a few thousand proprietors. It is impossible such a con stitution of civil society can long exist without some great convulsion, unless mankind be retrograding to the state in which the feudal law of primogeniture originated. If society and the ideas of mankind are advancing in a different direction, it would be wise if legislation were to precede, rather than be forced to follow. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 39 If small proprietors are not good farmers, it is not from the same cause here which we are told makes them so in Scotland — indolence and want of exertion. The extent to which irrigation is carried in these glens and valleys shows a spirit of exertion and co-operation to which the latter country can show nothing similar. Hay being the principal winter support of live stock, and both it and corn, as well as potatoes, liable, from the shallow soil and power ful reflection of sunshine from the rocks, to be burnt and withered up, the greatest exertions are made to bring water from the head of each glen, along such a level as will give the command of it to each farmer at the head of his fields. This is done by leading it in wooden troughs (the half of a tree roughly scooped) from the highest perennial stream among the hills, through woods, across ravines, along the rocky, often perpendicular, sides of the glens, and from this main trough giving a lateral one to each farmer in passing the head of his farm. He distri butes this supply by movable troughs among his fields ; and at this season waters each rig succes sively with scoops like those used by bleachers in watering cloth, laying his trough between every two rigs. One would not believe, without seeing it, how very large an extent of land is traversed expedi tiously by these artificial showers. I have seen turnip crops in Scotland in situations, where, in dry seasons, it might be possible to save a crop by similar means. The extent of the main troughs is very great. In one glen I walked ten miles, and found it troughed on both sides : on one, the D 4 40 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. chain is continued down the main valley for forty miles. Those may be bad farmers who do such things ; but they are not indolent, nor ignorant of the principle of working in concert, and keeping up establishments for common benefit. They are, undoubtedly, in these respects, far in advance of any community of cottars in our highland glens. They feel as proprietors who receive the advan tage of their own exertions. The excellent state of the roads and bridges is another proof that the country is inhabited by people who have a common interest to keep them under repair. There are no tolls. This population, also, is much better lodged than our labouring and middling classes, even in the south of Scotland. The dwelling-houses of the meanest labourers are divided into several apartments, have wooden floors, and a sufficient number of good win dows ; also some kind of outhouse for cattle and lumber. Every man, indeed, seems, like Robinson Crusoe, to have put up a separate house for every thing he possesses. Whoever has observed the condition of our labouring population will admit the influence of good habitations upon the moral habits of a people. The natives of New Zealand have dwellings more suited to the feelings and de cencies of civilised life than the peasantry of a great proportion of Great Britain and Ireland, who live in dark, one-room hovels, in which not only house hold comfort and cleanliness are out of the question, but the proper separation of the sexes can scarcely be maintained. Can any reflecting person doubt RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 41 that it is an important advantage to the labouring class of a country that their standard of living is pitched high as to lodging, food, and clothing ? It is the most effective check upon pauperism and over-population. Why does the Irish peasant marry so recklessly ? Because his idea of a suitable dwell ing for a man in his station is a hovel of raw earth and sticks, such as a man may put up in a fore noon on a hill side ; a bucket full of potatoes is his standard of food ; a tattered great coat, of rai ment. With these he is in no worse condition than the population around him, and therefore he marries. If the ideas and habits ofthe country required a more expensive and comfortable sort of habitation for the very meanest person of his own station, he would not marry until he had acquired the means of lodg ing like his neighbours ; nor would he find a wife who would leave a decent habitation to burrow in a hole like a pigstye. Every man looks to what is considered proper and reputable in his own rank ; and the poor man having little else to give him im portance, is generally more tenacious of the pro prieties belonging to his station than the rich man of what is suitable to his sphere. It is from the operation of our timber duties that the working class in Great Britain, and particularly in Scotland and Ireland, is so wretchedly lodged ; an evil by which the whole community suffers. The timber of America is not adapted, either in size, strength, durability, or price, for the wood work of small houses. For the beams, roof-timbers, or other parts in which there is strain or exposure. 42 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. it is considered totally unfit ; and were it stronger, the waste in reducing its logs to the proper dimen sions prevents the application of it to such small buildings. The duty upon the kind of wood alone suitable for the poor man's habitation, which is the small sized logs, deals, and battens of Norway, or the Baltic coasts, renders it impossible for the lower, or even the middle classes, to lodge them selves comfortably, or even decently. It affects the price not merely of the good building material which these countries could furnish at a cost lower than the duty now levied upom it, but it raises our own worthless planted fir-wood, which no prudent man can use in any work that is intended to last for twenty years. If our labouring classes understood their own interests, they would find that the timber duties press more heavily upon their comfort and well- being than even the corn-laws. Cheap corn may only produce cheap labour. If the loaf is reduced permanently to half of its present price, it is pos sible that wages might, in the ordinary course of demand and supply, be reduced in the long run to half their present rate. The cheap loaf would beget cheap labourers in every branch. But a dry, warm, tight, comfortable, roomy dwelling, such as induces a man to stay at home, keeps him out of the ale-house, and his family out of the doctor's books, would be a real improvement in the condition ofthe working man, which he would obtain by the total abolition of the timber-laws, and which could in no way affect the rate of his RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 43 wages. There is, perhaps, no one cause which drives the labouring man to the spirit and beer shop so much as the want of a comfortable, decent dwelling to retire to when the work of the day is over. This duty, the most pernicious, perhaps, in the whole range of British taxation, stands also in the way of the industry of very numerous and import ant classes in the middle rank of life. It prevents, for example, the industrious seafaring man, who has gathered a little money, from ever obtaining that object of every seaman's ambition, a small vessel of his own. It is not necessary that vessels of a small class should be of oak ; Prussian and Norwegian ships of large burden are built of pine. If the duty upon the east country timber were abolished, our small capitalists would form a float ing population, engaged in the various trades of communication and conveyance between the Brit ish, Irish, and foreign ports. But the duties put it out of the reach of small capitalists to have such vessels as are suited to their means, and as the same class in other countries, having a free timber trade, are able to fit out. It costs as much with us to make a herring-boat as it should require for a coasting sloop. • The great capitalists engaged in shipping gain by this state of things, because the carrying of timber from America is a trade suited to old ves sels not of the first class. They are called the Shipping Interest of the country. Does this title properly belong to these great owners ? or to the 44 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. active, sea-going population ? Is it the interest of the country, for the sake of any class of capitalists, that the population should be supplied with inferior timber, useless for the purposes of house-building or ship-building? Is it not our true interest to put it in the power of the whole inhabitants to lodge themselves suitably ; and of the maritime population to fit out small vessels on the same capitals that are sufficient in other countries for that purpose ? The standard of living, with regard to food, ap pears to me also higher in Norway than in most of our Scotch highland districts, though I cannot yet form a decided opinion. The materials are the same ; viz. oatmeal, bearmeal, potatoes, fish from the river, salt-fish, and salt herrings, of excellent quality, from the sea coast, also cheese, butter, and milk. Four meals a day form, I understand, the regular fare in every family ; and with two of these meals the labourers have a glass of home-made brandy, distilled from potatoes. It is usual, I understand, to have animal food, such as salt beef, or black puddings, at least twice in the week. I observe also some notion of comfort in the mode of taking their food, which is often wanting in our highland households. The table is set out, the bread is in baskets, and the labourers sit down regularly to their meals. The cooking and pi'e- paration of food appears to occupy more labour and time. As to being comparatively well or ill fed, these terms are vague. As fine a human animal is reared RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 45 upon potatoes and milk in Ireland as upon roast beef and plum-pudding in England. The food best for a country is clearly that which it requires the greatest exertion of industry and skill to pro duce. That which can be procured with little of such exertion, as potatoes, would, undoubtedly, re duce a nation to a low state of industry and skill. Those are in a wrong path who would reduce pau perism in England by reducing the standard of subistence for the poor. If the English labourers, instead of considering wheaten bread and meat necessary for their proper sustenance, were to be content with potatoes and salt herrings, the in crease of pauperism among them would be in pro portion to the diminished value of their food and the ease of obtaining it. The man who now thinks himself ill off without the finest bread, would then think himself entitled to marry, if he could earn potatoes for himself and a family. Our pauper population would thus increase with frightful ra pidity. I agree with Cobbett, that potatoes are the worst food for a nation to subsist on, but not for his reasons ; because they are an unsubstantial food, and consume coals and time, and keep the house wife boiling or baking all day long ; but because, in proportion to their nutriment as /ood, they re quire less labour, less exertion of body and mind, to bring them to the state of food than any other article of human culture. The planting and dig ging up, the boiling or baking, are almost all the operations required with the potato; and, therefore, the nation which is satisfied with a potato diet 46 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. must be in a state of sloth and inactivity bodily and mental. The most complicated manufacture, perhaps, which we have among mankind, and which in all its parts requires the most continued exertions of human industry and skill, is the pro duction of a quartern loaf from a few seeds of wheat put into the earth. Lien, August VJ. — I bought a little horse to day from my landlady at Laurgaard, for twenty dollars. I am proud of my progress in the lan guage, which has saved me from paying more than, perhaps, double the value of the animal ; and I might have been taken in as much in bargaining for a horse in English. I mounted my luggage upon my cariole, and set off over the hills. This is the true way to see a country. One is inde pendent of distances, and post stations, and right or wrong roads, and all the petty annoyances and con siderations of regular travelling. I am astonished at travellers, who have time, encumbering them selves with routes and couriers, as if they were charged with a load of government despatches. I stopped at a farm-house about the middle of the day, and got for dinner what we call in Scotland lappered milk. Every thing was nice and clean. I observed that the mowers, who appear to be people who go round the country to cut grass, as in some parts of England, had a table regularly covered for them ; and their bread was in baskets as at Laurgaard. These trifles indicate a state of ease, and some attention to comfort among the working class. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 47 In the evening I reached this single farm-house, and got grass for my pony and quarters for myself; and the mistress gives me the comfortable hope, if I understand her right, of fried fish, which are still in the river, but which the mowers will catch in time for supper. I am now near the summit of the country. The waters still run into the great valley of Gulde brandsdal, but the river is here only a mountain stream. I passed to-day some patches of snow ; which having stood this very hot summer, succeed ing a very wet spring, has probably lain for thou sands of years. Although the elevation above the sea of this perpetual snow must be considerable, there is no remarkable rise of any one hill or range from its base ; not more, as far as I can estimate, than 500 feet : there is no alpine scenery. The height above the sea is great, but that is not percep tible to the senses : the travellers' eyes and legs have no concern with it ; the immediate spring from the valley to the clouds above is alone grand, sublime, and most particularly fatiguing. These patches of snow were not 300 feet above the glen, where the people were making hay in so hot a sunshine that they worked in their shirts and trousers only. The country is inhabited in the gfens, and the farm-houses appear large. On the dividing ridges there is no cultivation, and, indeed, no soil to cul tivate, only rounded masses of gneiss and micaceous rocks, with juniper, fir, aspen, birch, and beech, growing where they can amid the stones. I have not observed furze, whin, or broom. The fea- 48 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. tures of the country all the way up Guldebrandsdal are in fact far from being so grand as the highland scenery in Scotland. If there are avalanches, or glaciers, in winter or spring, they must be upon the same scale as in our highlands ; but cannot be on the scale of those of the Alps, there being no high mountains dipping at once into this valley. The truly grand feature of the country is the valley it self, — the Guldebrandsdal, which, with its splendid lake the Myosen, exceeds two hundred miles in length. Fogstuan, August 18. — Cultivation ceases at a short distance from my last night's quarters. Op posite to this house there is a patch of snow, which is found in hollows and sheltered situ ations, while ground considerably higher, but more exposed to wind, is clear at this season. I found stunted birches and first growing within twenty paces of this snowy mass. Dwarf willow, birch, juniper, blackberry, crowberry, and a few other shrubs, live quite close to their cold neigh bour. The stream issuing from this snow, turns a corn mill, which I went to examine while my pony was feeding. In Norway, there is no astriction to mills ; every man has Odel's right, or, as I understand the term, is feudal superior of his own lands, and holds them without service, suit, feu, astriction, or other bur then. Every man may build a mill who chooses to do so. In the glens about Laurgaard, every little farm had its own little mill. Oats when ground RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 49 are not first shelled as in Scotland, that is, cleared of the outer husk, but, after being strongly kiln- dried, the grain, husks, and all is made into meal. This meal is as fine almost as wheaten flour, the mill stones being of very hard gneis, sitting very close upon each other, and going round very swiftly. No doubt this is a much more economical plan than ours ; for in the husks, or sids, which we take off in Scotland, there is left much nutri ment ; as appears from the jelly called sowens, ob tained by steeping them in water. This is lost in many parts of Scotland entirely, the husks being put on the fire to kiln-dry other grain. The far mer here gets back from the mill the same weight he sends to it. Very good bread is baked of this meal ; flat cakes covering the bottom of a girdle, or frying pan, and as thin as a sheet of paper, being put on in a nearly fluid state, and when used at table, they are made crisp by being warmed a little. They are not equal certainly to our best oatmeal cakes found in gentlemen's families ; for the grain, I suspect, cannot yield such meal. It is better, however, than is commonly used by the people in our northern counties, owing prin cipally, I think, to its being better baked. This mode of grinding and baking makes intelligible the use of bread of the bark of the fir tree, in years of scarcity. Its inner rind, kiln-dried, may undoubtedly be ground, along with the husks and grain, and add to the quantity of meal ; it may even be nutritious. I had previously been rather disposed to doubt the fact, and to laugh at 50 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. the idea of a traveller dining on saw-dust pudding and timber bread. In years of scarcity, however, this use of fir bark is more extensive than is gene rally supposed. The present dilapidated state of the forests, in districts which formerly supplied wood for exportation, is ascribed to the great de struction of young trees for this purpose in the year 1812. But to the mill. •The Norwegian mill is similar to that still used in the Zetland islands, and probably in no other part of Britain. An upright shaft or spindle, with buckets or vanes fixed in the lower end, at such an angle as will best receive the stroke of the water fall projected upon these vanes through a wooden trough or pipe, is passed through the centre-hole of the lower fixed millstone, and its upper end fastened in the upper running millstone. The water strikes on the projecting vanes below, and drives round the shaft with the upper millstone fixed on it. The stones are of very small dia meter, like the quern stones, or hand-millstones formerly used in the north of Scotland, and are of hard gneis ; the upper one concave, so as to sit close upon the convexity ofthe lower fixed stone. The mill is fed with grain through the centre hole of the upper stone by a hopper, on which there is a little door sliding up and down, for the grain to run out at between the stones. To regu late this door, there is an upright piece of wood touching with its lower extremity the surface ofthe running stone, and with its upper, the loaded end of another piece, suspended horizontally by the mid- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 51 die, like a balance beam, and the end opposite to the loaded one is fastened to the handle of the sliding door or hatch, in the hopper. The weight of the loaded end opens the sliding hatch, and the grain falls through it between the stones ; but when too much comes between them, it raises the upper stone from resting close upon thfe lower ; the end of the upright stick touching its surface, is conse quently elevated, and the loaded end of the bal ance consequently raised by the other extremity of the upright pieces of wood, when the feeding hatch shuts proportionably. It is curious to see these ingenious contrivances, the same in princi ple, perhaps, as those of our best machinery, con structed here, on the Dovre Fjeld, of such rude materials. There was not a nail in the mill, which was all put together with wood, or with fastenings of birch bands, made of twigs, bruised and twisted together. There are good reasons for preferring the upright shaft, moved by the direct impulse of the water, to our water wheels. It is not so readily clogged with ice, nor impeded by back-water. The cog in which the vanes are fixed being moveable on the shaft, and the trough through which the water strikes on them adjusted to their place, these impediments are avoided. At Lien, I quitted the stream which I have fol lowed from the Myosen up the Guldebrandsdal. It trends to the west, having its rise in the western , branches of the Sneehaette mountain. I took the road leading over the Dovre Fjeld on the east side E 5 52 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. of that mountain, and I hope to see it to advantage in crossing the Fjeld on which it rests. Jerkin, August 19- — This is an extensive graz ing farm, and a comfortable inn, situated on the north verge of the Dovre Fjeld, a few miles from the point where the waters begin to run, and the land to slope northward. The Dovre Fjeld here may be from 24 to 28 miles across. When we give things their real names, we take away much of their imagined grandeur. The Dovre Fjeld sounds well ; and we fancy it a vast and sublime natural feature. It really is no more than a fell, like those of Yorkshire or Cumberland ; an elevated tract of groimd whence run waters in opposite di rections, and which forms the base of a number of detached hills of moderate elevation. In fact, as a scene impressing the traveller with ideas of vast and lonely grandeur, the tract from the waters of the Tay to those of the Spey, by Dalnacardoch, Dalwhinny, andPitmain, greatly surpasses it. You are indeed 3000 feet above the level ofthe sea ; but that is not seen, — it is a matter of reflection and information. You look down upon nothing below you, and look up only to hills of moderate ele vation. Sneehffitte alone comes up to a mountain magnitude. It is 7300 feet above the sea ; but this fell is 3000 feet at this farm house, which is about twelve miles from the base of Sneehaette. , The actual height for the eye, therefore, of this mountain, is about the same as that of Ben Nevis, about 4300 feet, with the disadvantage of gaining its apparent height by a slow rise from the fell. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 53 There is a considerable mass of snow in a hollow on the bosom of Sneehaette, but not more than re mains for great part of the summer on hills in Aberdeenshire, — nothing like a glacier. The head and shoulder are clear of snow. The most extra ordinary feature of this mountain tract, and the grandest on reflection, is that the surface of the fell, and of Sneehaette to its summit, is covered with, or, more properly, is composed of rounded masses of gneis and granite, from the size of a man's head to that of the hull of a ship. These loose rolled masses are covered with soil in some places ; in others they are bare, just as they were left by the torrent which must have rounded them, and deposited them in this region. I met this morning one ofthe officers employed in the trigonometrical survey of Norway. He was sketching in the features of the country, on a scale of four inches to a Norwegian mile, with great beauty and effect. He told me that it is now believed by the officers of the survey, that Snee- hsette is not the highest of the Norwegian moun tains. By barometrical observations, which, how ever, are not yet fully completed, one of the moun tains of the Hurunger Fjeld exceeds it by about 700 feet, and is only at a distance of from three to four Norwegian miles from the head of one of the fiords, or inlets of the sea, in the Bergen district. Its elevation must consequently be vastly more rapid and grand in its effect. This officer confirmed my suspicion that Dr. Clarke had been misinformed with regard to the E 3 54 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. same lake which throws out the Kongarne river, which is called the Muonio in part of its course, and enters the Gulf of Bothnia under the name of the Tornea, throwing out a river also which runs into the North Sea ; thus making the peninsula, in fact, an island. This may not be impossible, but it would be a very extraordinary feature in topical geography. A lake may overflow and run over in any direction, or in all directions, but its permanent vents must be on one side or other. If we pour a little water upon a table, whether it be a dead level, or with any conceivable slope, it will not run off in two opposite directions at one time. Water can no more do so than a man can run in opposite direc tions at once. This officer, who has been on the spot, assured me, that although the source of the Kongarne is near the coast, there is a consider able space of elevated ground between it and the source of the river which runs into the North Sea at Lynger Fiord. This gentleman, however, mentioned a feature which is so remarkable, that, as he justly observed, it will scarcely be believed by topical geographers when the map of Norway is published. The stream which runs through Guldebrandsdal and the Myo sen, and reaches the sea at Frederickstad, being the same I left at Lien, comes down from the hills at or near Lessee, and is there divided into two branches, one of which, as above stated, runs into the Myosen, and the other into the North Sea at the Fiord in Romsdal Amt, on which the town of Molde is situated : thus including, in its delta, be- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 55 tween four and five degrees of latitude, and all the west and south of Norway. The course of this little river from Lessoe to the sea is very important, as it gives precision to our ideas of the shape and direc tion ofthe Dovre Fjeld, and of its connection with the Hurunger, the Fille, and the Hardanger mountains. These, running into the sea at the Naze of Norway, form, with the Dovre Mountains, one vast triangular range with its apex at Lessoe, and its base overflowed by the ocean in the bight called the Shagerrak. Two English gentlemen are here on a shooting excursion, but have found no game. I doubt, if the real moor game exist in Norway ; if they do, they must live upon very different food from those of Scotland. I have not seen so much heath on the fell as would support a covey, yet I never saw any food in the stomach of these birds in Scot land but the blossoms and tops of heath. Heath is a rare plant in these hills. I suspect the Ptar migan, and the American grouse, or willow hen, are varieties which feed upon berries, and that the Nor wegian are similar. They are very scarce, whatever they may be. This is certainly the best situation for them ; yet English sportsmen have been here for a whole season without shooting more than thirty brace. The markets of Norway apd Sweden are filled, no doubt, in winter with the greatest abun dance and variety of game. But we forget the ex tent of the country, and that there are but few markets to fill, which, at that season, are supplied, from the most remote distances, by peasants coming on other business. One bird killed in every ten E 4 56 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. square miles of country would be sufficient. In this country, man and dog would require Jack the Giant-killer's seven league boots to make any thing of shooting in any one district. The coun try people kill this game in the winter, when the birds are driven by the snow to seek food and shelter in the low grounds. There is a sin gular scarcity of birds, in fact, of all kinds in Norway. Magpies are the most numerous ; and seem favoured by the country people, as they hop about in a half tame state. The Royston crow and the swallow are common ; but the lark, the linnet, the blackbird, the thrush, the robin, and all our old acquaintances of the woods and fields, even our town acquaintance, the sparrow, are not at home here. I have seen or heard more of these in tra velling one mile in England, than in all the space I have traversed in Norway. I suspect there may be spring frosts which spoil the eggs and prevent the hatching and increase ofthe small birds. The land on this fell is not altogether unimprove- able. This farm, Fogstuen, and also the two post stations north of Jerkin, were established, for the accommodation of travellers, so early as 1120, and enjoy some peculiar privileges. They are valuable grass farms. The houses at Jerkin are good, and there are fully a hundred acres inclosed, bearing good natural grass, which the people are busy making into hay. There is a stock of thirty cows ; but no grain is raised either here or at my last quar ters. The hill pasture all round is certainly not such as we have on our worst hills, being juniper, RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 57 blackberry, dwarf willow, and such shrubs; but there is also some rough grass, and hardy sheep would make a living in summer. I understand the owner, who was not at home, intends to keep a stock of reindeer. They may be better than sheep, con sidering the long winter; but a sheep stock would succeed, if they could be wintered at any ijioderate expense. In Germany sheep must be kept in doors all winter as long as in Norway. Druvestein, August 21. — Cariole, pony, and self being all in the best going trim, I determined to pro ceed to Dronthiem. I shall see the northern slope ofthe Dovre Fjeld, and the country on that side of this great mountain barrier, and also the cathedral of Dronthiem. I shall know whether, in its structure, the ideas may be traced that were displayed by the Norman descendants of this people, in so many si milar edifices, in England and France. A few miles beyond Jerkin bring us to the point where the Fjelde dips and the waters run northwards. I think twenty-four miles will take one fairly across from slope to slope. As far as Kongsvold, the first stage, and house, from Jerkin, the road is dismal and lonely. Sneehaette, at the distance of eight or ten miles, makes all the surrounding country look like a vast plain. There is no living thing to be seen ; and the huge mass of mountain is so unlike all around it, that one might fancy it a living being sit ting upon the waste. From Kongsvold to this place is down a ravine, rather than a glen, contain ing the grandest scenery. The tongues of land, interlocked with each other, are so precipitous, that 58 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. although I hired an additional horse to assist my pony, the two could scarcely scramble up and down with the cariole. Norwegian horses alone could get over this road, which, however, is itself good. It is evident the dip is vastly more rapid on this side of the Dovre Fjeld. At one place the scenery in this ravine was very striking. The head of the crag above us was wrapt in snow, whence streams were trickling down ; while the burn at its foot, along which our road wound, was running through a wood of birch of the most tender and lively verdure. One of the English gentlemen whom I met at Jerkin gave me a fishing-rod, with which he did not wish to be encumbered. He had caught trout until he was actually tired, having killed above three hundred in a veiy few days. Having fortunately brought with me some flies and tackle, I went out this forenoon, while my pony was resting after yes terday's fatigue, to try my skill. Although I never fished trout before, I caught above six dozen be tween breakfast and dinner : this will give some idea of what fishing is in Norway. They were small, the largest not exceeding a foot in length; but the landlord brought in some as big as salmon, caught in a lake on the Fjelde. I had no idea of even grilse or sea trout attaining such a size. I have seen ordinary sea trout of three or four pounds weight, but these exceed eighteen pounds. Fly fishing appears not known here, and I imagine it is altogether an English art. The people had heard of the success of English sportsmen at Jerkin ; RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 59 and one cannot make a more acceptable present to them than fishing flies and hooks, properly mounted. Sundset, August 22. — I set off this morning from Drivestuen. The expense of travelling in my pre sent style is half a dollar per day for man and horse. I live, to be sure, and so does my horse, in the coun try manner, which is certainly not the English one: but whoever has travelled in the Highlands, or even the lowlands of Scotland twenty years ago, has no right to complain of his accommodation here. An Englishman, bred in the midst of that peculiar atten tion to cleanliness and nicety, which, even now, is almost exclusively English, will find much to horrify him in a Norwegian inn ; but such gentlemen are scarcely in a situation to judge ofthe habits of a peo ple. They have been trained in a very nice, cleanly, little world, bounded, perhaps, by the Trent, or, at most, the Angel at Ferrybridge, on the north, and the Ship inn at Dover, on the south. It is scarcely fair to compare the state of manners and habits of all European nations with this standard. He who will travel fairly must eat what is placed before him, and sleep where there is a bed to lie down upon. If his sheets and his food are dirty, a plunge at day-break in the clear burn, and a good digestion, will remedy all. I doubt if a trayeller would at present be so well accommodated in our remoter Highlands. The dairy products are all clean ; and butter is such that any one may venture on it. Fish, eggs, wild strawberries, and the moltebeer, which will keep for a year, and deserve a place on our housekeepers' shelves better than half of our Go RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. jams and preserves, are all excellent things, which cooking cannot spoil to the most dainty traveller. There is, doubtless, a scarcity of many articles very important to comfort and cleanliness. Pottery ware, plates, dishes, bowls, are coarse, and not in the abundance we are accustomed to. Knives, forks, spoons, are also on the minimum side ofthe account as to comfort and nicety. If we will not buy their timber, how can these people buy our pottery and hardware? If the traveller judges fairly, and con siders what he actually finds, and the cost and dif ficulty of bringing together these household articles in a small Norwegian household, he will find much to admire. The sense of comfort, cleanliness, and order in domestic concerns appears to me more generally developed among the working class in this country than in Scotland. The wooden floors and side walls, the abundance of glass windows in the meanest habitations, and the outside store-rooms and accommodations distinct from the dwelling apartments, keep the inmates, especially the females, and their habits of living, in a much more cleanly and orderly state, than it is possible for those ofthe same class in Scotland to enjoy, with their earthen floors, and roofs, and side walls, their single pane of glass window, and their single room for all ages and sexes, to cook, and eat, and sleep in, and to hold all the clothes and stores of the family. Sokness, Aug. 23. — I started early this morn ing from Sundset. A Norwegian gentleman and his daughter are travelling like me with their own horse, and in stopping to bait I have formed a RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 6 1 little acquaintance with him. He is a northern proprietor returning from Copenhagen. Pro prietor, I find, is a sort of conventional title, like esquire with us, given to landholders who possess estates larger than they themselves farm. The smaller landholders, who work upon their own little estates, are called bonder. This gentleman and his daughter are like our own country gentry in remote parts of Scotland, very kind and obliging, and with the manners and appearance of genteel people. From Sundset to Bierkragen, there is more forest than I have yet seen in Norway. Distant farms look like holes cut out in the green mass of woods. The trees also appear larger, and the soil much better than on the other side of the Dovre Fjeld. The oats, bear, and potatoes are beautiful. Rye, and a sort of red-bearded wheat are luxuriant ; but they are not in general cultivation. Hemp and flax grow on every farm, and every house has a little patch in hops for family use. The hops appear very plentiful, and the plants healthy ; but the mode of cultivation is different from ours. The plants are not set in separate hills, but close together, so as to smother all vegetation below them. ^ Soeberg, Aug. '2.4< I made only three Nor wegian miles to-day, being unwilling to arrive late in the evening at Dronthiem, where I understand there are no regular inns. My travelling ac quaintances went on, having friends there. In building houses in Norway, timber is used of 62 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. a size far exceeding the dimensions we generally suppose its trees to attain. There is a log in this old house which is three feet on each square side ; and retains that size for at least 25 feet of length. In all the houses, especially those of very old date, the logs are as large as the Memel or American timber usually brought to England. I understand that the impediments in the rivers prevent the floating down of such lengths of great timber to the coast. The vessels, also, are too small for such pieces which it is customary to use in build ing. For these reasons the timber on this side of the Dovre Fjeld, is in general cut into short deals for exportation. Wood of considerable size grows as far north as the valley of the Namsen, the largest ofthe Norwegian rivers, about 120 English miles from Dronthiem : it grows in sheltered situations in Nordland and Finmark, as far north as Alten Fiord, but of diminutive size, and in such limited quantity that it is thought necessary to preserve it for the use of the inhabitants, and its exportation is prohibited. Trees in Nummedal, or the valley of the Namsen river, are large enough to furnish building material to the country to the north, and masts or spars of a foot and a half of girth at the end of sixty feet of length. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 63 CHAPTER II. DRONTHIEM. INN CATHEDRAL TOWN. — SHIPPING. LIBRARY. SAXON AND NORMAN ARCHES. GOTHIC AR CHITECTURE. STORDAL. COLONEL GEORGE SINCLAIR. ROCKING STONES. LEVANGER. DRONTHIEM FIORD AND BOTHNIAN GULPH. NORWEGIAN FARM. HOPS. STIK- KLESTAD. DATE OF THE BATTLE CORRECTED BY AN ECLIPSE. VyERDAL. PEASANTS. CROSS ROADS. SNAASEN VAND. STEENKJJER. — SCOTCH FARMERS. NOR WEGIAN FARMS VALUE, SIZE, TAXES, HARVEST WORK, PLOUGHING GIGOT SLEEVES. MY WINTER aUARTERS. Dronthiem, Aug. 25.- — I arrived here this morn ing at ten o'clock. The custom-house officer, sitting at the gate to take town dues, probably thought from my portmanteau that I had mer chandise to pay for. He willingly accompanied me to the best lodging house, to examine my luggage, and I readily gave him a small fee, as it is awkward to enter a town without knowing v/here to go. I have got into a comfortable house, kept by a cheerful old lady, who speaks a little English. It is not exactly an inn ; there is no sign post ; it is not open at every hour for every body, and the family expect more, consideration than in a place where the traveller, at least the English traveller, • is every thing, and the family nothing. In considerable towns, I understand, such as Dronthiem and Bergen, there are no regular inns, but plenty of these boarding houses, which are, in fact, as comfortable, and in which 64 residence in norway. the traveller is served as well as he could be in any inn the place could support. After an excellent breakfast, I went to see the far-famed cathedral. It does not impress the tra veller who has seen others either with its mag nitude or its beauty. It has nothing picturesque, whether viewed near or at a distance, and it has attracted little notice from the English or other foreign travellers. It is, however, a very remark able and interesting structure. There are parts unquestionably as old as the year 1033. Few, if any of the churches in England which are con sidered to be of Saxon architecture, are known as belonging to that period, being about the time of Canute the Great, and any which, from the style of architecture, are considered to be older than the Norman conquest, are objects of great interest ; and the style of arches and ornaments has given rise to many curious speculations. This cathedral would, therefore, deserve the careful examination of those conversant with the subject. There are parts of the fabric which have evidently been re built at various periods, as the structure has fre quently suffered from fire, and the old finely cut stones have in many places been built into the present walls without any distinct reason ; in some places forming arches, and in others pillars sup porting nothing, but merely put in, because they were considered ornamental. The barbarous taste of those who at present have charge of this curious building is much less excusable. Workmen are actually employed in painting over the whole of RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 65 the stone work, of a sort of light blue colour, which they think more beautiful, and more hke stone, than the beautiful stone itself of which the fabric is constructed. They are picking out, as our house painters call it, in white paint, the traceries, grotesques, and ornamental pillars, so that the whole exterior resembles very much the stern of a Dutch galliot. It would require some time, and more know ledge of the subject than I am master of, to con sider this structure properly, and to distinguish what is original from what is of a later age. Dronthiem, Aug. 27 This town has a popu lation of 12,400 inhabitants. The streets are spacious, with water cisterns at their intersections. The houses which are all, or with very few ex ceptions, of wood, are large, and good, and have an air of cleanliness and comfort. The scrubbing and washing of doors, windows, stairs, and pave ments, give a favourable impression ofthe habits of the Dronthiemers. . They are a remarkably hand some people — as the ladies at least know. There are few towns of this size in which one meets so many well-dressed handsome females of the higher class, who are invited out by the delightful even ings at this season. The means of subsistence here arise partly from Dronthiem being the seat of the higher courts, and functionaries connected with the provinces north of the Dovre Fjeld, and partly from its being the only place, on this side of the Fjeld, of which the merchants enjoy the privilege of trading to foreign ports. Tromsoe, in 66 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. Nordland, has of late obtained the same privileges, but it is as yet in its infancy. The trade of Dronthiem employs about fifty vessels belonging to the port, chiefly in conveying wood to France, and a few cargoes to Ireland and Scotland, also dried fish to Spain and Italy. France has been for some years the best customer for timber. One can well understand that the small proprietors there, who had acquired their lands during the Revolution, would not for many years possess the means, and the confidence in the security of their property, to build and lodge themselves suitably to its amount. Spanish and Italian vessels have of late found their way to Dronthiem ; and the trade, although it suffers by having its own vessels un employed, gains by finding customers at home instead of sending its fish to a distant market. In the year 1830, 154 vessels cleared outwards to foreign ports, of which 56 were to British ports, 23 to the Mediterranean, 28 to Spain, 17 to Den mark, 12 to Holland ; the rest to the Baltic, to Bremen, and other ports ; and for the home trade and fisheries, in the same year, there were cleared outwards 59 ships, and 262 yachts or coasting small craft. In the provinces or Amts, which are supplied through Dronthiem with all foreign pro ducts, there is a population of about 112,000 people, besides the inhabitants of the town itself, so that the trade of the place is considerable. All the products of other countries are extremely moderate in price, the import duties seldom ex ceeding two per cent, ad valorem, and the freight RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 67 by the return of vessels being very trifling. There are few towns in France where French wines are so cheap. The roadstead for shipping is bad, exposed to a heavy swell from the north and west, and with loose ground in twenty fathoms. In the river there is not depth of water for vessels draw ing above ten or twelve feet. There is a little rock called Munkholm, on which very expensive fortifications and batteries are constructing, for the defence of the town and shipping ; but for these objects it is apparently useless, being situated at too* great a distance. During the last war, our naval officers sent in boats, and destroyed towns and shipping, overcoming defences much more formidable than those of Dronthiem on the sea side. On the land-side, although almost sur rounded by the river Nid, it is so entirely com manded by the tongues of land and ravines on the opposite side of the river, that it appears scarcely secure, as the principal military depot on the north side of the Fjeld ; and in case of invasion could not be maintained without a very large force. Dronthiem, Aug. 29 There is a public library here on a liberal footing. I found no difficulty, although a stranger, in getting out books upon simply signing a printed receipt, in which the librarian inserted the title of the work. The col lection is large, and contains many curious and rare books. The Biblia Polyglotta Anglicana, per Br. Waltonum, Londini, 1657; and Edmundi Cos- telli Lexicon Heptaglotton is shown to strangers F 2 68 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. as rare, from the work, excepting a few copies, having perished in the fire of London in 1660. There is also a collection of minerals, and objects of natural history, and of antiquities, but of little value, being ill arranged, ill preserved, and the productions of different countries, and ages, all jumbled together. The Runic calendars, or staves with Runic characters, on which Dr. Clarke sets some value, if I am not mistaken, are indebted to the antiquarian's fancy for their importance. As records of events, they may be safely classed with Robinson Crusoe's tally-stick, with a long notch for Sundays, and an extra long one for the anni versary of his shipwreck. Imagination alone can make any thing more of them than a rude device to aid the memory of the individual in recollecting his private affairs, or possibly public transactions. No Runic inscription, either on wood or rock, has yet been discovered of an older date than the introduction of Christianity in the eleventh cen tury ; and Scandinavia boasts of regular historical records in the Saga, which relate the transactions ofthe tenth and even the ninth century. Dronthiem, Aug. 30. — I have paid a daily visit since I arrived, to the cathedral, and as I intend to move to-morrow, shall put down all that I have read or observed concerning this structure. King Olaf Haraldsen, who appears to have been the most blood-thirsty tyrant who was ever canonised, was killed by his subjects in a battle at a place called Stikklestad, north of Dronthiem, in the year 1033 ; and his body was interred in a church- still RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 69 standing, which he himself had built in that city and dedicated to Saint Clement. As Olaf reigned fifteen years, this building must have been erected between 1018 and 1033. As this monarch intro duced Christianity by fire and sword, into his dominions, and was killed by the peasants whom his cruelties had driven into revolt, he was ca nonised ; his shrine became the most distinguished in the north of Europe, and one of the most fre quented by pilgrims. The cathedral was founded in the year 1180 or 1183, close to this church, which forms a chapel at the east end of it. The west end now in ruins, was not founded till the year 1248, and in the end of the 13th century the whole structure must have stood in its splendour. The extreme length has been 346, and its breadth 84, English feet ; but the west end, which con tained the grand entrance, had a chapel at each corner, making the breadth of that front 140 feet. The transept and east end are the only parts roofed in, and now used for divine service. The western, once magnificently ornamented, is now used as a timber or store yard, but the outer walls still rise to the height of the arches of the lower windows, which are pointed, and of the spring of those which have joined the outer walls to the pillars of the aisles ; but these are all de molished. The grand entrance in this front was by three doors, now all built up, and in their place buttresses support this end of the wood-yard. This front was adorned with a row of twenty arched and delicately cut niches above the three F 3 70 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. entrance gates, and below these, on each side of the entrances, a row of ten pointed arches, with ornamental ones within them. The ten have rested upon slight pillars, and those within have joined and ended in a carved flower. The niches have been exceedingly rich in finely carved fret work and mouldings, and they still contain five full length statues more or less mutilated. From the folds of the drapery, hands, and air of the heads, they could not have been the work of the same age or country, which produced the grotesque masks and figures which are strewed with profusion over the most ancient parts of the building. They are of a different taste and school from those figures in the cathedral of Amiens and other churches of the same period ; and the celebrated figure of the goose-footed queen, on the portals of four French cathedrals, which has given occasion to so much learned conjecture, could not probably be ranked with these. They display considerable merit, and deserve the examination of a competent judge. The upper works of the transept and east end, being all now roofed in, have probably been rebuilt at various and comparatively recent periods. By these, I mean all above the first arches, or those springing from the ground. I conceive that all this higher part has originally been only of wood, for the cathedral is said to have frequently been burned. Now fire would consume the roof and wood-work, but not the stone walls. At all events the stones, not being calcareous, would have remained though the walls had tumbled RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. JI down. But there is on the spot no rubbish, or heaps of ruins, and in the adjacent houses no stones, which originally belonged to the cathedral : having all been squared they would have been easily recognised. Hence I suspect that, when the wood-work has been consumed by fire at dif ferent periods, the stones of the aisles and arches within the shell now remaining of the west end have been employed to build up the present walls of the transept, and other parts which were originally of wood. Thus we may account for the paltry taste and execution of all the upper part of the structure, and for the insertion of cut stone mouldings of arches where an arch could never have been intended, but the stones have evidently been built in from other places ; while all that is below, and could not possibly have been injured by any conflagration, is original, and from its antiquity, style, and execution, very interesting. The round arch with the zigzag ornament, which we call Saxon, is employed in all this old part, and also in Saint Clement's chapel. The present en trance in the north transept is a fine specimen of both. But this simple massive style is mixed with hght pointed arches, adorned with grotesque heads, flowers, and all the variety of ornaments which are usually considered peculiar to a much later period of Gothic architecture ; but here the two styles are evidently coeval. It shakes the theory of the Saxon and Norman, the round and pointed arch having been used exclusively in particular and dif ferent centuries, and affording ground to determine F 4 72 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. the comparative antiquity of Gothic edifices. The Norman arch, in its most florid style, is here con nected with the Saxon in its most simple and massive form, in a building where the known date of the portions containing this admixture is more ancient than the ascertained date of those English edifices from which the theory is derived. There has been a good deal of ingenious writing about the origin of Gothic arches. The interlacing of the boughs of tall trees in an avenue, as it has something of the effect, has also been considered as the original model of the interior of the Gothic cathedral, and what the earliest architects may have proposed to imitate. The origin is probably much less picturesque. The people of the north of Europe, before their conversion to Christianity, buried their dead, like all barbarous nations, with their arms, and implements, and even their horses, slaves, and sometimes their wives. On the sea coast, the boat or ship in which the chieftain sailed, was laid over the body, and the tumulus was raised over its hull. This circumstance re peatedly occurs in the Saga ; and the ship tumulus is distinguished by all Scandinavian antiquaries as distinct from the round heaps or mounds of earth raised over stone coffins or other receptacles. Its inside would be exactly a Gothic building in wood ; and the main body, the nave (navis) is called the ship of the building in the ancient northern languages, probably in reference to this origin. The curious will find a minute description of RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 73 the cathedral of Saint Olaf, its 316 windows, its 3361 pillars, its 32 altars, and all the rest of its magnificence, in a quarto volume, published at Dronthiem, in the year 1762, by Gerard Schoning, rector of the high school there ; an antiquary whose works are held in high esteem by the learned in Scandinavian antiquities. Aug. 31. — The weather being fine, and myself and pony quite refreshed by our long rest, I resolved to proceed onwards along the coast of this magnificent gulf. If I should be overtaken by bad weather, or find poor accommodations, I have always Drontheim under my lee. I paid my bill, about a dollar and a half per day, mounted my goods and chattels again behind my cariole, and set out before sunrise, by the opposite entrance to that by which I entered. The road crosses the river by a good wooden bridge, and beyond is a considerable suburb, and a country studded with neat villas of the merchants of Dronthiem. I took the road northwards, along the coast of the fiord, which was skirted by low hills, or knobs of primary rock, containing much mica, against which there rests a compact chloritic clay which, in its in durated state, appears to be the stone used in the cathedral, and in its soft state is th§ greenish till or subsoil of the arable land. Where this is laid dry, and made friable by cultivation, it appears to form an excellent soil. The crops are very luxu riant, but cultivation is much impeded by knobs of the primary under-rock. I have not, indeed, seen in Norway twenty acres of arable land in one field. 74 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. without some obstruction from knobs of stone. The farms upon this slope appear excellent; the crops heavy and clean. Oats, bear (I have seen no barley), rye, red wheat, a kind of bearded spring grain, and potatoes, make as good an ap pearance as similar crops do in the districts of Scotland which are farmed in the ordinary way, without any special improvements. The hills of primary rock in some places run out into promontories, which dip into the fiord. To scramble up and down these is not work for an alderman : when one does, however, get over the keel of such a ridge, he sees a quiet, beau tiful scene below. The little land-locked bay is so shut in with rocks and woods, that it resembles a small mountain lake. The entrance is hid by trees ; and the mark of high water on the white beach at the head of the cove is the only indi cation that it belongs to the ocean. There is ge nerally room at its head for one fishing farmer, with his house at the foot of the rocks, a green spot for his cows and goats, and his little skiff at anchor before his door ; where the lucky fellow, without ever knowing what a sea-storm is, or going out of sight of his own chimney smoke, catches in his sheltered creek the finest sea-fish beneath the shadow of the rocky forest that surrounds him. When the traveller drops suddenly upon one of these nooks, his toil is repaid. Besides these coves, there are extensive lateral valleys through which considerable rivers run into it. The fiord itself is just a great valley filled RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 75 with the sea, above 100 miles long, and from 3 to 12 broad. These Norwegian fiords are singular and inexplicable features. How could these im mense rifts, 60 to 200 miles long, and in some places not a gun-shot broad, be made in the solid primary rock ? It was not by the action of the sea ; for some extensive branches of them are at right angles to the main fiord, and not exposed to that impulse of the sea by which it could have been excavated. It could not have been formed like other valleys, by the gradual operation of rivers running into the sea, because there is here no back country to afford waters for so many large streams as must, by this supposition, have existed close, and often at right angles, to each other. The theory of the elevation of land by volcanic impulse from below gets over the difficulty more intelligibly than either of these two suppositions. It was not necessary that this volcanic power should break through the crust it elevated, and volcanic productions be found on the surface. Iceland might have afforded a near enough vent. I have been led to these observations by a singular rock which I found behind the Ferry House, at which I stopped for the night, in the valley of Stordal. This is the greatest of the lateral valleys on this side of the Drontheim fiord ; running about sixty miles up the country to the dividing ridge, or kiolin (keel) of the peninsula, which sends its waters from one side towards the Dronthiem fiord, and from the other towards the Bothnian Gulf and the Wenner Lake. The breadth of the valley 76 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. here may be about three miles of alluvial soil, resting on the south side against hills of micaceous schistus penetrated by veins of granite ; and on the north side, upon gneiss. Close to the river, shooting up through the alluvial soil, there is a huge mass of rock, different in its texture from any I have seen in Norway. Having to fasten my pony under the lee of it for the night, I was struck with its appearance. The texture is vesicular : some of the vesicles are empty, others filled with what ap peared to me whitish, decomposed feldspar, and the mass contains fragments of its own material, and of crystallised substance rendering it a con glomerate. It struck me that here, if any where, the crust has been broken through, and that this mass is a volcanic production. Indurated clay, mud upon mud, deposited from water, would have had a stratified or laminal texture, not a vesicular. Not knowing the ancient lava, I cannot speak con fidently ; but I know this mass is totally different in texture from the granite, the gneiss, the mica, the lime, or the indurated clay families, which are the usual rocks of Norway. This valley of Stordal is partly the scene of one of the most gallant enterprises in modern warfare, which, not being very generally known in Scot land, I will here relate. One hears often in Nor way of the Scottish war, and finds it an important chapter in the popular histories of the country ; and one ransacks his memory in vain to find when and how it took place. The circumstances are as follow : — In the war between Christian IV. of RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 77 Denmark and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, which began in the year l6ll, Gustavus sent a Colonel Munkhaven over to Scotland to obtain recruits for his service. Munkhaven raised about 3000 men in the north of Scotland, and embarked them in the end of the summer of l6l2. He found, on his arrival, that affairs had been going on unfavourably. Gottenburg had been taken by the Danes ; the whole Swedish side of the Sound was in their possession ; Stockholm itself was threatened ; and, from the North Cape to Calmar, the whole coast was occupied by the enemy. Munkhaven must have been an officer of singular military talent and vigour of mind : an ordinary man, under such circumstances, would have re turned to Scotland and disbanded his raw recruits. He would have been fully justified in doing so ; and his conduct and success is one of the finest examples, in modern warfare, of the nil desper- andum in military enterprise. He sailed north wards, and detached Colonel George Sinclair with 600 men to land in Romsdalen, and draw the attention of the garrison of Dronthiem to that quarter. From Romsdalen, Colonel Sinclair march ed slowly up the valley of Lessoe into the Gulde brandsdal, ravaging the country on hig way. Mean time Munkhaven, with his main body, proceeded northwards, sailed past the city of Dronthiem into the fiord, and landed at this place, Stordal, within a day and a half's march of that city. The gar rison, especially in a Swedish war, formed a power ful division of the army ; being, as stated above. 78 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. the only military depot north of the Dovre Fjeld. From the manner, however, in which it is com manded by the adjacent heights, a handful of men could demolish it. The troops in Dronthiem, finding an enemy on each side, and probably sup posing Sinclair's division the main body, durst not move out and leave exposed this principal mili tary depot. Munkhaven marched his troops, therefore, up this valley without opposition, crossed the Kiolen, seized on the two provinces of Jem- teland and Hergedalen, and annexed them per manently to Sweden ; he then relieved Stockholm, which was in imminent danger of falling into the hands of the Danes, extricated his sovereign from a perilous situation, and enabled him to conclude the peace of 1613. Colonel George Sinclair, with the forlorn hope of this brilliant enterprise, did not proceed so fortunately. He appears not to have used the ordinary precaution of seizing the principal inha bitants on his route, and causing them to march with his column, as hostages for the peaceful con duct of the people. He was attacked in a narrow pass of Guldebrandsdal by the peasantry of two or three of the adjoining parishes ; and, although they were only armed with such weapons as the country could afford, they cut off" him and all his troops. Two only, it is said, escaped alive. By another account, sixty were made prisoners, and were butchered in the course of the winter, which is not a probable circumstance. Sinclair's lady is said to have accompanied him ; and it is added, RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 79 that a youth, who meant to join the peasants in the attack, was prevented by a young lady to whom he was to be married next day. She, on learning that there was one of her own sex among the Scottish troops, sent her lover to her protection ; Mrs. Sinclair, not understanding his purpose, shot him dead. It is possible that the papers of some of the Sinclairs in Caithness would give curious inform ation respecting Munkhaven's levy, and the fate of Colonel George Sinclair and his lady. It is pleasing to observe that the people re member, and feel pride in this gallant exploit of their forefathers. It is told or sung in every house. A peasantry see nothing of the operations of war but what is before their eyes ; and they may justly boast of having cut off a body of regular invading troops by their own unaided valour. But it is lamentable to find enlightened men in Norway seriously resting the defence of the country en tirely upon this excellent spirit of the people, and its natural capabilities of defence. These may do much, if well applied, but are by no means suf ficient in modern warfare. They forget that on this very occasion Colonel Munkhaven broke through their country with a mere h^dful of men, within a trifling distance of its principal military station, and turned the tide of war against them ; and all this with the loss of only a forlorn hope of six hundred men, caused apparently by the rash ness of their leader. Levanger, September 2. — I arrived last night 80 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. at this little town. Few situations in travelling excite more anxiety than that of driving alone through a strange country towards nightfall, both horse and man pretty well tired, and both nearly equally unacquainted with the language, or where to find a night's lodging. This was my situation last night. After leaving the Ferry-house at Stordal River, and crossing the river and valley, I got into a rough country, covered with huge fragments, not rolled masses, of gneiss and of conglomerate broken down from the craggy steeps above. In any other region one would be very much inclined to call in the assistance of an earthquake to account for this phenomenon ; but in this latitude frost would be sufficient. Some of these blocks have tumbled upon the top of each other, and are so nicely poised, that I at once exclaimed, " Here are the Rocking Stones of Cornwall." Two huge masses, near each other, are placed above similar ones, by such small points of contact, that the adjustment seems, at first view, artificial. The aspect of the cliff above, however, and the vast accumulation of similar debris, satisfied me that it was the work of chance. I had imagined, as probably many other travellers do, that beyond Dronthiem one must be on the extreme verge of cultivation ; that the country, forty or fifty miles northwards from that city, must be a sort of waste of moss, and rock, and morass, supporting, perhaps, a few cottars, with their cat tle, near the coast, and a few Finlanders or Lap landers, with their rein-deer, in the interior. I RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 81 was astonished to find myself, towards sun-set, in a fine arable district, with farms and capital farm houses, having each its hop garden, and fields of excellent oats and bear, on a much larger scale than any I had yet seen in Norway. I found also many good roads crossing the main one, with guide posts, bridges, road drains, fences, and the spires of three parish churches in view at once. My Lapland vanished. My anxiety about a night's lodging ceased on the first glimpse of a land of kirks and manses. I drove on to the spire which had the greatest cluster of houses round it, found excellent quarters in a farm-house near the village, and in half an hour I and my horse were eating our suppers. My fare was newly-caught salmon, with a sauce of horse-i'adish pounded into a cream, followed by excellent coffee ; and all so nice, clean, and comfortable, that I determined to halt here for some time, i^s another inducement, I saw last night, as I drove between the fields of corn, a plough, — a genuine red-painted Scotch plough. There was no mistaking my countryman. On inquiring to day, I find that I am right ; there is a Scotch farmer who has been eight or nine years in this neighbourhood. One may learn more of Norway in an hour, from such a man, than by travelling a hundred miles. Levanger, September 4. — This is the only country town, except Little Hammer, at the up per end of the Myosen lake, that I have seen in Norway. The territory is not inhabited village- wise. In this respect countries differ remarkably. G 82 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. In some the agricultural population is clustered into villages, and the arable lands are necessarily at a distance from the dwellings ; which must oc casion great delay and loss in farming operations. Here the husbandman dwells in the midst of his lands, which must be more advantageous, and make even a difference in the wealth of an agricultural nation. I walked through this little town to-day. The houses are remarkably good and clean. The little parlours, the kitchens, and pantries, would be suit able in an English maritime town ; but the streets are unpaved and frightfully dirty. Horses and carioles are so general among the country peo ple, that the comfort of the pedestrian is little attended to, even in considerable towns, such as Dronthiem ; while all that relates to driving, such as bridges, covered drains, water-courses, is kept in excellent repair, even on unfrequented cross roads. The floors of rooms in Norway, and, I believe, in Sweden also, are, at least once a week, strewed over with the green tops of the fir or juniper. On a white well-scoured deal floor, the lively green specks have a pretty effect. The use is the same as that of the yellow sand, with which our house wives sprinkle their floors. It prevents the mud on the shoes from adhering to and soiling the wood. The gathering and selling these green juniper buds is a sort of trade for poor old people about the towns, just as selling yellow sand is with us. At funerals, the road into the churchyard RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 83 and to the grave is strewed with these green sprigs. In so remote a little town, I was surprised to find two working silversmiths. The small pro prietors are fond of possessing plate, as silver spoons, and tankards, or jugs for ale, having the heads or covers, and often the whole, of silver. The want of gardens, or a bit of ground before or behind a house, laid out in beds, and looking nice and trim, gives to all the dwellings a comfort less aspect. They look like wooden boxes set down upon a grass or corn field. A small enclo sure for hops is attached to every farm-house, but carrots, onions, cabbage, and all garden vegetables are little used. Probably, the short interval be tween winter and summer allows little time to attend to any but the essential crops. Farmers are bad gardeners every where. This little town is situated on an inlet of the Dronthiem Fiord, which affords the best shelter for small vessels on this side of that gulf, and is a place of considerable importance. Dried fish, salted herrings, and all kinds of manufactured goods and foreign productions, are brought from Dronthiem to this town, which is a sort of com mercial outport for the trade of that city. The Swedes come across the Fjelde in great numbers, when the snow sets in, and makes the transport of heavy goods practicable on sledges. They bring iron, and iron nails, copper, tallow, butter, cheese, skins, hides, frozen game and venison, which will G 2 84 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. keep good until spring, and barter these products for the articles they consume. The upper part of Sweden, which throws its waters into the Baltic, is more easily and cheaply supplied by this channel than by the Bothnian Gulf To a large portion of Sweden, perhaps even of Finland and the north of Russia, the Dronthiem Fiord affords a much readier communication with other parts of the world than the Baltic ; it is never impeded by ice, and is the true sea-port for those countries, being navigable at all seasons, and lead ing direct into the ocean. In winter, after the snow has fallen, the whole country across from it to the Bothnian Gulf, and into the interior of Russia, is one railroad, such as art can never rival, as to the aid given to animal power. If the steam carriage should ever be brought to perfection, it is in those countries in which winter equalises and hardens the sledge roads over the snow for eight months of the year, that its application will pro duce the greatest changes in the channels of com merce. The distance across from the Dronthiem Fiord at this place, to Sundsvald on the Bothnian Gulf, is only about 270 or 280 miles, by a new road now constructing across the Fjelde. This in winter is but a small impediment, compared to the long navigation up the Baltic and the Bothnian Gulf, which are only open for a part of the year, and to which vessels from America, or the Medi terranean, or even from Bristol or Liverpool, can scarcely reckon upon more than one annual voyage. This trade may become very important. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 85 if any political events should make the navigation of the Baltic unsafe. Already it is of such im portance, that the first mercantile companies in Dronthiem have houses and warehouses in this little town, with a view to two great fairs held here in December and March. The resort thither of people from Sweden is said to be very great, when there is no disappointment in having snow for the transport of goods by sledges. The trade must be considerable which admits such good buildings for the sake of a business that lasts only three weeks in the year. Levanger, September 10. — It is very unsatis factory to travel over a country, seeing it as you would a panorama, but, from imperfect knowledge of the language, unable to gain information about what you see. I consider this place, or at least this district, as very interesting. It is evidently a point of contact between civilised life, and what can scarcely receive that appellation. The in habitants of the most unfrequented tract of land in Europe (for it is only along the sides or shores of the fiords that roads or business lead the stranger,) come from the interior of the Peninsula to pur chase here their necessaries and luxuries. The country is evidently rich and well cultivated ; and the inhabitants, being removed from all foreign in tercourse, unless at these fairs, must afford the best specimen of the genuine landholders of Norway, unaffected by any extraneous circumstances. Having the advantage also of an intelligent Scotch farmer, who has been settled in this neighbour- G 3 86 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. hood for some years, to apply to for information, I resolved to remain here a few days. I had got moreover into clean and comfortable quarters. I went one evening with my landlord to look at a farm about four miles up the country, which he intends to sell. He expects about two thousand dollars. I was surprised to see offered at this sum at least a hundred acres, besides a considerable tract under wood. Not above forty were culti vated; the rest grass, impeded with bushes and stones, but yielding hay. Sown grasses are not introduced, and ray grass at least will not, I un derstand, endure the winter. I suspect there must be some fault in the management, for I found it growing naturally on the sides of a field, in which I was k)ld it had been tried, and had failed. Tim othy grass is the only kind cultivated, but not at all generally. The farmer depends for his hay upon natural grass, and as the fields are not top dressed, it requires a great space of land to pro duce any considerable quantity. As the straw is all housed, and consequently more dry and withered towards spi'ing, than that of crops stacked out of doors, a large quantity of hay is required. This is the cause, I imderstand, of so great a pro portion of every farm being left unploughed. I found a small hop garden even on this farm, and apparently the crop excellent. It is singular, that a plant which is so delicate and precarious in the south of England, and requires the most ex pensive culture, should flourish here in latitude 64°, and with very little attention. It is not im- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 87 possible that there may be races or families of plants, as undoubtedly there are of animals, more hardy, or at least more exempt from diseases, than others of the same species ; and that our hop farrtiers might obtain from this quarter a hardier plant, and one which perhaps would succeed far ther north, than the British. I must endeavour to become acquainted with the value of land in this country. It appears to me, from what I learned in my walk this evening, that many who emigrate with small capitals to the woods of Canada, and whose habits are not exactly suited to a life of privation and toil, would have found all they wanted much cheaper here. Summer lingers long in this country. On re turning from our walk we found the family sitting out of doors at eleven o'clock at night, listening to two visitors, who sang, and played the guitar. It was almost like the south of Europe. The even ings and nights, even in this month, have not the raw, damp, chilly air, which in Scotland would make it not at all agreeable to sit out of doors at midnight in September. The air is dry and warm, and I infer, from the little hurry or bustle about cutting down or taking in the crops which are standing dead ripe, that the climate is steady at this season. A Scotch farmer would be in a fever of anxiety and apprehension, if he had his fields in such a state. September 20. — Being desirous of seeing as much as possible of this fine tract of country, while the weather is so delightful, I set off yes- G 4 88 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. terday towards the north along the fiord. My stay at Levanger has advanced me considerably in the language. The country is much better than nearer to Dronthiem, the soil superior, and the barren head lands of primary rock running into the fiord, not so numerous, steep, and rugged. Cultivation ex tends back into the country as far as the eye can reach, and is not confined to the hollows and skirts of high ground, but spreads over hill and dale. At the entrance of the valley of Vaerdal, I left the coast, and after driving a few miles through a tract covered with the most luxuriant crops, now in full harvest, I came to the river which runs through the valley, and is at this place as wide as the Tweed at Kelso. Seeing fresh traces of wheels on the sand, and a steeple a little distant on the other side, I took the river, concluding this to be the ford. When I was half across, a man came bawling about a boat, as I understood; but I had got over the worst, and saved my fare, although with a little wetting. I whipped on to the little church, which the man told me was that of Stik klestad. It is a place celebrated in Norwegian history, for here king Olaf the saint was slain in the battle with his subjects. Never was a monarch opposed and cut off by his people on juster grounds. He was raised by them to supreme power under the pledge of not interfering with their religious or civil rights. After a course of success, not unmixed with single acts of cruelty and perfidy, E^gainst all the small RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 89 kings who had originally assisted him in reaching the sovereign power, he attempted to impose, by force and cruelty, the Christian faith on his sub jects. Superstition appears to have entirely al tered a character, originally humane, brave, and eminently popular ; and to have led him to acts so atrocious, that in an age not very distinguished for humanity, he excited an universal revolt. On his way from Sweden with an army to recon quer his kingdom, he was met at this place by the hostile peasantry, and fell without even showing the prudence and courage which had distinguished his early career. The Danish Antiquarian Society has erected a monument on the spot where this bloody saint fell, which is also marked out by a rude monument of older date. They have added an inscription, im plying, that the pious monarch, after labouring for fifteen years in the conversion of his subjects to the Christian religion, was slain in a tumult of his mutinous people, on the 29th June 1033. The silence of the ancient monument is more honour able, and true to history. Of all historical events, one would expect the exact date of this battle of Stikklestad to be the best ascertained in northern history, because all accounts of it concur in the remarkable circum stance, that a total eclipse of the sun began nearly with the battle, at half past one in the forenoon, and continued till three, commencing with a redness in the sky and increasing to a total dark ness; and the date is usually given as the 29th June 90 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 1033. But in Grundvig's translation of Shorro into the modern Norse, which I saw at Dronthiem, it is stated to be 29th July 1033. But it has been calculated by the celebrated Professor Hansten of Christiania, that there was no such eclipse at either date visible at Stikklestad. The Saga and Snorro Sturlesen are proved incorrect even by their own accounts, which state that, at night, the darkness prevented the parties from continuing the fight or the pursuit. Now in latitude 63° 40', it is not so dark at midnight, either on the 29th of June or of July, as to occasion any practical difference be tween night and day. As there is no bringing the sun to the saint, it has been found necessary to bring the saint to the sun. On the 31st August 1030, there was a total eclipse of the sun which would be visible at Stikklestad, at the hours speci fied ; and at that date also the sun would be so far below the horizon at night as to occasion dark ness. There can be no doubt therefore, that in stead ofthe 29th June 1033, as in all the historical accounts, and also on the Antiquarian Society's pillar, the real date was 3 1st August 1030. What then shall we think of the authority of Snorro Sturlesen, or of the Saga, whence he draws his information, when we find such an error regarding a leading event, M'hich had an important influence on a chain of succeeding events, and took place, if I am not mistaken, only about 148 years before his own birth ? How much greater must be our doubt as to more distant events, some not com- RESIDENCE IN NOIIWAY. 91 mitted to writing, we are told, until 240 years after their occurrence. The church of Stikklestad, or some part of it, is probably of a date not much later than the fall of Saint Olaf. His body was transported to Saint Clement's church in Dronthiem, erected by him self. As he was canonised soon after, and became one of the most celebrated of northern saints, this stone church, so near to the field of battle, may probably be of ancient erection. The only part which struck me as curious, although, from my not knowing the date, of little interest, is the entrance gate, a round Saxon arch with peculiar fillet ornaments, similar to those on round arches in the transept ofthe cathedral of Dronthiem. After satisfying my curiosity, and drying my self in the sun, on this memorable battle field, I drove up the valley of Vaerdal for ten or twelve miles, to its junction with another river and valley from the south-west, called Indal. There is here a neat little church, with an old standing stone in the church-yard. About a mile higher, I found a ferry-boat, and crossed the river with my horse and cariole, to the house of a gentleman, for whom I had brought a letter from Levanger. He is an extensive proprietor in this quarter,' and universally respected for his judgment and knowledge, and lias been frequently one of the representatives of the city of Dronthiem in the Storthing. This gen tleman not only understands the English language, but is better acquainted with English literature, than many members of our own Storthing in West- 92 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, minster; and I passed a very agreeable and in structive day with his amiable family. I do not know in Scotland a valley so beautiful as this of Vaerdal : the crops of grain so rich and yellow ; the houses so substantial and thickly set ; farm after farm without interruption, each fully enclosed and subdivided with paling ; the grass fields of so lively a green, as free from weeds and rubbish, and as neatly shaven, as a lawn before a gentleman's windows ; every knoll, and all the background, covered with trees, and a noble clear river running briskly through it. There is a reach or two of Nithsdale in Dumfries-shire, about El- liock, which, on a small scale, resembles this valley; but the soft living green of the natural grass does not belong to, or is not long retained by, our sown grass fields. Such verdure is to be seen in the Welsh, but not so often in the Scotch valleys. I find that all these beautiful little farms, with the substantial houses, and that air of plenty and completeness about them which struck me so much on my way up this valley, are the udal estates, and residences of the peasant proprietors, or bonder. They are small farms, usually of about forty or fifty acres ; but each having besides a pasturage or grass tract in the fjelde, where all the cattle that can be spared are kept through the summer, until the crops are taken in ; and upon these out-farms there are houses and a regular dairy. This class of bonder are the most interest ing people in Norway. There are none similar to them in the feudal countries of Europe. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 93 On leaving this beautiful valley, and the hospit able mansion where I had passed the night, I took the first road across the country leading to the north. In the evening I got to a branch of the great lake called Snaasen Vand, which by my map extends eastward about forty miles, and pours its waters through a valley of fine land, but of short extent, into the head of the Dronthiem Fiord. The tract across from Vaerdal to this valley, maybe thirty-five miles by the road I came. It is rough. Blocks of primary rocks, gneiss, or micace ous schist, covered with trees, divide the streams, and form the banks of the small lakes, into which all the waters in this country have a tendency to expand ; a proof that they have hard primary rock to cut through, and no very sudden rise of level behind to give them force. On the banks of these streams and lakes there are farms, but evidently of inferior soil to that of the great valleys. I stopped twice to rest and feed my horse, for which the charge is four skillings, or three halfpence ster ling ; and I have never been at a loss for excellent cheese, butter, milk, and oat-cake. I passed one or two peat mosses just forming. The trees had fallen, obstructed the drainage of the water, and were half buried in black, decayed vegetable earth. Of proper black, compact peat moss, how ever, I have not yet seen so much as would make a stack in the highlands of Scotland, nor so much heath as would shelter a covey of muirfowl. The fine long unbroken stretches of purple heath, which 94 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, cover our Scotch hills, are wanting, I believe, in Norway. The cross roads by which I reached the valley of the Snaasen Vand, are not worse than many cross roads within forty miles of London. They are badly laid out for avoiding sharp ascents, but well constructed and kept up, over all Norway. It is, perhaps, one of the advantages which that country derived from being so long under the vigorous administration of an absolute government, that all public duty was, and continues to be, done with a kind of military promptitude. This has enriched Norway with roads and bridges, without Vi h'ich many tracts could not have been inhabited ; and no vague sense of public advantage and con venience could, perhaps, have worked so effec tively, either with the public functionary or the people, without the will and fiat of the strong un restrained power behind, to enforce the execution. Many of the most lonely forests and fjelde, by tnose paths of communication, are made, if not avail able for human use, at least not obstructive to it. At the junction of the river of the Snaasen Vand with the Dronthiem Fiord, there is a good wooden bridge, with five arches, over the river ; and on each side is a small cluster of houses, form ing a little village called Steenkjaer, once a place of great importance. After a long and fatiguing day's journey, for I had wandered considerably, I found good quarters at the merchant's house here, Steenkjcsr. — I have remained a few days at this RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 95 place to see the countiy. The road to the north terminates about four Norwegian miles beyond this village ; after which the traveller must proceed by boats. There are roads only across the necks of some of the peninsulse, and over some ofthe islands from ferry to ferry. Another road leads up the valley of the Snaasen Vand. • Here ditching, draining, and clearing land were going on with great spirit, I did not expect certainly to be charmed with the crops in the sixty-fifth degree of north latitude ; but the vegetative power, whatever be the cause, is more vigorous here than .in the north of Scotland. Some of the largest establishments of saw mills in Norway are supplied with trees from the forests around the Snaasen Vand, Of ordinary productions, rye, oats, bear, flax, hops, appeared great crops. This may well be in a soil and climate which raises such noble forests. Behind the house I inhabited is a standard cherry tree bearing ripe fruit. It would be a rarity in Scotland to raise them, unless against a wall, even eight degrees of latitude south of this. Dronthiem is supplied with them from a parish twenty^ miles north of the town. Hops are cultivated here as a crop. Flax seed ripens so as to be fit for being sown. It is only in the south of Scotland tl^t these pro ductions would come to maturity. Yet I observe, that the mountain ash, with us one of the hardiest of trees, growing where none of the pine tribe reach, high among the hills by itself, is in Norway a delicate tree, the only one upon which any care is bestowed, I see it planted in the hop gardens. 96 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. and in sheltered situations. The common ash is also scarce on this side the Dovre Fjeld. Aspen, wild cherry, birch, and the pine tribe are the trees, juniper, wild raspberry, and wild rose the bushes, that generally prevail. In this valley of the Snaasen Vand I found another Scotchman (where are they not to be found ?), who has been six years in the country as a farm servant and tenant. I was glad of the op portunity of seeing his farm, because it is not like those of the two or three other Scotch farmers which I saw, on the skirts of a town or village, like Dronthiem or Levanger, and has no peculiar advan tages to prevent it from being considered a fair specimen of these small estates. There was also a measurement or plan of it to guide my inquiries. Land in Norway is measured by the maeling. The maeling contains forty-nine square ells, the ell two feet, and the foot Norwegian is, I find, three per cent, longer than ours. Thus the English acre, of 43,560 square feet, contains four maelings and four tenths. It is only near towns, however, that land is sold by the maeling. In general, a farm is valued or sold at a sum, without much measurement. Each may be considered as con sisting of three divisions : first, the infield, or what we should call the mains, or home acres, enclosed for the crops and the best hay ; next, the mark, or outfield, also enclosed, and affording the out- pasture for the cattle. Parts of it also are occa sionally fenced off, and broken up for grain, and when exhausted left to sward itself; and when RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 97 the cattle are sent to the Fjelde, some hay is got from the mark. The housemen, or cottar tenants, have their land in this part, which is generally in a half cleared state, with bushes and small wood sprinkled over it, and is often of considerable extent. In speaking of land or farms, the people seem to think nothing of the mark, and the mael ings generally refer only to the infield or mains ; but a purchaser or farmer would, I apprehend, find the best part of his profit in the mark. There is often a still rougher piece of land divided from the mark, as a range for goats and young cattle, called the Out-mark. The third division is the seater. This is a pasture or grass farm, often at the dis tance of thirty or forty miles up in the Fjelde, to which the whole of the cattle and the dairy maids, with their sweethearts, are sent to junket and amuse themselves, for three or four months of the summer. There are huts on these seaters, such as the French call chalots, whence our highlanders apparently got the word sheelings ; and although only for temporary residence, they are generally substantial buildings, with every accommodation necessary for the dairy. The seaters are generally situated on the banks of some stream or lake in the Fjelde, and the people who reside'there catch trout, gather molteberries, and make cheese and butter for the mistress, and, I dare say, have a pleasant life of it, up in the Fjelde, all in the fine still summer evenings. The seaters have gene rally also near them a mire or bog, on which some bog-hay is made and stacked upon the spot ; and H 98 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. in winter, when frost has hardened the ground, and snow levelled the obstructions, it is driven home on sledges. The seater and mark are thrown in as appendages, when speaking of farms of so many maelings. The farm of my countryman consists of I276 maelings, or 290 English acres ; but this does not include the seater, which happens here to be on the hills immediately behind the farm, is covered with fine trees, and is of a defined boundary, extending about a Norwegian mile in circuit. Of the mea sured land, 148 acres are cleared ; but being farmed in the Norwegian style, one third only bears crops of corn and potatoes. The remainder is always in grass for hay, for the winter support of the cattle. It is natural grass, not top-dressed with manure, and is mown when not above the length of one's finger, so that the proportion of arable land that must be given up to keep the cattle in winter is enormous ; it is the system of farming in this quarter : 142 acres outside of the 148 in field are half cleared, being fenced off and ploughed in patches. It bears good grass, but is encumbered in some places with brushwood and stones. Three housemen or cottars, paying from three to four dollars each of rent, and working at the low rate of eight skillings, instead of twelve per day, with their victuals, have their land and houses fenced off in this division. ¦ This farm supports twenty cows, seven horses, and a score or two of sheep and goats. The ac commodation for cattle is excellent. They stand RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 99 in a single row in the middle of a wide house, with partitions between each, and room before and be hind greater than is occupied by the animal itself. The cowhouse is lighted by good glass windows on each side. The cattle stand on a wooden floor, below which is a vault into which the dung is swept by a grated opening at the end of each stall. One woman here will keep twenty or twenty-five head of cattle quite clean, instead of its requiring six hours' work of two men, as in cleaning out our ill constructed byres. All the cowhouses in Norway are on this roomy, convenient scale, built over a vault and with wooden floors ; so that the animals, both cows and horses, require no litter ; having the dry clean boards, instead of damp stones or earth, beneath them. This is a saving of fodder, where it is so valuable from the length of the winter. In this, and in all large farms, the water is brought by pipes, or there is a pump in the cowhouse ; and the woman who attends the cows sleeps in one corner of it. This farm is distant from sea carriage about five English mUes. The freight of grain to Dron thiem is about Qd. per quarter. The price of common labour is about 4i^d. per day with victuals. A carpenter earns 9d. The annual rent of this farm is 200 dollars. The taxes amount in all to about 36 dollars and 8 skillings, or 61. 14*. 5d. sterling. Of this, tithe and all charges connected with the church esta blishment, amount to 8 dollars 4 skillings. The poor rate is the keep, bed, and victuals, of one old H 2 100 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. man for twenty-six weeks. Every farmer has to send a horse to the post-house, upon the particular day when his turn comes, on receiving due notice ; but the use of the horse is paid for. Every farm also of a certain size must provide a horse for the artillery or cavalry ; but as it too is paid for by government while in service, it is considered an advantage rather than a tax. Upon a property of the net yearly value of 200 dollars, or 37/. 10*. sterling, 61. 14*. 5d. is a heavy amount of taxes. But this is nearly all that is paid in any shape ; the indirect taxes, such as our Excise and Custom-house duties, being incon siderable. If our landholder could reckon, besides his poor-rate, tithe, land-tax, window-tax, and direct assessments of every kind, all that he pays upon the commodities he uses, and all that his customers pay, so as to lessen the consumption and price of his produce, what proportion of his in come would be really affected by taxation ? Such a property as that now described is con sidered worth about 4000 dollars. Within a mile or two of Dronthiem, adjoining the coast, I observed an estate advertised, with suitable houses and mills, at 36 dollars per maeling. This price I estimate at 29/. 14s. sterling per English acre. The rent of land near a town can scarcely be ascertained ; because it is the custom here, as of old in the north of Scotland, to leave a milking and work ing stock, seed, and implements to the tenant at his entry, he paying back stock to his successor to the same value at the expiry of his lease. The RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 101 milk near a town like Dronthiem, of 12,000 in habitants, gives an important addition to the farmer's receipts ; and that depends so much on the quality of his milking stock, that the rent per maeling may depend on the cow that is to eat its produce. I know 16*. sterling per English acre to be paid by one farmer in a favourable situation. I have been particular in stating all I could learn about this farm, because I consider it fitted to be the representative of a large proportion of the estates into which this country is divided. From 2500 to 4500 dollars include, perhaps, the prices of all ordinary estates, and any thing very much above or below would be an exception. As to the dwelling houses on such estates, the material for building is so easily obtained, that there is really no difference between the residence of a public functionary, of a clergyman, or of a gentleman of large property, and that of a bonde or peasant proprietor. The latter are as well, as commodiously, and even showily lodged as the former can be, and the properties upon which they dwell are as good. The others may have several of those estates, but seldom connected so as to form one exceeding the ordinary size. The divi sion of property among children prdvents the erec tion of any splendid mansions, or any thing more expensive than is proportioned to the property upon which it stands. As there are no domains to attach to a large mansion, and in a generation or two any estate would be reduced to the ordinary size, a larger house than suits the ground on which H 3 102 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. it is situated would be out of place. The Norwe gians are, beyond a doubt, the most generally well lodged people in Europe ; but none magnificently. Many farmers in Scotland, paying from 300/. to 500/. sterling of rent, have worse accommodations for themselves, their cattle, and crops, than people here whose estates could be purchased for 500/. The harvest work in this district, and I believe all over Norway, is well done ; and parts of their management might be adopted with advantage in our late districts, where so much grain is lost or damaged almost every autumn by wind or rain. For every ten sheaves, a pole of light strong wood, about the thickness of the handle of a garden rake, and about nine feet in length, is fixed in the ground by an iron-shod borer : it costs here almost nothing. A man sets two sheaves on the ground against the stem, and impales all the rest upon the pole, one above the other, with the heads hanging downwards. The pole enters before the band of each sheaf, and comes out at the bottom ; the sheaf is put on with a pitchfork, and a whole field is picketted in this way with the greatest ease, and as fast as cut. The crop is in perfect safety as soon as it is on the poles ; no rain or damp can heat or make it grow. Only a single sheaf is exposed to the wet. It hangs with its head downwards, is open on all sides to the air and wind, and thus dries as fast as the rain wets it. Gales of wind cannot shake it, making the heads of sheaves dash against one another, which often happens to corn standing in stooks ; there is also RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 103 not half of the handling and pitching about of the sheaves as in our harvest work ; in which each sheaf is first dragged to the stock, and afterwards thrown into the cart. Here a sledge or car, on low wheels, comes along the pole, which is lifted with all its sheaves, and laid into it at once ; and each pole, when in the barn, is a tally for a threave of ten sheaves. The crop is all necessarily brought at once into large barns, on account of the deep snow in winter. The straw must be well withered, and quite dry' when housed, which with out this plan could seldom be effected. The sheaves are somewhat less than ours. Shearers here make good work, cut low, and all back handed ; that is, they grasp the corn with the back of the left hand towards the hook, not the palm as with us ; thus only the stalks contained in the hand can be cut over at one stroke. With us much more, almost an armflil, is pressed against the edge of the hook, and cut over ; the greater part of which is strewed about the field, and lost in carrying it to the band ; for it is only what the grasp can manage that comes safely to the sheaf. The practical farmer will not think these observr H 4 104 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. ations trifling. The loss of grain in Great Britain, from the field to the mill, would pay the tithe. Norwegian Plough, a, Sole, flat and of wood. b, Mould-board plated with iron ; and c, share ; both fastened to the sole with bolts, d. Regulator, of which the lower part, e, touches the ground. /, Handle, generally wanting, The Norwegian plough is far from being a con temptible tool : the mould-board has an excellent shape, is clad with iron plate, and turns over the sod completely. It is a kind of paring plough, for the sole is flat, and generally covered with iron plate also, and the ploughing consists in taking the sod or earth at a certain depth, and turning it flat over. It is in fact the Norfolk system of not breaking the pan, as it is there called, of the soil, and never ploughing up or touching the subsoil. It would be rash to condemn this plan, where the subsoil is porous, as it generally is on the primary rocks, upon which clay is seldom the first layer, at least in this country. It might be disadvantageous to break into such a subsoil, and deprive the soil above of the moisture necessary for vegetation. It appears, at any rate, rational to have a fixed RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 105 Norwegian Plough. a, 6, Regulator, c,d. Frame, with which the ploughman removes obstructions. /, Sole, of wood, with iron straps on the under side, g. Coulter, h, Mouldboard, longer than ours and well shaped, depth of earth stirred by the plough and benefited by the manure bestowed upon a field, and not to leave it to the judgment of the ploughman, or the will of his horses. In the beam of the Norwegian plough, before the coulter, there is a wooden plug or wedge, which first touches the ground ; and as this regulator is set high or low, the coulter behind it can take more or less depth. There are two stilts to this plough, the one before the other. They are joined by a rail, and the ploughman walks not behind, but by the side of his plough, and holding by this rail turns over as with a lever 106 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. the Stones, sods, or earth, that obstruct the ma chine. The whole of a field is ploughed quite flat, not gathered into rigs, which is an error, as the sur face water, not finding an issue, sours the land, and retards the seed bed. A still greater disadvantage • is, that the plough, not being a turn- wrest one, re turns empty to the place it set out from, to begin each new furrow. The ploughman does not make a fresh one in coming back, but trails the empty plough on its side to the head of the field. He requires, consequently, just double the time to plough an acre that we take. In a country where time is so much wanted in spring to get the seed into the ground, where little ploughing can be done in autumn and none in winter, the loss by this absurd practice is incalculable. The farmers thus incur the expense of keeping a greater num ber of horses and servants than otherwise would be required. They use only two horses in the plough, without a driver, and are anxious to save time and labour ; yet this wasteful custom holds its ground by the side of farmers who have adopted our mode from seeing Scotch ploughmen at work, and thus with the same implements and horses go over double the space that their neighbours do in the same time. Such is the power of custom even among peasantry not averse to improvement. The ease of the horses, of which they have a sovereign care, is the impediment to its adoption. They think it must be too much for them to work for wards, and return also, without rest. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 107 September 28 Sunday, Gigot sleeves, rumps, and ringlets ! Where does the empire of fashion end ? Not on the borders of Lapland. 29. — Winter has surprised me. There was a sharp frost last night. The flies and the swallows are gone ; and with them the prudent traveller should depart. I am not sorry, however, that winter has caught me in this part of Norway. I may contrive to pass it here, collecting, as I ad vance in the use of the language, interesting in formation among a people living in social arrange ments so different from ours. I have as yet seen but little of their real domestic condition, only the outside, I may say, of the country. The pass ing traveller is really very like the swallow, skim ming over the land by day, roosting under the roofs by night, and returning home very little the wiser for his flight. I may easily run back to Dronthiem and winter very comfortably. There is a good library, and the inn or house at which I lodged is comfortable ; but I should there see nothing of the real state of the Norwegian people. A third-rate commercial town is the same sort of thing all the world over ; clubs, and card parties, and perhaps, although, as I have no letters of introduction, perhaps not, two or three great feasts in the course of the win ter ; and then their blue and white cathedral staring you in the face in every street. A winter in Dronthiem does not please my fancy, like a win ter here among these udallers, these children of partition. 108 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. CHAPTER III. BRUSVED GAARD. — POLITE MANNERS OF THE LOWER CLASSES. BREED OF CATTLE. BIBLE SOCIETY. POTATO BRANDY. EARTHGUAKES IN NORWAY. NORWEGIAN CONSTITU TION. STORTHING, QUALIFICATIONS ELECTION MEN. REPRESENTATION. THE POWER OF THE LEGISLATIVE. ATTEMPTS TO ALTER THE CONSTITUTION DEFEATED. AMALGAMATION WITH SWEDEN NOT DESIRABLE. VETO OF THE EXECUTIVE SUSPENSIVE ONLY. CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES GENERALLY DIFFUSED. THE PRESS. NEWS PAPERS. — INFLUENCE. FREE IN NORWAY. NOT IN SWEDEN. Brusved Gaard. — I have lodged myself for the winter with a small proprietor, near the little town of Levanger. My landlord holds the office of lens- man, of which the functions are, I understand, the collection of taxes, the execution of writs and orders of the executive authorities, and of all public business within the parish. The foged is the superior executive officer, and has several of these parishes in his district, and above him is the amtman, the highest officer of a district, which consists of several fogderies. The judicial functions are distinct from the executive, and admin istered by judges called Sorenskrivers, who hold courts monthly in each parish. The court-room of this parish is in my landlord's house, so that I could not be in a better situation for seeing the business and mode of living of the country and the people: I live with the family; and the traveller RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 109 would be very fastidious who did not find himself very comfortable with them. I have only to re gret the want of sufficient acquaintance with the language to converse with the many intelligent persons whom I meet. It is easy to gather the bundle of words in a foreign language that are necessary to procure what you want for yourself and your horse ; but a very different affair to con verse with and understand educated men, es pecially on subjects like the peculiar institutions of a country and a state of society so different from those we are accustomed to. We have to acquire the ideas correctly, as well as the words. Being stationary now for some time, I shall have little to enter in this journal but detached reflections. I like the politeness of people towards each other in this country ; the pulling off hats or caps when they meet either strangers or friends. The custom is universal : common labourers, fishermen, private soldiers salute each other with a bow, and do not merely touch the hat, but take it off. This is carefully taught to the children, and even the school-boys bow to each other on the streets ; such a custom is not to be laughed at, it has a human ising effect. The exterior form of good-will, al though but a form, introduces a pause before any expression of ill-will or passion can be indulged. He who has made a bow and received a similar salute is not so likely to launch out into a burst of abuse or violence, even against one who has of fended him, as if the previous delay had not inter- no RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. vened. There is something good even in the forms of goodness ; audit is not unimportant, that, although only mechanical, they should be observed by the very lowest class in their ordinary inter course. The breed of cattle in Norway is fine boned, thin skinned, and kindly looking ; the colour generally white, sometimes mixed with red ; I have seen very few, if any, entirely black. The head and muzzle are as fine as in our Devonshire breed. There is so little coarseness about the head or neck of the bull, that the difference be tween him and the ox is less observable than in our breeds. These cattle are clearly of the same stoqk with the common unimproved breed which, with a few shades of difference, may be traced through the greater part of Britain, France, and Germany. I had expected to find the original stamp of our Highland cattle, but have seen nothing resembling them in any one point, colour, pile, eye, horn, or shape. It is very singular, that a variety of domestic cattle so strongly marked should be confined to so small a locality as the Highlands of Scotland. The cattle here are very carefully attended, and form an important branch of the husbandry, as dairy produce enters much into the food of every family, and is more certain in this climate than that of grain. The cows, sheep, and goats, are more tame and docile than with us, from the constant care and attendance bestowed on them during the long period they must stand within doors ; partly, perhaps, also RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 111 from the instinct which in a country abounding in j wolves makes the defenceless animals seek man for protection. The good disposition of the Nor wegians has, I think, also some influence ; they malti'eat nothing. The inferior and timid animals, such as the sheep, seem to have confidence, and not to fly from them. The magpies hop about the houses in a half tame state, and are never pelted at by the children. The gates across the public roads to prevent cattle from straying from one field to another are often very annoying, as you have to alight in travelling almost at every twenty yards to open one, yet I never saw one of them willfully injured, or even wantonly left open : the people have a.fine disposition to injure nothing. Being in want of books, and of a few other articles, which I could not find in our village, I went to town, that is to Dronthiem, for a few days. I was surprised, on enquiring at the only book seller's shop for a New Testament in the Norwe gian tongue, to find that he kept none. I thought at first he had misunderstood me ; but really found that he did not keep any of late years. As he understood German, I asked him how, in a popul ation of 12,000 people, the only bookseller kept no stock of Testaments and Bibles. He said that country booksellers did not find it answer, as the Bible Society in London had once sent out a stock which was sold much lower than the trade could afford, and it was only after the Society's Bibles 112 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. were sold that they could get clear of what they had on hand ; hence they could not venture to keep any now. It is plain, if any benevolent society were to supply a parish with boots and shoes below prime cost, until all the shoemakers in the parish had turned to other employments, the parish would soon be barefooted, and that they would do more harm than good, unless they had funds to continue the supply for ever. This book seller, a very respectable man, laid no stress upon the circumstance ; but simply explained it, as he might have answered any other inquiry about books ; and a bookbinder, whom I afterwards saw, gave me the same reason. Men of the first capa city are connected with our Societies for the distri bution of the Scriptures, and it may well deserve their consideration, whether such distributions may not in the long run do more harm than good. If the ordinary mode of supplying human wants, by affording a fair remuneration to those who bring an article to where it is wanted, be invaded, they may be interfering with and stopping up the natural channels by which society must in the long run be supplied with religious books. I went to see the process of distilling brandy from potatoes in a small work in Dronthiem. The potatoes are first washed quite clean, then steamed, and crushed between two cylinders. They are then in the state of pulp, or soup ; which is run off into vats to ferment along with a small propor tion of malt. I found that in eight barrels of potatoes, equal to four imperial quarters, they RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 113 used in this distillery two vogs, equal to seventy- two pounds weight, of good malt. The ferment ation requires generally three days, and is produced by yeast : the process then goes on as in our stills. The produce from this quantity of potatoes and malt varies much, according to the quality of the former. From eight to twelve, and even sixteen pots, each pot four-fifteenths of a gallon, is the usual return from one ton or barrel, viz. half a quarter, of potatoes. Every farmer is entitled to distil the produce of his own farm ; and pays a trifling licence duty, if he buys potatoes and distils as a trader. A still is kept on every farm, not merely for the sake of the spirits, of which the consumption in a family is very great, but for the refuse or wash to the cattle. The spirit is dis tilled twice for the use of the family, and flavoured with aniseed. It is strong and fiery, but not harsh or ill-tasted. What has been only once dis tilled has not so raw and unpleasant a taste as new whiskey. The Norwegian gentry seem to prefer it as a dram, when twice distilled, to Cognac brandy. I never saw it mixed with water. The best French brandy is so cheap, that punch, which is the liquor generally handed about in parties, is never made of any other spirit. Very godd ale is brewed in gentlemen's families ; but in many districts it has a tartness, caused by the admixture of oats with the bear. A crop of half oats and half bear is very common in places subject to early frosts, from an idea that when these occur, one kind of 1 114 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. grain is not so readily injured as another, and something may always be got from the ground. Since I was last in Dronthiem, a distinct shock of earthquake was felt there along the coast, and in the islands to the north, on the 3d September ; and one on the 17th September, in the islands to the south. I have no great faith in our country earthquakes in England. One old woman fancies she felt the house shake ; and all the old women of both sexes, for twenty miles round, make it a point of honour not to have been behind in their observation. But I have no doubt of these Nor wegian earthquakes, because the same newspaper contains letters from places which could have had no communication with each other, mentioning the circumstances, and agreeing in the time. A correspondent of the Morgenblad newspaper, who has kept a register of the weather for many years, says he reckons seven distinct earthquakes in Nor way since 1797-* This will be interesting news to some theorists in geology. He gives a very plaus- * Earthquakes are recorded to have been felt in Drontheim on the I8th July 1686, and on the 1st April 1692. On the 14th September 1344, the river Guul disappeared in the earth, and on its bursting out again destroyed forty-eight farms, and above 250 persons. This event is supposed to be that referred to by Arugrim Joneaeus, in Crymogaea sive Rerum Islandicarum libri III., p. 130., in mentioning the earthquake which took place in that island in 1339 : — Eodem temporis momento in Norwegia terrae motus rura et habitationes rusticos quinquaginta ever- tisse scribitur, in loco qui vocatur Guularaas : although the dates of the events do not correspond. The disappearance of tlie river, or some other remarkable phenomenon in this Guul valley, appears to have taken place eodem temporis momento with the earthquake in Iceland. — Krafts Beskrivelse over Kongoriget Norge. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 115 ible reason for shocks of an inconsiderable kind being so little noticed. A person touching the earth only by the superficies of the soles of his shoes, or by the points of contact of the wheels of his cariole, may not be sensible of a very consider able vibration of the ground, while one standing on a wooden floor which touches the ground over a superficies of perhaps six hundred square feet, is sensible of the slightest vibration. I have already observed that it is impossible to look at the features of this country, — its fiords and its valleys, at right angles to each other, — its inland perpendicular cliffs with others facing them, and no back country to throw down a body of water to have excavated the space between, — without being impressed with the idea that at some period this surface has been torn, and raised, and depressed by earthquakes. The Norwegian people enjoy a greater share of political liberty, have the framing and adminis tering of their own laws more entirely in their own hands, than any European nation of the pre sent times. I shall attempt to give a brief outline of their constitution. The Parliament, or Stor thing, is elected and assembled once in three years, and sits for three months, or until the business is despatched. A special or extraordinary Storthing may be summoned in the interval, if extraordinary circumstances, as the death of the sovereign, war or peace, should require it, but its powers do not extend to any alteration in the laws or constitu tion. Each Storthing settles the taxes for the en suing three years ; enacts, repeals, or alters laws ; I 2 I 16 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. opens loans on the credit of the state ; fixes the appropriation and administration of the revenue ; grants the fixed sums to be applied to the different branches of expenditure — the establishments of the king, the viceroy, or members of the royal family ; revises all pay and pension lists, and all civil and clerical promotions, and makes such al terations as it deems proper in any interim grants made since the former Storthing. It also regulates the currency, appoints five revisers, who shall every year examine all accounts of Government, and publish printed abstracts of them. There are laid before it verified copies of all treaties, and the minutes of all public departments, excepting those of the highest military command. The Storthing impeaches and tries before a division of its own body all ministers of state, judges, and also its own members. Besides these great and controlling powers, fixed by the ground-law, as it is called, passed and agreed to by the king and nation on the 17th May 1814, the Storthing re ceives the oaths of the king on coming of age or ascending the throne, or of any regents appointed during a minority; and in case of a failure of the royal line, it could proceed, as in 1814, to elect, in conjunction with Sweden, a new dynasty. This body, when elected, divides itself into two houses ; the whole Storthing choosing from among its mem bers one-fourth, who constitute the Lagthing, or upper house ; their functions resembling those of our Plouse of Lords, deliberative, and judicial in cases of impeachment ; the other three-fourths RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 117 constitute the Odelsthing, or House of Commons ; and all proposed enactments must initiate in this division. A counsellor of state may on the part of the executive give in writing any proposals for new laws ; but has no vote ; and the initiative of laws is not vested in government alone, either in theory or practice, although it has manifested a strong desire, ever since this constitution began to operate, to obtain the abrogation of this part of the ground-law, but without success. In addition to these extensive legislative and controlling pow ers, the Storthing enjoys a right not known in any other European monarchy. After a bill has been passed in the Odelsthing or lower house, it is sent to the Lagthing or upper house, where it is deliberated upon, and passed, rejected, or sent back with amendments to the lower house, nearly as in our two houses of Parliament ; it then re quires the sanction of the king to become law. But if a bill has passed through both divisions in three successive Storthings, on the third occasion it becomes the law of the land without the royal assent. The ground-law, sworn to between the king and the people in 1814, fixes and defines this right so distinctly, that it cannot be got over, without overturning that compact. It presumes that, if, during six successive years, the nation by its representatives three times declares a measure beneficial, the king's ministers must be wrong, and the nation right. This right has not remained dormant. The abolition of hereditary nobility in I 3 118 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. Norway was made law by its exertion. This legis lative body is elected in the following way. Every native Norwegian of twenty-five years of age, who has been for five years owner or life-renter of land paying scat or tax, or who is a burgess of any town, or possesses there a house or land to the value of 150 dollars (30/.), is entitled to elect and to be elected : but for this last privilege, he must be not under thirty years of age, must have resided for ten years in Norway, and must neither be in any department of the state or court, nor on the pension list, nor in the counting-house or bureau of any officer of state, or of the court. The country is divided into election districts, corresponding to the amts or counties, and sub- districts, corresponding to the parishes. Registers of the qualified voters in each sub-district are kept by the minister, and also by the foged or baillie. Each town with 150 voters makes a sub-district : but if the number of voters be under 150, it must be joined to the nearest town. In or before the month of December of each third year, the electors or voters assemble in the parish church, and proceed, after the constitution and ground- laws are read, to choose their election-men, in such proportions, that in towns, one is chosen from among themselves by every 50 voters. In the country, every 100 voters, or under, if the sub- district contain only a smaller number, elect one ; from 100 to 200 voters elect two ; from 200 to 300 voters elect three ; and so on. In case an election-man, from sickness or other cause, cannot RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 119 attend the district meeting, he who had the next number of votes is his substitute. In towns within eight days, and in the country within a month, after these election-men are chosen, they assemble at the place appointed for the district or county election ; and there elect from among themselves, or from among the other qualified voters in the district, the representatives to parliament or Stor thing, in such proportion that for towns one-fourth of the number of election-men are chosen, that is, from three to six elect one, from seven to ten two, from eleven to fourteen three, and from fifteen to eighteen four representatives, which is the greatest number any town can send to Storthing. In the coun try one-tenth is the number any district is entitled to send. From five to fourteen election-men elect one, from fifteen to twenty-four two, from twenty-five to thirty-four three ; and above that number four, being the greatest number any district or county can send. These proportions are founded on the principle, that the towns in Norway should as nearly as possible return one-third, and the coun try two-thirds, of the whole body, which should not consist of under seventy-five, nor above one hundred members. The Storthing meets on the first business day of February, and continues its session until April 30. All the meetings now described take place suo jure, by the terms of the constitution ; and not under any writ or proclamation from the king. An extraordinary Storthing, convened by royal authority, can only pass interim acts, until the I 4 120 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, next I'egular Storthing, by which they must be ratified, in order to continue in force. The elec tion and meeting of the regular body cannot be postponed or controlled in any way by the execu tive power, and do not depend on any shape on its co-operation. This is really the Magna Charta of Norway. Its constitution, containing such safe guards for the political liberty of the people, was formed with wonderful celerity. The states as sembled for the purpose by order of the Viceroy, Prince Frederic Christian of Denmark, held thek first meeting on the 10th of April 1814, and on the 12th a committee was appointed to prepare it. This committee was so prompt, that next morn ing it was ready with the principles of a consti tution, which the Assembly took into deliberation until the l6th, and on the 30th of April, the con stitution was on the table, and on the 17th of May, was ratified by the Assembly of the States. When one looks back to the universal delirium about political liberty, which had seized the Euro pean mind in 1790, and affected the mode of thinking of almost every individual in every coun try, it seems not a little extraordinary that almost the only result which approaches in reality to the theories of that period, has been the Norwegian constitution. Prince Frederic of Denmark having withdrawn from the sovereignty, and the union of Norway and Sweden as two independent king doms, having followed, the same constitution was received by the Swedish monarch, as the compact between him and his successors on the one part. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 121. and the people of Norway on the other, on the 4th November 1814. It was guaranteed by the Allied Powers, and sworn to by the present King Carl Johan, when Crown Prince ; and again on his accession to the crown, and on his coronation in the cathedral of Dronthiem. It was the most regular and formal compact ever entered into between a people and a king ; because there were no previously acquired rights, either of conquest or inheritance, on the part of the sovereign, and no allegiance due on the part of the people. After the excitement of the great events of the years 1814 and 1815 had subsided, and monarchs and their ministers began to look into their own affairs, it was soon perceived by the cabinet of Stockholm that Sweden had lost in Finland a va luable province, but had not gained one in Nor way. Nothing was talked of but the amalgamation of the two nations ; and this became the favourite object of the Swedish court. If there be any meaning in the word amalgamation, it must be to render Norway an integral part of the kingdom of Sweden, governed by the same laws, with the same constitution, and subject to the same taxes. It was forgotten by the Swedish ministry, that the very structure of society and property in the two countries is founded on totally different princi ples ; in the one on the feudal, and in the other on the udal, principle ; so that even if both de sired it, they could not assimilate their institutions without such a total subversion of all social ar rangements and rights of property in one or other, 122 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. as would exceed the most violent revolution of modern times. The Swedish legislative body con sists of nobility, clergy, burgesses of towns, and peasantry, forming distinct chambers, and voting by chambers, at a general diet. To give to a le gislative body or diet, so constituted, the power to impose taxes and frame laws affecting the pro perty of a nation having no representatives in such a diet, and no similar classes of the community in its social structure, could not be attempted by the most arbitrary government, in an age when pro perty, especially in a commercial country connected with others as Norway is, must be respected. To find in Norway what was lost in Finland, was no doubt the object of the Swedish cabinet ; and when it is considered that in Sweden and Finland together, before the disjunction of the two coun tries, there were reckoned 1500 noble families in a population of 3,000,000, or one in four hun dred, and each noble family had to seek for one or more of its members an office or function yielding a subsistence suitable to their rank, it is not diffi cult to understand what was sought for in Norway. That country had for four centuries been a kind of nursery for the Danish court, in which the young nobility and candidates for office found ap pointments and a living, until they could be pro vided for at home. It was forgotten that Norway could not be amalgamated in this sense, and her native administration transferred to Swedish func tionaries and bureaux at the court of Stockholm, without a deliberate breach of one of the most RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 123 solemn compacts ever entered into ; without a breach of faith which would be deemed infamous through all generations. It was forgotten, too, that however advantageous such an amalgamation might be to the Swedish nobility or nation, it was adverse to the true interests and wise policy of the family on the throne. Since the year 1560, that is, in the course of 275 years, the Swedish nation has made away with five sovereigns ; viz. in 1568, Eric XIV- deposed and imprisoned ; in 1599, Si- gismund driven from the throne ; in 1718, Charles XII. killed, and, as now generally believed, by the hand of an assassin ; in 1792, Gustavus III, assassinated ; in 1809, Gustavus IV. dethroned. The reigning dynasty should wish to avert, as far as human prudence can, the recurrence of such calamities, by acquiring an independent stronghold to fall back upon ; a distinct kingdom, in which the political circumstances which may in the course of human affairs agitate the Swedish nation, should not necessarily find a corresponding feeling. If the ex-king Gustavus IV. had possessed such a re source, it may be doubted whether the exclusion of his dynasty from the Swedish throne would have been so complete and permanent. Norway, as Norway is, as a nation beginning 'its independent existence with a new dynasty, whence it dates all the prosperity and good government enjoyed under a constitution which it justly and enthusiastically cherishes, is of a value vitally important to the present reigning family should foreign wars or do mestic troubles ever shake the Swedish throne. It 124 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. appears, then, like infatuation, to endeavour to amalgamate this country with Sweden ; to separate the king's name in Norway from that pride in the national independence, and that enthusiasm for the constitution, which are the ruling feelings in every Norwegian mind. A dynasty scarcely warm in the regal seat cannot expect from its subjects, in the present age, the same kind of affection and loyalty which is hereditary, as it were, in the European mind, towards the more ancient and historical dy nasties. These sentiments are not less ardent or less efficient, but of a more rational character. They are founded on compact, — on benefits given and received. The people and the sovereign of the new dynasties are two solemnly contracting parties ; and it is upon the reason, not upon the senses, of mankind, that the power of the monarchs is founded. It was the mistake of all the Buona- partean dynasties, that the new monarchs wished to be old monarchs ; and it was not in human na ture that they should be so considered by their subjects. Men who twenty years before had pulled on their own boots and breeches, added nothing to the stability of their power by surrounding themselves with all the attendance, etiquette, and pomp of sovereigns born and bred to royalty. They neglected that bond with their subjects of rational and mutual support in their respective rights, on which alone constitutional power can be founded, and attempted to reign on the prin ciple which the old dynasties in this age find scarcely sufficient. The Norwegian people did RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 125 not at all enter into the views of the Swedish mi nistry. They were beginning to flourish under the wise legislation of their Storthings. They were paying off their national debt, diminishing their taxes, controlling the expenditure of their own revenue, and applying it only to objects within their own country. Trade, agriculture, fisheries, mines, and the national bank of Norway, were all prospering ; and the nation was happy, and enthu siastically fond of its constitution. This was not a period to talk of amalgamation with a country notoriously in a bankrupt state, its currency de preciated, its legislation iu the hands of a privi leged order of needy and dissipated nobility and of time-serving clergy. Sweden is still under its ancient regime ; while Norway is practically in advance of the age in the enjoyment of institu tions favourable to political liberty. The attempt to introduce measures of amalgam ation was begun at the meeting of the Storthing of 1821. It is fixed, as before stated, that the execu tive power has not a final veto, but only a suspen sive faculty, till the law is passed by three successive Storthings. It had been proposed and passed in both chambers of the Storthing of 1815, to abolish hereditary nobility for ever in Norway. The feeble remains of this class were of foreign, and almost all of very recent, origin ; and, with few exceptions, had no property to maintain a dignified station in society. Owing to the law of the divi sion of land among the children, large estates, entailed upon the possessor of the family title. 126 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. could not exist ; and a body of titled and privi leged persons could only subsist as placemen or pensioners. The royal assent was refused to the proposed enactment in 1815, and again in 1818, when it passed through a second Storthing. In 1821, if it passed through the third Storthing, it would become law, with or without the royal assent. Every means was used to induce this Storthing to abandon the measure. It was con sidered the struggle which was to decide the future existence of the Norwegian constitution. The king repaired in person to Christiania. Four thou sand Swedish, with two thousand Norwegian, troops were marched to the neighbourhood of that city ; and it was reported that they were furnished with ball cartridges, as if in an enemy's country. The irritation was extreme. At this critical mo ment, when the Swedish cabinet was on the point of sacrificing their sovereign's coronation oath, and his future reputation, and of kindling a civil war in the Scandinavian peninsula, the Russian minister at the court of Stockholm, and the American charge d'affaires, unexpectedly drove into the city of Christiania. Their sudden appear ance, the altered tone of the Government, and the withdrawing of the troops, gave rise to reports that these Powers had interfered in favour of Norway. It is extremely probable that Russia, having, in conjunction with the Allied Powers, guaranteed the articles of the constitution formed at the union of the two kingdoms in 1814, might interpose in support of this guarantee. She might do so the RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 127 more heartily, because it was not her interest that Sweden should derive any additional strength from such an amalgamation. It is probable that the in terference of the United States of America was not official ; although the appearance of their minister was useful to Norway, by showing the sympathy felt for a people about to struggle for the preserv ation of rights solemnly guaranteed to them. The Swedish cabinet gave way. The Storthing passed the measure for abolishing hereditary nobility for the third time ; it became law ; and Norway remains a democracy, federally united with the monarchy of Sweden. The concession was made with an ill grace. A proposition was immediately made to the Storthing, in sixteen articles, tending to effect an entire change in the constitution. If that constitution was adopted in haste, it had not been hastily framed. It bears in every provision the mark of profound deliberation, and the most careful consideration of every possible circumstance which might affect its stability. The hand of power may overturn it violently ; but it is not to be shaken by any action within itself which human foresight could have provided against. One of the fundamental prin ciples or ground-laws is, that an enactment which affects its existing form cannot be passed by the same Storthing in which it is introduced. It must be propounded in one regular and ordinary Stor thing, and must stand over for decision in the next, after an interval of three years : and as there exists not merely a toleration of the freedom of the press. 128 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, but the printed publication of all proceedings of Storthing is made imperative, the nation can never remain in ignorance, or send representatives unin- structed as to any such proposal. The propositions laid before the Storthing, to be considered and adopt ed by that of 1824, appear to be hastily drawn up, and ill adapted to the existing state of property and social relations in the country. Of this nature was the establishment of an hereditary nobihty, the power to be vested in the king of removing all public functionaries from place to place, and of depriving them of office (judges excepted) ad libitum. An hereditary nobility could not exist along with the udal law, by which all land and other property is governed ; and by which estates, and titles themselves, if they were a beneficial property, must first go to the survivor of the two parents, and then be divided among the children. The Danish government, although feudally con stituted, and invested with an absolute legislative power, never was able, during nearly 400 years, to make a nearer approach to the establishment of a feu dal nobility, than to empower such large landholders as chose to entail their estates, or settle them in Jidei commissi on the heirs to the titles they possessed, or might obtain : and so little was this power valued, so little analogy had it to the way of thinking and spirit of the people, that at the end of 400 years an entailed estate, or one taken out of the odelsbaarn-ret, and placed upon the foot ing of a feudal property, was scarcely to be found in Norway. The proposition, that functionaries RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. should be removable at the pleasure of the execu tive power, was equally incompatible with the state of society in Norway. It is probably a rem nant of the state of things when the Hanseatic towns possessed a predominant influence there, that almost all trades and professions, both in the towns and country districts, are exercised by pri vilege. The lawyer, the apothecary, the inn keeper, the retail shopkeeper, the wholesale dealer, the fishcurer, the shipmaster, in short, those in every calling exercise it by a privilege empowering them to do so, in their peculiar districts ; and these persons might, under this law, be included as func tionaries, or embeds-maender, and be removable from place to place, or be deprived of their func tions or privileges at the pleasure of government. By the Udal law, also, the property of a deceased person is taken charge of by a public functionary, the sorenskryver, to be divided among the heirs ; thus the property of his whole district, by the course of mortality, comes in trust for a time under his official charge. The highest respect ability, and independence, and minute local know ledge, are required in such functionaries. To make them removable at the pleasure of ministers re siding in Stockholm was evidently snot a proposi tion founded upon any due knowledge of the business of the country. The other propositions were, to give the King an absolute veto on all acts of Storthing ; to give his ministers alone the right of initiative, or of proposing laws ; to limit the business of the Storthing to such acts as the King K 130 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. should submit to it, before other business could be taken up ; to give the King the nomination of the presidents and secretaries of the two chambers of Storthing ; in short, to reduce that assembly to a mere form, similar to the states in some of the smaller German principalities. It could not be seriously expected that a nation would abandon constitutional rights under which it was flourishing and contented, and which were the conditions upon which the King received the Norwegian crown. The next Storthing in 1824 took into consideration these propositions, and appointed a committee to report upon them. The report of this committee is perhaps the most able paper that has emanated from a legislative body in our times. It never, in a single expression, loses the respect ful and proper spirit due to propositions coming from the sovereign ; while it leaves not a single principle upon which the proposed alterations are founded unexamined. It overturns, one by one, the reasons given for them ; and does so with such coolness, temper, and apparent absence of aU feel ing, but that of investigating and referring to the principles ofthe constitution, that it may justly be held as a model of a state paper. The Storthing unanimously adopted the report of its committee, and rejected each of the alterations in the ground law of the constitution proposed by the King's ministers.* * Constitutions Committeens Indstillinger angaaende de paa 3 ordentlege Storthinge fremsatte Constitutions forslag der vare udsatte til afgiorelse paa dot 4 ordentlige Storthing. 1824. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 131 The advantages, even to the sovereign power itself, of a free representative constitution were strongly marked during these transactions. The monarch was never blamed, his popularity was never dimi nished, the loyalty and affectionate respect of his people were never in the slightest degree shaken, even among the most ignorant of the community, by events which, under a government differently constituted, might have kindled an excitement in the public mind injurious to the royal authority, and, perhaps, to the peace of the country. The nation was already imbued with that first principle of all representative government — that the minis ters are alone responsible for acts done in the name of the King. It was perfectly understood throughout Norway that, in an aristocratical coun try like Sweden, the monarch cannot always choose his ministers. Only a limited number of individuals have the family connection, influence, and power, to carry on the machinery of such an aristocratic government ; and among these few, the chance is small of finding men acquainted with the state of society and property in a nation des titute of nobility. The confidence of the Nor wegians in the judgment and character of their sovereign is unlimited ; and they h^ve not been deceived. When the real state of any point of national interest has been developed, and it is to be remembered, that every measure must go through two foreign languages, the Swedish and French, before it can come to the King's under standing, he has invariably taken the right and K 2 132 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. liberal course. With ministers, who from their rank and station in Sweden, from being bred up in a totally different system of social arrangement, and, perhaps, too, from the prejudice of caste, were supremely ignorant of the state and feeling of their high spirited neighbours, it is wonderful with what prudence and tact he has struck in when needful, and prevented violent collision. The reign of Carl Johan will be a fine theme for the fu ture historian, when time has unlocked the secrets of cabinets, and given to the world the hidden springs of state measures. The Norwegian constitution, since these trans actions, has gained strength by repose. Its prin ciples have been unfolded and fixed by practice : in successive Storthings men of great legal eminence have directed their attention to its developement. It has outlived that dangerous period in the exist ence of a free constitution, when first principles and natural rights are referred to and reasoned upon. The constitutional or ground law, as it stands, its expressions and meaning in each clause, are alone referred to, in explaining or discussing political points. The commentary on it by Stang is a work conceived and executed in this spirit ; and is deservedly held in high estimation as a model of close reasoning. The liberty of the press is one of the articles of the ground law. It is free for every man to print and publish what he pleases. There cannot con sequently be any censorship, or any suppression of publications. But every man is responsible for RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 133 what he chooses to publish. For treason or blas phemy he is amenable to public justice ; but the ground law defines that to constitute the offence, it must be open and intentional. Defamation or libel also on private character must be open, in tentional, and false, to constitute the offence. The state of the periodical press in a country gives a true measure of the social condition of the people, of their intelligence, their ripeness for constitutional privileges, and even of their domes tic comforts. The newspapers, since I came here, have been my principal and most instructive read ing. In Norway there are upwards of twenty; but some only give the advertisements and official notices of the province or town in which they appear : even these are not without interest to a stranger. It is curious to see what is to be sold or bought, and all the various transactions an nounced in an advertising newspaper. Of those which give also the foreign and domestic news, the most extensive circulation appears enjoyed by a daily paper called the Morgen Blad, published in Christiania. The cost of a daily paper sent by post is seven dollars, or about 28*. sterling yearly. There is no duty on newspapers ; and as there are six or seven published in Christiania alone, this price is probably as low as competition can make it. In paper and type, this journal is superior to any French or German one that I have seen ; and its articles of foreign news, and its editorial para graphs, are often written with great ability. From the importance attached in all these newspapers K 3 134 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. to little local affairs, it is evident that the mass of the people, not merely an educated few, are the consumers. There being no tax on advertisements, the most trifling matter is announced, and a pub lisher appears to have a kind of brokerage trade at his counting-house, and to be empowered to sell or buy for parties, or at least to bring buyers and sellers together. I have seen it advertised, with a reference to the editor's counting-house, that there was a turkey cock to be sold, a cow in calf wanted, and such trifles as show, that the class to whom they are no trifles, read and have the benefit of newspapers. The most entire freedom of discussion exists. Public men and measures are handled freely, but I cannot say injuriously or indecorously. The Norwegian newspapers, and especially their nume rous correspondents, are much occupied with ob jects of local interest, and keep a watchful eye over the conduct of men in office, from the lens- man of a parish to a minister of state. No neglect or abuse passes unseen and unnoticed ; and if the accusation even of an anonymous correspondent, appears well founded, the highest functionary feels himself morally obliged to bend to public opinion, and explain the transaction. If he is unjustly or unreasonably blamed, he finds pens drawn in his defence without trouble to himself. The pubhc functionaries have been made to feel that they are the servants, not the masters, of the public. Under the absolute government of Denmark, although authority was mildly and judiciously exercised. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 135 the functionary naturally felt himself the delegate of the master. The interest or accommodation of the public was a secondary consideration. The old officers bred in this school cannot understand the influence of public opinion, and feel rather awkward when summoned before this tribunal, perhaps by an anonymous writer, to answer for real and obvious errors in their official conduct. The temperate but firm spirit with which these controversies are carried on, the absence of any outrage on the private feelings of public men, even when their public conduct is attacked or exposed, do honour to the good taste and good sense of the nation, and prove that a press as free as that of the United States may exist without scurrility or brutal violation of the sanctity of private life. Such newspapers as the American people read would not find editors or readers in this country. The people are advanced beyond that state, in which nothing is intelligible to them that is not mixed up with party and personal feelings. This sound state of the public mind, and of the press, may be ascribed in a great measure to the in fluence of the leading newspapers. The only restriction which the executive govern ment attempts to exercise on the periodical press — and th« attempt shows a great want of tact — is that some conceived to be in a strain friendly to the views of government are allowed by special royal permission to be sent free of postage, while others, without such permission, must pay that tax. K 4 136 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. It was proposed in the last Storthing, that all pe riodical publications should be allowed a free cir culation through the post-office ; and the measure was only negatived by a small majority, for a rea son that does honour to the Storthing. They had already voted the post-office revenue in toto, as part of the ways and means applicable during the ensuing three years to the purposes to which the executive government applies this branch of revenue. The majority then did not consider it fair to burden, or render less productive, any branch of these ways and means, by conditions not contemplated, when previously voted. They have shown themselves thus a right-thinking, fair- dealing people. It is not doubted that the next Storthing will burden the post-office with the free conveyance of all newspapers before granting its revenue. It seems, therefore, ill judged to make a matter of favour of what will probably soon be made a matter of right. In Sweden, the press is under a very strict cen sorship. It is somewhat amusing to see published in the Norwegian newspapers the articles for which, in the sister kingdom, the publisher has been prosecuted, his newspaper suppressed, his business, and the bread of many depending on it, interrupted, as if the peace of empires had been violated ; yet here the same articles are, as matter of course, given at large, commented on, circu lated, read, and forgotten, without producing the slightest ill consequence. Prosecutions at the in- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 137 stance of government have been attempted, as in other countries, against the editors of newspapers ; but the ground law is distinct, as to what consti tutes an actionable offence against church, state, or individuals, in printed and published matter ; and a peculiar principle in the jurisprudence of this country, which I shall endeavour to explain at another time, makes the judge responsible for, and obliged to defend, as a party, the correctness of his legal decision before the Supreme Court, and that court, a constituent part of the state, independent both of the executive and legislative, rendering it impossible, which it is not, perhaps, in Great Britain, that judges, in their decisions upon po litical offences, should be swayed by political feel ings and party spirit. Such prosecutions have, accordingly, in every instance, been determined in this country on the most impartial principles, without any leaning either towards government or towards popular feeling. Besides newspapers, there are a considerable number of periodical and occasional works pub lished. There is a Penny Magazine in great cir culation ; the matter, and even the plates, I believe, taken, or borrowed, from its English namesake ; and there is another weekly magsKine upon the same cheap plan. There are several monthly journals on literary, antiquarian, agricultural, and military subjects ; and in almost every newspaper there is the announcement of some new work or translation. This gives a favourable impression 138 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. ofthe advance of the mind in this country. The literature that can be strictly called Norwegian may not as yet be of a very high class, compared to the standard works of other countries ; but there are attempts which at last may reach excellence, — and literature is but young in Norway residence in NORWAY. 139 CHAPTER IV. THEATRICAL REPRESENTATIONS. — HOLBERG. WINTER. SLEDGE-DRIVlNG. SNOW-SKATING. LAPLANDERS. REIN DEER VENISON. — REINDEER FARMING. — EXPENSIVE WEDDINGS. BETROTHALS. — CHECKS ON POPULATION. HOUSEMEN. ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN. — THEIR CONDITION IN NORWAY. LIGHT AND DARKNESS IN WINTER SUBLIME ENGLISH POOR-RATES. — USE OF COAL INSTEAD OF WOOD FOR FUEL. EFFECT ON THE CONDITION OF THE POOR. FAMILY ROOM OR HALL OF A NORWEGIAN HOUSE IN THE MORNING. STATE OF MANNERS AMONG THE PEOPLE. FORMS OF PO LITENESS STATION OF THE FEMALE SEX IN SOCIETY FEMALE EMPLOYMENTS SMALL ESTATES NUMBER OF LANDHOLDERS IN SCOTLAND AND NORWAY COMPARED. THE EFFECT ON THE CONDITION OF THE FEMALES OF THE SMALL ESTATES. BEREND ISLAND. COALS. WHITE BEARS. THE FAIR. SOBRIETY, -y CRIMES. YULE. NORWEGIAN ENTERTAINMENTS. ARRIVAL OF A SLEDGE PARTY. EASE AND UNIFORMITY OF LIVING. NORWEGIAN CHURCH IN COMES. EDUCATION. NO DISSENT CONFIRMATION. SUNDAY OBSERVANCE IN THE LUTHERAN CHURCH. EDU CATED LABOURERS IN ENGLAND IN A WORSE CONDITION THAN UNEDUCATED. — REMEDY. Levanger, October, 1834. — The Norwegians are fond of theatrical representations. They are in that stage of mental culture in which the drama flourishes. In the modern state of society in Europe it has lost its importance ; and the pre sent generation, when reading the works of writers ofthe last age can scarcely comprehend, how men of sense should then have treated it as an import ant national object, exercising an extensive in- 140 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. flu ence on the morals and character of a people. This influence was probably always over-rated. In the days of Louis XIV. the court, and the city in which it resided, were considered, both in France and in other countries, to be the only intellectual part of the nation, where the soul of the people was centred ; and the interest excited there was supposed to extend through the most remote rami fications of society. Yet it must, even at that period, have appeared a ridiculous assumption, that dramatic representations, witnessed, perhaps, by some ten or twelve hundred individuals frequenting the theatres in the capita], could have such vast in fluence on the morals or character of the nation. The truth sepms to be, that such representations afford a kind of intellectual enjoyment to the un educated, who without it would perhaps remain in a state of mental torpor ; and therefore it was, in a certain stage of society, a valuable means of civi lisation, or cultivating the public intellect, so far as it extended ; not from the influence of any morality or wisdom inculcated by the drama, but because it furnished intellectual enjoyment at a period when there was no other. It withdrew at least a small portion of the people of a few towns, for a small portion of their time, from ordi nary occupations, and mere physical enjoyment. In proportion to the diffusion of education, and of the means and pleasure of reading, the demand for the pleasure of scenic representation neces sarily declined, and became confined to a smaller portion of the public ; to that portion which can RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 141 only follow written idea's with some difficulty, and without any amusement. Rare talent in an actor collects crowded audiences, even at the present day ; but it is to witness the art ofthe representation, not the matter represented. The quantity and quality of the amusement furnished by our periodical pub lications and our novels at a vastly cheaper rate account sufficiently for the decline in the demand for theatrical amusement. Excitement more in tellectual, of longer endurance, and more easily accessible, may be had for a shilling by a person of ordinary reading habits, in the shape of a periodi cal work, than he could obtain for five shillings in the best appointed theatre that ever existed. It is thus a proof of only a moderate advance in mental culture among a people, when their thea tres are very flourishing. It is in Italy, in Aus tria, in Denmark, in Norway, and in the great commercial towns, Hamburgh, Liverpool, or Bour- deaux, that theatres are well attended ; and not generally in England, Scotland, or France, The Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, and Black wood's Magazine, have emptied the benches of Covent Garden, and Drury Lane, and ruined all country theatres in England and Scotland. In Norway, although the national literature is rich in Danish works of the highest merit, books are rare, owing to the expense and difficulty of transmission. The drama holds, therefore, a high place. Be sides the public theatres, there are societies of amateur performers in all the towns. There is even in this village, of five or six hundred inhabit- 142 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. ants, a party sufficient to attempt the represent ation of short dramatic pieces. This shows that the middle class are at their ease, and possess leisure. Holberg is the oldest and most prolific of their dramatic writers. He was a native of Bergen, and died about the middle of the last century. His comedies, especially the shorter ones in three acts, are full of life and bustle ; and many would require very little adaptation to act well on our stage. He was the first who gave an impulse to Danish literature. For the quantity and variety of his writings and his influence on the literature of his country he is compared by the Danish critics to Voltaire ; but there is something more required than quantity, variety, and influence in the literature of Denmark to make a Voltaire. November 14. — Winter is come: the snow falls incredibly fast* The whole cloud seems to come down at once upon the land ; and in a few hours everj^ thing but trees and houses and precipices seems brought to one common level. Sledges are jingling in all directions ; the horses have bells on the harness, such as are used on waggon harness in the west of England. All the world seems gay, and enjoying the sledge-driving, as if it were a novelty to them. There is some peculiar pleasure in the uniform smooth motion of'sledging, skating, sailing, swinging, or moving in any way over a smooth surface. We see sailor boys, by themselves, enjoy the pleasure of this motion in a sailing boat on smooth water : the novelty can make no RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 143 part of the pleasure to them ; and parrots and monkeys appear to have pleasure in swinging. Sledging is horse-power applied to skates. Of our English or Dutch skates I see very httle use made, even by the children ; and the nature of the coun try, with the quantity of snow, must make our kind of skating an amusement not generally enjoyed. But snow skating is going on briskly, at every farm house, with young and old. The snow skates are slips of light thin wood, about the breadth of ose's foot, and about six feet long, gently curving upwards at each end. There is a loop in the middle into which the foot is slipped. On flat ground the skater shuffles along pretty well, much better than he could walk, as his feet do not sink in the snow. Up hill he has slow and fatiguing work, and on hard snow and steep ground would slip backward, but for the resistance of the hair of a piece of hide which is bound under the skate in climbing steep ascents. Down the mountain he flies like an arrow. He has only to guide his flight with a pole, so as not to run over a precipice. It seems to require great dexterity and practice to run well on these snow skates. On a road with the ordinary variety of surface, a good skater will beat a horse in a sledge. There was formerly a mi litia regiment of these snow skaters, consisting of the young men who lived nearest the Fjeld, and were accustomed for eight months of the year to this exercise. It was dropped, as the only peculiar service of such a corps, that of convey ing orders as estaffettes, is one for which every 144 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. common soldier, bred in the district, was equally fit. The Laplanders begin to make their appear ance on snow skates. A family of them came sailing down the hill the other day to our village, the men trailing little sledges, with their children and goods packed in them : they came to sell reindeer skins, which are used as coverlets of beds by the common people, fur mittens, and fur boots, and to beg and get drunk. At the great fairs held in this place in December and March, a considerable quantity of the staple article of their products, frozen joints of reindeer venison, is sold to the inhabitants of the lower districts. Every family lays in a consider able stock, which will keep sweet for several months, and is the best meat which the country produces. The beef and mutton, although small and fine grained, are not in general fed for the butcher, and not good after the cattle are housed. Poultry are not numerous, partly because there is no waste or spilt grain for them, partly because a wood cock or tiur at 48 skillings or ls.6d. sterling, a wood hen at. 16 skillings or 6d. sterling, a ptarmigan at 10 skiningsor46?. sterling (and these are the town prices), make cheaper and better food. At and after Christ mas reindeer venison is the only good meat, and is the principal dish at all entertainments. These animals form, therefore, a valuable stock ; and at present one is worth between four and five dollars, which is more than a third of the price of a good cow. When one considers that it would be easy to draw a line tlirough this peninsula of eight or nine hundred English miles in length, by an average RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 145 breadth of fifty, with scarcely any interruption from cultivation ; and which space produces such a valuable stock, with pasture fitted to it, and within reach of markets for its sale ; one cannot help asking the question, whether such an immense and evidently not worthless territory can possibly be turned to the best account, for human wants, and to the country to which it belongs, in the hands of about 6000 Laplanders (for this is sup posed to be their total number), actuated by no motives but the love of brandy and the fear of the wolf. A century ago the Highlands of Scotland, which now contribute so large a supply of animal food to the community, were less valuable than this tract is now. A sheep stock, the Fjelde probably never could carry to advantage ; but surely, intel ligent active men like our Scotch shepherds, study ing the nature of the domesticated reindeer, and obtaining extensive and defined pasturages for them, would learn to turn them to better account. As practical shepherds, these poor Laplanders are so imbecile that they will not shoot the wolf, which in one night may tear a flock to pieces, but seek only to frighten or fly fi'om him ; and not from cowardice, since they will shoot the bear, but from a superstitious prejudice. As flocks b(ith of rein and red deer exist wild in the Fjelde, the devastation of the wolf on tame flocks, properly attended, cannot be so destructive as to prevent reindeer-farming from being carried on like sheep-farming in the Highlands of Scotland. The Laplanders pay a trifling scat or rent to the Crown, according to the L' 146 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. number of the flock. I have heard of 1500, and even in one instance of 4000 head, as belonging to one person. November, 1834. — The family I lodge with went to a wedding some days ago. The feasting will continue the whole week. The same custom of expensive weddings and funerals, among country people, prevailed formerly very much in Scotland ; and was discountenanced, perhaps not very wisely, by the clergy. It is in fact beneficial for society when, either to be married or buried with respecta bility, some considerable expense must be incurred, and, consequently, a certain previous saving and industry must be exerted. It is true that a young couple, who spend on their marriage day what might have kept their house for twelve months, do what people in a higher station consider very imprudent ; but in acquiring what they then spend, they have acquired what they cannot spend — the habit of saving for a distant object, and not living from day to day. By this one festivity, too, they form a bond of connection with the married people of respectability in their own station, and which those of good disposition and intentions retain through life. They are transferred out of the class of the young and thoughtless, into the higher class of the steady and careful. The penny or subscription weddings, common in the south of Scotland, deserved much greater reprobation. Among the secondary checks upon improvident marriages in this nation, the most powerful is that in the Lutheran Church, marriage includes two RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 147 distinct ceremonies ; the betrothal, and the final ceremony. The one precedes the other generally for one, two, and often for several years. The betrothed parties have, in the eye of law, a distinct and acknowledged status, as well as in society. It is to be regretted that a custom, so beneficial to society, should have fallen into disuse in the Eng lish Church. It interposes a seasonable pause, before * young parties enter into the expenses of a family and house. It gives an opportunity of dis covering any cause, such as drunken or idle habits, or poverty, which might make the marriage unsuit able ; and perhaps, as a sort of probationary period, it is not without its good effect on the character and temper of both sexes. If we reckon the pro lific age of a female at twenty-two years, or from eighteen to forty, the interval of a year (and in the less opulent classes it is often several) alone reduces to the amount of between four and five per cent, the increase of population, f * It may be news to the sentimental reader to be informed that the English expressions " true love" and" true lover" are not derived from the sentiment or passion Love, or from the fidelity of the Lover, not from the Scandinavian synonym to Amor, but from the synonym to Lex. Our word love is derived from Lov, Law; and true from tree, to contract, plight J so that " troloved " or "trolov" meant originally contracted or pledged in law: and in old times a man might be a "true lover" to his bond for ten pounds, as well as to his sweetheart. t The betrothal of parties long before the actual celebration of the marriage appears to have had its origin before the introduction of Christianity, from the custom of all the young men going out on piratical expeditions to distant countries. Its practical effect on society at the present day is similar to what is so beautifully described by Malthus in the chapter on the effects which would result to society from the prevalence of moral restraint. (See chap. 2. bookiv. of Essay on the h 2 148 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, Agricultural labour, also, especially on the sim ple footing on which it stands in Norway, carries with itself a preventive check on the excess of popu lation ; which labour applied to other branches of industry has not. It is evident at once, whether the land upon which the labourer is employed is suffi cient, under ordinary circumstances, to yield him subsistence. The Norwegian farmer does not pay a rent ; nor is he usually employed in prospective improvements, but simply in raising food, so that he can see at once whether the land is sufficient to produce subsistence for himself and his labourers. The labour in husbandry is carried on principally by housemen. These have a house and larid, generally in life rent, for which they pay a rent principally in working so many days upon the main farm, the day's work being valued at a fixed rate. No proprietor having, for instance, four such house- Principle of Population.) The female has at an early age her certain known and fixed station in married life, although that station may not be entered into for several years. Each party has rights in law over the other, which cannot be broken like a simple private engagement. In society each enjoys the consideration which the actual marriage would give. The suavity of manners towards each other in domestic inter course, which I have so often remai-ked, may perhaps be caused by this often long state, not of courtship exactly, for there are no fears or doubts, but of desire to please and be agreeable to each other, which becomes habitual at last, and continues after the parties have passed over from this into the married state. But every good has its evil. Among the unmarried servants in husbandry, who are waiting for a house and land to settle in, as housemen, it too often happens that the privileged kindness between betrothed parties is carried too far, and the betrothed is a mother before she is a wife. But these are the excep tions. The general effect is undoubtedly good on the morals, manners, ^nd numbers, relative to subsistence, of the community of Norway. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 149 men, and finding them sufficient, would build a house, and give away land to a fifth, for work which he did not want ; and no labourer would enter upon land and work which he saw would not give him subsistence. Manufacturing labour has not this advantage. The weaver or cutler is producing, without himself or his employer seeing whether his labour is to produce a subsistence. The more he produces, the more he may counter act his object by glutting the market. Where agri culture is carried on as a manufacture, a succession of good crops may also glut the markets, ruin the tenants, and even reduce the money wages of the labourer : but, in the simple Norwegian system, to live on the produce of the land is the main object ; and the labourer is paid in land ; a good crop is an unmingled blessing : neither good nor bad crops, however, affect the proportion of popu lation to the land that can in ordinary seasons sub sist it. It is amusing to recollect the benevolent speculations, in our Agricultural Reports, of the Sir Johns and Sir Thomases in our midland coun ties of England, for bettering the condition of la bourers in husbandry, by giving them at a reason able rent a quarter of an acre ofland to keep a cow on, or by allowing them to cultivate the slips of land on the road side outside of their hedges. Here re specting an estate not worth, perhaps, forty pounds sterling a year, — I shall quote the first descrip tion that comes to hand in the Morgenblad news paper, ofland to be sold, — " houses for housemen, with enclosed land to each, that extends to the L 3 150 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. keeping of two cows and six sheep all the year, and to the sowing of one and a half ton of corn (the ton is half an imperial quarter) and six tons of potatoes." This I conceive to be the average condition of the agricultural labourers in Norway ; and I do not think any are without two cows, or an equivalent number of sheep or goats. If the main farm is too small to require the full value in labour, the houseman pays the balance in money, earned by working for other people, and by the sale of his surplus produce. From four to six dollars is the general rent of such holdings ; and they are usually held on leases for the life of the houseman and his wife. The standard of living for the labourer's family being so high, the minimum of accommodation for a working man's family, ac cording to the notions and customs of the country, being so considerable, the unmarried must wait, as house servants, until a houseman's place falls vacant, before they can marry. These checks against excessive population, which society in every^ state seems to form, as it were, for itself, are attended in every state of society with nearly the same evil consequences. In London and Paris, the expense of a family, and the high standard of even the lowest mode of living, are a check upon improvident marriage ; but with the evil of a greater proportion of illegitimate births. One fourth, or between one fourth and one fifth, of the children born in these cities are illegitimate.* * Stockholm, whatever may be the cause, has the pre-eminence over all cities or assemblages of mankind, in which marriage is held to be a RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 151 In Norway, the same causes produce the same effects. The proportion of illegitimate to legiti mate children is about one in five. In one parish, Sundal in Nordmor, it was, in the five years from 1826 to 1830, one in 3^w; and this proportion, though I have not here the means of verifying the conjecture, exceeds probably that, in the same period, of the most dissipated manufacturing parish in Manchester or London : yet it was in a country parish of 2400 inhabitants, with out a town, or manufacturing establishment, or resort of shipping, or quartering of troops, or other obvious cause. What should be inferred from these facts? Simply that the conventional restraints upon marriage happened to be in too strong operation during that period ; that houses and assured subsistence, according to^ the habits of the country, for a family happened to be as scarce as in any parish of London or Paris, and produced the same effects. The following were the propor tions of houses and land to inhabitants in this parish in 1825. It will give some idea of the distribution of property : — ^Number of inhabitants, 2465 ; number of estates entered (matriculated) for scat or land tax, 95 ; number of actual pro- religious or moral institution, in the disregard shown to it. In the year 1834, the proportion of illegitimate children, born in Stockholm, to the total number of births, was as 1 to 2'26 ; and the 5 years from 1824 to 1830 showed a proportion very little different. What may it have been in Otaheite in those years ? There must be something very peculiar in the moral condition of the Swedish nation, or in that of the lower classes, with regard to the means of subsisting a family. L 4 152 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. prietors cultivating their own land, 121 ; number of tenants cultivating land, for rent, 47 ; number of housemen with land, 114. The evils of illegitimacy are alleviated to the offspring by the state of the law in Norway. Children are not only rendered legitimate by the subsequent marriage ofthe parents, as in the Scotch law ; but the father may, previous to his contracting a marriage with any other party, declare, by a particular act, that his children are to be held legitimate. This is very generally done ; and these children enter into all the rights of those born after marriage, and share in his property. I be lieve there are no instances of children being left to the miseries of illegitimacy if the father has property. December 10, — There is something sublime in the long darkness of these northern nights, and the short intense snowy light of day suddenly breaking it for a few hours, and again all is dark ness. The contrast is so great in so short a time, that one might fancy the roll of the planet from light into darkness was felt as well as seen. He must have been a bold man who first inhabited a northern latitude in winter. December. — In talking of the pressure of the English poor-rates upon landed property, and of the system of supporting even the able-bodied pauper in some counties out of the poor-rate, we forget to take into consideration, that this evU is in a great measure inherent in the very nature of English landed property ; and, enormous as it is. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 153 has its compensating good. England is the only country in the world which draws its whole supply of fuel from below the soil. In all other countries the extent of land producing fire-wood is very large. It has been estimated that one fifth of France is so occupied. When we consider that a crop of trees can scarcely be cut oftener than once in twenty years, so that the wood consumed by twenty-five millions of people in a year is but a twentieth part of what necessarily occupies the soil, the proportion of one fifth seems not over-rated. The effects, upon the condition of the labouring classes, of the difference, are very important : the English poor-rate, and the support of even able- bodied paupers, is one of them ; a smaller evil ac companying an incomparably greater good. All the land occupied in other countries in the growth of fuel crops, be it less or more, is necessarily scattered over the territory. Every parish, every farm, must have its fire-wood within itself, or at an easy distance, it being too bulky for distant carriage. The preparing of this fuel, the felling, lopping, cross-cutting, drawing out of the woods, barking, sawing, cleaving, carting, measuring, storing, are operations going on the whole year round in every neighbourhood and every house hold. It is not labour of skill confined to any particular class, like the mining and water-car riage of coals : nor is much of it hard labour, fit only for the young and able bodied. It is a general labour-fund for all the working class, to which, in every neighbourhood, the poor can turn 154 RESIDENCE IN N0R.WAY. at all seasons, and which is at every man's door ; and to which even the poor themselves, in the wood- burning countries, must contribute. It is in effect a poor-rate. We are not fully sensible in England of all the advantages we enjoy, from being so richly provided with a fuel drawn from below the soil. We generally consider it only with reference to our manufactures ; not to our household affairs. Wood is very expensive firing, even if got for nothing. The labour and expense of preparing it for fuel, the perpetual chop, chop, chopping, all day long in every family, amount to a tax heavier than a poor-rate. In this neighbourhood, where every farm has either wood within itself or has the right to take it from the common forest within a mile's distance, the fathom of six cubic feet of billets for the fire costs six orts, or 4*. 6d. sterling. This value of coals in a coal country would go farther than the same of wood here ; that is, if coals were used in stoves, and with the same economy. In Dronthiem, fire-wood of fir costs in general eight or ten orts, and birchwood one third more. In a small house of the middle class of people there, the year's fuel will cost from seven to ten pounds sterling. In other wood-burning coun tries, as in France, the cost of keeping one room comfortably warm, on an average of situations, is estimated at about fifty francs a year. In this neighbourhood, I consider the price to be the minimum, owing to the abundance of wood and of cheap labour. The greater part of the cost, by far, is the wages of ordinary labour, laid out in the RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 155 neighbourhood where the wood is consumed. It is perhaps too moderate an estimate, that in every parish in Europe, excepting in England, every fire that smokes all winter pays fifteen shillings to the working poor, and generally to those in its imme diate neighbourhood. Taking cities into the ac count, it is probably much more. This is the poor-rate of those countries. England enjoys the inestimable advantage of her coal fuel ; but must take with it the accompanying evil of a poor-rate to support even the able bodied labourer in hus bandry, who is out of work. If we can imagine every country parish and every town in England using wood fuel only, we see at once that there would be a never-ending supply of work in every district, which would supersede all poor-rates, ex cepting for the infirm. The fuel of England cer tainly employs a much larger capital, and a much greater proportion of the population, directly and indirectly, taking into account the manufactures existing by its agency, than if the fuel, as in other countries, was wood only ; but the employment is differently distributed. It goes to the support of branches ofthe population bred to their particular lines of business, and hving in particular districts ; and not to the support of the ordinary working population all over the country, as in wood-burning countries. The distribution of the wealth and employment of a country has much more to do than the amount with the well-being and condition of the people. The wealth and employment of the British nation far exceed those of any other 156 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. nation ; yet in no country is so large a proportion of the inhabitants sunk in pauperism and wretched ness. We may conceive two communities, con sisting each of ten individuals, one possessing a capital of 1000?,, the other of 10,000?. There can be no question but the most wealth and the most employment is in the latter society; but if the 1000?. ofthe first are so distributed that each individual has 100?., and in the latter the 10,000?. belong entirely to one individual, and the other nine are working to him for subsistence at the lowest rate to which competition for his employment can reduce their labour, which is the best distribution of wealth for the happiness of these communities? which is the best constituted state of society? The distribu tion of the employment of providing this necessary of life, fuel, is by nature so determined in England, that only particular classes of labourers in particular districts can partake in it; and as a small counter balance to the immense advantages which property derives in all other ways from this gift of nature we may reckon the necessity of finding work, or sub sistence if work cannot be found, for a considerable number of able-bodied labourers in the nation. The general use of coal as fuel, and the suppres sion of monastic establishments in England, took place in the same generation ; and it seems more reasonable to account for the pauperism which the introduction of the Poor Law in Queen Elizabeth's reign attempted to remedy, by the abstraction of this general branch of labour from the ordinary RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 157 occupation of the labouring poor, than by the loss of a few porringers of victuals from the doors of the suppressed monasteries. Be that as it may, the institution of a poor-rate in England is coeval with the general introduction of coal as a fuel. The finding of work for able-bodied labourers, or sub sistence if work cannot be found, seems a neces sary drawback attached to the additional value given to all property by this valuable fuel. December. — There is something pleasing and picturesque in the primitive old-fashioned house hold ways of the Norwegian gentry. The family room is what we may fancy the hall to have been in an English manor house in Queen Elizabeth's days. The floor is sprinkled with fresh bright green leaves, which have a lively effect ; every thing is clean and shining ; an eight-day clock stands in one corner, a cupboard in another ; benches and straight-backed wooden chairs ranged around the room ; and all the family occupations are going on, and exhibit curious and interesting contrasts of ancient manners, with modern refine ment, and even elegance. The carding of wool or flax is going on in one corner ; two or three spinning wheels are at work near the stove ; and a young lady will get up from these old-fashioned occupations, take her guitar in the window-seat, and play and sing, or gallopade the length of the room with a sister, in a way that shows that these modern accomplishments have been as well taught as the more homely employments. The breakfast is laid out on a tray at one end of this room. 158 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. which is usually spacious, occupying the breadth of the house, and lighted from both sides. People do not sit down to this meal, which consists of slices of bread and butter, smoked meat, sau sages, dried fish, with the family tankard, gene rally of massive silver, full of ale, and with de canters of French and Norwegian brandy, of which the gentlemen take a glass at this repast. This is the breakfast of old times in England. The coffee is taken by itself an hour or two before, and generally in the bed room. While the gentlemen are walking about, conversing and taking breakfast, the mistress is going in and out on her family affairs, servants enter for orders, neighbours drop in to hear or tell the news, the children are learn ing their catechism, or waltzing in the sun beams in their own corner ; and the whole is such, a lively animated scene, without bustle or confusion, all is so nice and bright, and the manners of people to wards each other in family intercourse are so amiable, and with such a strain of good breeding, that the traveller who wishes to be acquainted with the domestic life of the Norwegians will find an hour very agreeable in the family room, December 20, — The good manners of the peo ple to each other are very striking, and extend lower among the ranks of society in the commu nity than in other countries. There seem none so uncultivated or rude, as not to know and observe among themselves the forms of politeness. The brutality, and rough way of talking to and living with each other, characteristic of our lower classes. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 159 are not found here. It is going too far for a stranger to say there is no vulgarity ; this being partly relative to conventional usages, of which he can know but little : but there is evidently an un common equality of manners among all ranks; and the general standard is not low. People have not two sets of manners, as we see in England, among persons even far above the middle class : one set for home use — rude, selfish and frequently surly ; and another set for company — stiff, constrained, too formally polite, and evidently not habitual. The manners here are habitually good, even among the lower ranks. It is possible that the general diffusion of property (the very labourers in hus bandry possessing usually life rents of their land) may have carried down with it the feelings, and self-respect, and consideration for others that we expect for ourselves, which prevail among the classes possessing property, although of a larger extent in other countries, and which constitute politeness. It may also be ascribed to the natu rally mild and amiable character of this people ; and, perhaps, also to their having retained in their secluded glens many usages and forms of polite ness which once prevailed generally in the good society of ancient Europe, but havf been properly discarded as unnecessary restraints upon the in tercourse of the educated and refined classes of modern society ; although, when these forms and usages are, by the spirit of imitation, banished from the secondary classes also, among whom there is sometimes a want of the refinement and cul- 160 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. tivation that render them unnecessary, the improve ment is not always happy. Among these usages, exploded now in other countries, that which first strikes the stranger is, that, on getting up from table, each person goes round the whole company, and shakes hands with every one, with the compli mentary phrase, " Tak for mad," — thanks for the meal ; or " Wei bekomme," — may it do you good. This form is universal. The infant is taught to make its bow or curtsey to its mother, and say " Tak for mad." The husband and wife shake hands, and say " Tak for mad" to each other. In a large party it has the appearance of a dance around the table, every one going round to pay the compliment. I have observed that it is paid to the smallest child at table, as gravely and ceremoniously as to grown people. In the treatment of children, they seem not to make that difference which we do between the child and the grown-up person ; and which divides life often into two parts, little connected with each other. The children seem, from the first, to be treated with consideration and respect, like grown persons. They are not, on that account, little old men and prim little ladies ; but are wild, romping, joyous creatures, giving as small annoyance or trouble as children can do. " Tak for sidste" is another exploded form of politeness, still universal here. It means, " thanks for the pleasure I had from your company the last time we met." It is a compliment of recognition, which it would be extremely rude to neglect. The common people RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. l6l give, tak for sidste, to the Swedish peasants of Jemteland, who have come across the Fjelde, and whom they have certainly not seen since the pre ceding year's snow ; and then possibly only in taking a dram together. A labourer never passes another at work, or at his meal, without a compli mentary expression, wishing him luck in his labour, or good from his meal. In addition to these, perhaps not altogether useless, forms, there are the ordinary inquiries after friends at home, and com pliments and remembrances sent and received, in due abundance. This high estimate of the state of manners in this country may appear inconsistent with the state ments of other travellers, representing females, even in the highest classes, as holding a lower position in society than in other parts of Europe. Dr. Clarke mentions, that they do much work, which with us, in any class of society above the lowest, would be considered servants' drudgery, such as not sitting down at entertainments, but waiting on the guests; and one lively traveller in Norway, Derwent Conway, reckons the life of a Norwegian froken, or young lady of rank, little better than that of an English chambermaid. He tells of one froken sending an apology for not accepting of an invitation, as it was slaughter month, and she had to stay at home to make the black puddings. If we inspect the arrangements in Norway with re gard to property, this apparent inconsistency will disappear ; and the female sex will be found to have in fact more to do with the real business of life, and M 162 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. with those concerns Vi^hich require mental exertion and talent, than women ofthe same class in England. In Norway the land, as already observed, is par celled out into small estates, affording a comfortable subsistence, and in a moderate degree the elegances of civilised life ; but nothing more. With a popu lation of 910,000 inhabitants, about the year 1819, there were 41,656 estates. We must compare this proportion of population to landed property, with the proportion in Scotland, about the same period, in order to form any just idea of the different state and condition ofthe middle and lower classes, in these two small countries. The population in 1822 of Scotland was 2,093,456, of whom those holding landed property, as freeholders, amounted to 2987. Of these, also, many did not actually possess land, but held fictitious votes, two or three on one estate. On the other hand, many estates afforded no freehold qualification ; and therefore 2987 cannot, perhaps, be taken as the exact num ber. Suppose we triple it, to cover all omissions. We should still have only 8961 estates of land in Scotland. But if the population of Scotland of 2,093,456 had held the same interest in the soil which the 910,000 of Norway have in the land of their country, there would be 95,829 estates in Scotland — one for every 22, instead of one for every 7OO, of the population. In a country in which soil and climate are so unfavourable to agri- culture as in Norway, the income of these small estates cannot be considerable ; and as the pro duce is consumed in the family, unless to the RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. l63 extent required for paying taxes, and buying groceries, — and much is done by bartering, — the owners themselves cannot perhaps tell the yearly worth of their estates. The salaries of such public functionaries as must, from the nature of their offices, be rather above than below the ordinary scale of income ofthe gentry of the country, will probably give the best idea of what is a sufficient income in the higher class. An Amtman, who, like the French Prefet, is the highest officer in a province, and ranks with a major-general, has a salary of 1 600 dollars, or 320?. sterling. He has also a house and land generally in his province, attached to his Amt, but, as he must keep at least two clerks at his own expense, his income cannot be reckoned above 1600 dollars. A Foged, who has the charge of the police, of the collection of taxes, of the Crown estates or interests, and all public concerns, in a district of from 10,000 to 15,000 inhabitants, has a salary of 800 dollars. A member of Storthing is allowed, as a suitable maintenance when attending that assembly, two dollars and a half daily ; which is at the rate of 900 dollars yearly. It may be concluded from these incomes, that 800 or 900 dollars are about the incomes of the highest dlass of landed proprietors. These small estates are scattered on the sides of glens, and lakes, and fiords, over a vast extent of country, and are at great distances from towns, or even the nearest country shop. Every article, consequently, that can be required in a twelvemonth must be thought of and provided. M 2 164 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. The house, like a ship going round the world, must be victualled and provided for a year at once. There is no sending to the next shop for salt, or tea, or sealing wax, or whatever may be wanted, as the next shop is probably forty miles off. It requires no ordinary exertion of judgment to pro vide out of a small income all that may be required in a family for that period, and not too much. The lieutenant of a ship of war prides himself on doing this for a twelvemonth's cruise ; the female who does it for a household, varying from ten to thirty, and with limited means, cannot stand in a low position in society ; her mental powers and intelligence cannot be less awakened than those of the female in Britain, who has only to think for the week, and send to the next street for what is wanted when the want occurs. In the real busi ness of life, in their influence on those concerns which occupy the male sex, the female sex in Norway stands on higher ground than among the upper ranks in Britain, and has a more active and important part to perform. The question is not whether the females of families in Norway of the higher class, with incomes not generally exceeding 800 dollars, have the luxuries and refinements of females in England, whose families have not in general under perhaps 2000?. a year. Such a question answers itself. But the question is, whether, in the very peculiar state of society in Norway with regard to property, the females hold a just position in society, have that influence and participation in its affairs which develope their RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 165 mental powers, and place them as intelligent beings in a suitable relation to the other sex. If one considers how little of the real business of life in Britain, owing to the comphcated and extensive nature of the different kinds of property, is ever understood by the females of any family above the middle class, and how entirely their time is occu pied with objects of amusement only, the advan tage, as intelligent beings having business and duties to perform, is clearly on the side of the Norwegian females. In the secondary objects of music, dancing, dressing, they are not deficient. They have naturally pleasing voices, and in every family in every station, singing and dancing are going on all the winter evening. Music is taught in the country by the organists attached to each parish, and seems, as well as dancing, to be more generally understood and practised than in Eng land or Scotland. In taste and mode of dressing, the best account that can be given is, that they dress so much in our taste, that a traveller fi'om Britain, unless he is a man milliner travelling for orders, would not be struck by any peculiarity. In France, Germany, or any other foreign country, the most unobservant is struck with something in the arrangement of the hair, in the colours worn, in the kind of taste and style of dress, different from what his eye is used to at home : but a Nor wegian lady, young or old, might walk into a room in Scotland or England, without attracting any notice on account of her dress or appearance. The observation of Dr. Clarke, that at the entcr- M 3 166 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. tainments in Dronthiem and Christiania, the ladies waited on the guests, and did the offices proper to servants in England, was naturally suggested by his seeing only the entertainments given to him by a few of the wealthy mercantile families of those towns, at which very probably the profusion and luxury of foreign habits and modes of living, may be blended not very harmoniously with the sim plicity of the Norwegian. In this back country, the incongruity would not have struck him, be cause every thing is in keeping with that sim plicity of living, which would make it not at all remarked, except for its spirit of hospitality, that the ladies were attending on their guests. December. Norway possesses an island, Berend Island, situated between Spitzbergen and North Cape, about two hundred and eighty miles from the latter, which would be very interesting to the geologist, and is not altogether so inaccessible as he may suppose. It is about thirty English miles in circumference, and presents a formation totally different from the primary rocks of which the Nor wegian peninsula, and, it is understood, Spitzbergen and other polar lands, are composed. The whole island appears to be a mass of coal. It is not the fossil wood, brown coal, or surturbrand, found in Iceland, Germany, and some parts of the west of England, but mineral coal. The merchants of Tromsoe and of Hammerfest send out vessels oc casionally to the ice in pursuit of the white bear and wah'us ; and these sometimes bring back a quantity of these coals, which crop out in the very RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 167 cliff, and are got at without any difficulty. At tempts have been made to leave a few men to winter in this island, in order to kill the white bears which come there on the icebergs ; but in two or three instances they have been unfortunate, the whole party having been found dead on the return of the vessels. This is supposed to have been the effect less of extreme cold than of scurvy ; and of the people not being under discipline, in dulging too freely in strong food and spirits, and taking no exercise. The very respectable pro prietor of Steenkjaer Gaard, with whom I am ac quainted, wintered about fourteen years ago in Berend Island with a party of five men. He was then a clerk to a merchant in Hammerfest, and was sent out with the party on speculation for the purpose of killing white bears during the winter. They took with them a hut and provisions, and were left on the island in September, and taken back next July, The speculation did not succeed, as they killed only seven white bears, I thought at first it must be the walrus that the merchants sought to catch, the white bear being described by our voyagers as too formidable an animal to spe culate upon. But these descriptions appear in correct. Almost every year vessels go to the ice on this business ; and two men with lances can always despatch the animal without difficulty, one taking him in front and the other on the side. They sometimes use small dogs, as in attacking the common bear in Norway. In all the ursine tribe the most tender parts are those behind, exposed M 4i 168 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. when they walk, and are vulnerable even by the smaller animals. When the dogs bark, and attack the bear behind, he sits down instinctively to cover his hind parts, and to defend himself with his fore paws. The proprietor of Steenkjaer told me that, ex cepting for three days, they did not find the cold intolerable, or much beyond what they had been used to at Hammerfest. The coals, which they took from under the soil within a foot of the sur face, were exactly like our small Newcastle coals, but what is quarried out of the cliff is in large pieces, like Scotch coal. It is very sulphurous. They tried to burn it in their stove, but were nearly suffocated one night in their beds, by the vapour escaping into their hut, and having plenty of drift wood for fuel, they did not use it again. This coal has been occasionally used by the English company which is engaged in a mining concern of copper ore at Alten. It has also been occasion ally brought to Dronthiem. The locality is re markable for such a mass. It is a treasure totally useless in an economical point of view, but it might furnish the naturalist with valuable facts. December. This has been a busy month in our little town. The fair, to which it owes its exist ence, is held during the first three weeks of De cember. Small vessels arrive daily with bales of dried fish (the sethe or gadus virens), pickled her rings, and goods of all kinds, from Dronthiem. The country proprietors from the remote glens come down with horses, cheese, butter, and other RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 169 produce of their farms, which they sell or barter for their year's supply of fish and groceries ; but the peculiar feature of the fair is the constant coming and going of long strings or caravans of covered sledges, thirty or forty together, which in shape exactly resemble large coffins. These belong to the Jemtelanders, inhabiting the Swedish side of the Fjelde, about the heads of the rivers which fall into the Bothnian Gulf. They cross the Fjelde, when snow has made sledge-travelling practicable with the heaviest goods, and purchase cottons, tobacco, groceries, and all kinds of manu factures and colonial produce, and fish, and trans port these to the different winter fairs in the interior, as far as the Russian frontier. The distillation of spirits being unrestricted in this country, and carried on in every farm house, renders the price very low, — about 14^:?. sterling the gallon. I expected to have seen a great deal of drunkenness and disturbance in an assemblage of four or five thousand people of two distinct nations. This proved not to be the case. In the morning I have not seen one intoxicated person. In the evening the country people re turning home appear elevated or in liquor, as at our fairs, but not so as to be unable to take care of themselves. I have not seen one of the sol diers, a subaltern's party of whom are here during the fair, in the slightest degree affected with liquor, either on duty or off; yet the disci pline is any thing but strict. The only individuals I have seen thoroughly drunk, or in the state in 170 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. which well-clad artizans may be seen staggering through the streets of Edinburgh every day, are the Laplanders. They are selling skins, gloves, and such trifles, and run to the spirit shop with their friends, the moment they dispose of an article. Yet these people have something manly about them. I wished to buy a pair of snow boots of reindeer skin to draw over my own, in travelling. A Laplander having asked three orts for them, I offered two orts twelve, thinking he had two prices, like other deal ers abroad ; but the man instantly walked away, evidently hurt at such a supposition. I have had an opportunity, from being acquainted with the local authorities, of ascertaining the amount of delin quencies committed during the fair. There has been one case of theft, one of driving a sledge without bells, and thus injuring a woman, one of bringing a diseased or glandered horse for sale. This is not a formidable catalogue for such an occasion. The division of property among the children has not, in the course of a thousand years, brought the fair-going people in Norway to the state ofthe fair-going people in Ireland. If the distillation of spirits from potatoes were allowed to the Irish people as here, where every one may distil without restriction, what would be the consequence ? The whole nation would be drunk for the first fortnight; but the permanent consequences might possibly be beneficial. It would give a positive value to a vast mass of pro perty, the potatoe crop, which has now only the kind of negative value of being consumed by man RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 171 and pig, in place of other more transportable kinds of food. It would make potatoes, like grain, a saleable product. The growers could not consume it, as now, in breeding curly-headed boys and girls : but would distil part of it for use or for sale. If all restraints on the use of spirits were removed, — and the artificial price occasioned by duties and excise regulations is perhaps the most exciting one, — it is very possible that, after the novelty ofthe situation was over, the consumption would be less considerable than it is now. There would be no treating, no public-house drinking ; for there would be no rarity nor difficulty in getting the liquor, which could be had at home at little cost. It would undoubtedly improve the condition ofthe Irish people, by giving a valuable property to the poorest cottar out of a product which is now only applied to the rearing of a superfluous population ; and notwithstanding the evil consequences of placing, as it were, the glass brim-full in the hands of the people, the good might counterbalance the evil. January, 1835. The fair was quickly fol lowed by Christmas, or Yule, as it is called here, as well as by the Scottish peasantry, Avhich was kept in great style for fourteen ^days. Every family is in busy preparation for three weeks before, baking, brewing, and distilhng, and the fourteen days of Yule are passed in feasting and merriment, giving and receiving entertainments. In this neighbourhood there are about thirty families, who from station, office, or education, form the upper 172 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. class of society. In this hospitable and amiable circle, I have received during the winter such attentions as a stranger, without letters of intro duction, would only receive in Norway. I was fairly knocked up in Yule by a succession of parties, which seldom ended before flve or six next morning. There is something indelicate, and perhaps not very honourable, in describing minutely private societies and modes of living of families in a fo reign country, where the stranger is invited in the kindest spirit of hospitality, and not that he should make his remarks, however flattering they may be to his entertainers. This difficulty, however, need not be felt here, because the mode of living is so simple and uniform in every family, or party, that our description can have nothing peculiarly referable to any one. You are invited by a list carried round by a man on horseback, and, opposite to your name, you put down that you accept, or decline. You are ex pected about four o'clock, long after dinner, for which twelve or one is the usual hour. The stranger who will take the trouble to come early will be much gratified, for there is nothing on the Continent so pretty as the arrival of a sledge party. The distant jingling of the bells is heard, before any thing can be seen through the dusk and snow ; and sound rapidly approaching, is one of the most pleasing impressions on our senses. Then one sledge seems to break as it were through the cloud, and is followed by a train of twenty or thirty, RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 173 sweeping over the snow. The spirited action of the little horses, with their long manes and tails, the light and elegant form of the sledges ap pearing on the white ground, the ladies wrapt in their furs and shawls, the gentlemen standing be hind driving in their wolf-skin pelisses, the master of the house and the servants at the door with can dles, form a scene particularly novel and pleasing. Coffee and tea are handed round to each person on arrival ; and the company walk about the room and converse. It appears to me that there are never any of those dismal awkward pauses in com pany here, nor of that reliance on one or two good talkers, or hacknied subjects, such as wind, weather, and news, which characterise our ordinary society in England and Scotland. Every body seems to have something to say, and to say it ; and conversation does not flag. This arises probably from the temperament ofthe people ; and the total absence of pretence in their character, that, is of wishing to appear more or less important, more or less rich, more or less learned, or more or less any thing, than they really are. After the party is all assembled, the Mellem-maaltid, or middle repast, is brought in. This is a tray with slices of bread and butter, anchovies, slices of tongue, of smoked meat, of cheese ; and every one helps himself as he walks about. The gentlemen generally take a glass of spirits at this repast, which is a regular meal in every family. The gentlemen then sit down to cards. I have not seen a lady at a card- table. The games usually played are boston. 174 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. ombre, shervenzel, which seems a complicated sort of piquet, and three-card loo. The stakes are always very small. Those of the elderly gen tlemen, who do not play, light their pipes and converse. The younger generally make out a dance, or have singing and music, usually the guitar, with an occasional waltz or gallopade, or polsk, a national dance much more animated than the waltz. Nor are handsome young officers wanting, in moustaches and gay uniforms, who would not touch tobacco or spirits for the world, and seem to know how to act the agreeable. Punch is handed about very frequently, as it is not customary to drink any thing at or after sup per. The supper is almost invariably the same. A dish of fish, cut into slices, is passed from one guest to another, and each helps himself. The lady of the house generally walks down behind the company, and sees that each is supplied. After the fish is discussed, the plate is taken away, and one finds a clean plate under it ; the knife and fork are wiped by a servant, and the next dishes begin their rounds. They consist always, in this district, of reindeer venison, capercailzie (the male of which is as large as a turkey, the female so remarkably smaller that it passes by a different name, Tiur or Tiddur signifying the male, and Roer the female) ; also black cock and ptarmigan. These are cut into pieces, laid on a dish, and passed round ; and the dish is followed by a suc cession of sauces or preserved berries, such as the Moltebeer, which is the Rubus chamasmorus RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 175 of botanists, the Ackerbeer (Rubus arcticus), the Tyttebeer (Vaccinium vitis idaea). These are such very good things that there is no difficulty in ac quiring a taste for them. A cake concludes the supper. The lady of the house scarcely sits down to table, but carves, walks about behind the chairs, and attends to the supply of the guests. This is the custom of the country; she would be ill-bred to do otherwise. It is not from want of servants, for every house is full of neat, handy maidens. They approach much more nearly to the nice, quiet, purpose-like English girls, than the Scotch, When one is satisfied that it is simply a relic of ancient manners, not the result either of vulgarity, or ignorance, or inferior station in society, one is easily reconciled to a custom which adds certainly to the real comfort of the guests. Three or four sturdy, corpulent footmen sweating under their liveries, behind the chairs of a dinner party, do not strike the imagination so agreeably, that one can accuse a people of want of refinement, because, by their customs, the attendance of servants is almost entirely dispensed with. Two old maiden ladies in a market town in England taking tea and toast toge ther on a Saturday evening, would have ten times more attendance and bustle than a pferty of forty or fifty here. This simplicity also brings all ranks nearer to each other in the manner of living, which is a better and safer condition of society, than where rich and poor are like two distinct bodies, inhabiting the same land, but different in habits, customs, and modes of life, These are not such im- 176 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. portant and essential divisions in the structure of society here. The rich are the exception, not the rule. In their houses, servants, entertainments, way of living, and all that distinguishes wealth with us, they appear to follow, not to lead, the general usages ; and these are all moulded upon what is suitable to the ordinary scale of incomes in the country. There are individuals in this circle who would be deemed rich in any country ; one gentle man's income is supposed to exceed 3000?. or 4000?. sterling a year. The public functionaries and the clergy have also comparatively considerable incomes ; but in no respect do their houses, either inside or outside, or their entertainments, depart from the ordinary style of the country, as now described. This is the natural result of the par tition of property. The present possessors have been bred in the simple habits of the ordinary class of proprietors ; and their children, or at farthest their grandchildren, must return to that class. There is however a perfect distinction in society, although it is not founded upon income. There is no admixture of the rude and uncultivated with the good society, as appears to be the case in Ame rica. Each person seems naturally and quietly to fall into the circle most congenial to him, and into his proper place. All the people seem to be feasting and making merry during these fourteen days of Yule. The country at night seems illumin ated by the numerous lights twinkling from the houses of the peasant proprietors. The Christmas cheer with them is exactly the same as with others ; RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 177 ale, brandy, cakes, venison, game, veal, and pork. The servants have their full share in these festivi ties. In this farm-house, I observe their table set out as nicely, and with exactly the same provisions, as that of the family, during the whole fourteen days ; and in the evenings they sing national songs, and dance. The herdboy is, ex officio, the musician on every farm. When he is attending the cattle in summer at the seater or distant hill pastures, he must make a noise occasionally to keep off the wolf; and that of the clarionet is as good as any. It seems the favourite instrument, and is generally played well enough foi" the servant girls to dance waltzes and gallopades to it. I was surprised to see them dance so well ; but in their roomy houses they have, from infancy, constant practice during the winter evenings. This festival was considered, at the introduction of Christianity into Norway, as heathenish, and not connected with Christianity. The Yule feasts were not only prohibited, but those who gave them were punished with death or mutilation, by King Olaf the saint ; and the cruelties committed by that tyrant in suppressing them led to the revolt against him. It is supposed not to correspond to the actual period of our Saviour's birth, but to have been adopted to commemorate that event, because it was already estabhshed universally in Europe as a religious festival, and came at a time of the year when it did not interfere with agri- cultural labour in any country. In the fragment of an old saga of the Norwegian kings, translated N 17S RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. into Norse from the Icelandic, by P. Munch, and published in the second volume of " Samlinger til det Norske Folks sprog og Historic," Christiania, 1834, the reason is given why, in that age. Yule feasts were considered heathenish : — " Here it may be proper to answer the question which Christian men make, what heathens could know about Jule or Yule ; seeing that our Yule is derived from the birth of our Saviour. The heathens had also a festival in honour of Odin. Now Odin had many names : he was called Vidrir, also he was called Haar and Thridje, also Joiner ; and Jule is called after Joiner." January, 1835. — The Norwegian Church is an establishment not uninteresting in the present times. In principle and doctrine, it is more purely Lutheran, perhaps, than the Church of En gland, as it has never been touched by the hand of power, nor altered by the spirit of innovation, but remains as it was originally moulded after the subversion of popery. It is interesting, because if the Church of England should, as far as regards the machinery of her establishment, and without touching her efficiency or doctrines, be ever re modelled by those who are now occupied with plans of reforming church endowments, she would probably much resemble this Lutheran Church. There are in Norway 336 prestegilds or parishes. Many of them are exceedingly large, extending, in this part of Norway, from the sea coast up to the Swedish frontier; and containing from 5000 to 10,000 inhabitants. In considering this low pro- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 179 vision for religious instruction, it must be remem bered that the pure Lutheran Church, as it exists in Norway, is essentially ceremonial ; as much so almost as the Roman Catholic. The altar is deco rated with crosses and images. The priest, arrayed in embroidered robes of velvet, on the back of which a large and rich figure of the cross is con spicuous, celebrates high mass under that name, which sounds strange in a Protestant church, be fore the altar, on which candles are lighted, as in the Roman Catholic churches. The Lutheran, in short, appears to Presbyterian eyes a Catholic translated into his own language, with a few abridgments. To support this ceremonial with decent splendour, so that it should not fall into the ludicrous, there are several expensive append ages necessary, which it would exceed the means of a small congregation to support. A clerk to deliver certain parts of the service, and an organist or singer, or both, are necessary for performing the ceremonial with decent solemnity and effect. It is also to be considered that, although the country be poor, the property is distributed among the people. Every man generally has a piece of land and a comfortable house, on which he no doubt values himself It is not as in Scotla'nd, where the mass of the population of a country parish is with out any property, and, consequently, a moderate income is sufficient to place the clergyman and his family far above the station of the many, and no income that could be raised in his parish would, even if that were desirable, place him in the N -2 180 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. situation of the rich few. Hence in Norway it is, perhaps, necessary that the income of the clergy man should be decidedly high, to maintain him in a suitable station in society ; and that could not be the case, from whatever source his income may be derived, if his parish was smaU. It is not foresight, or wisdom, that produces these political or economical arrangements in a country, but the accumulating experiences of time, working upon statesmen ignorant, perhaps, them selves of the true causes and results of their ar rangements ; and this it is which makes prudent men dread the meddling too freely with old in stitutions. The incomes of the clergy run in country pa rishes from 800 to I6OO dollars. The bishops, I understand, have about 4000 dollars. 800 dollars, or I70?. sterling, is sufficient for a family living in the best way according to the fashion of the country, and in its best society. In Bergen, Christiania, and other towns, there are, of course, large incomes, and a more expensive scale of hving; but the towns are- too small, and the large incomes acquired in commercial or profes sional pursuits too rare, to have such influence upon society as in England ; and the division among the children necessarily makes frugality and moderation the prevailing principles of living. Hence Norway is a cheap country; a circumstance which, as it is justly observed by Arthur Young, depends not so much on the prices of provisions RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 181 and other articles, as on the prevailing mode of life among the inhabitants. The incomes of the country clergy are derived from a smaU modus or payment of grain, in lieu of tithe, from each farm. Tithe of fish is paid in Finmark and Nordland, and some parts of Bergen Amt, as there is no other produce. But tithe of agricultural produce is commuted into a payment of grain, not reckoned burdensome, as it is not above two or three bushels for the largest farm ; yet, from the great number of farms in a parish, it makes a considerable income. There are fiar prices, as in Scotland, by which payments in grain may be converted into money. In every preste- gild, also, there are several farms, besides the glebe, which belong to the living. These are let for a share of the produce, or for a fine at each renewal, and a trifling yearly rent, or feu-duty. One of these farms is appropriated, in' every parish, to the mi nister's widow for her life. A third source of in come is from Easter and Christmas offerings, and pretty high offerings or dues for marriages, chris tenings, and funerals. Those presented at Christ mas and Easter are voluntary ; but it seems there is a kind of pride among the Bonder to make a handsome one, a dollar or two, a| Yule. The mode of presenting it is not very decorous. The clergyman, in his embroidered robes, is on his knees at the altar, after the service is performed, appa rently absorbed in meditation and prayer. The people go round the altar in procession, and, as each deposits his offering on the altar, the clergy- N 3 182 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. man makes a little nod of acknowledgment. It is proposed, instead of these offerings, to establish a fixed payment by law, as a more economical and agreeable way of paying this not inconsiderable part ofthe clergyman's income. It will give the most precise ideas, perhaps, of the extent, population, and means of instruction in Norwegian parishes, to state such information as I have collected on these heads in this fogderie. A fogderie is a bailiwick, or district under a fo ged, who has charge of the collection of taxes, police, and all executive functions in his district. There are five parishes in this fogderie. The largest is about fifty-six miles in length, and four teen in breadth ; the smallest about ten miles square. The population of the five parishes was, bythe census of 1801, 18,346 persons; by the census of 1815, 18,495 ; and by the census of 1825, 22,880. The remarkable increase in the population during the ten years from 1815 to 1825, in a dis trict in which there is no town or manufacture, may be ascribed, I conceive, to the general pro sperity of the country, the increase being general over Norway, under its new constitution, and to the improved condition of the people by having the free use of their agricultural produce in every shape. The distillation of spirits from potatoes has given the arable lands the benefit of a kind of rotation of crop, or, at least, of a large portion of every farm being carefully worked and well manured ; and has afforded to every fann a supply RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 183 of manure within itself, as the cattle are fed on the distillery refuse, — a supply unknown under the former system, when distillation by the farmer was prohibited, or was a trade monopohzed, as now with us, by a few large capitalists. The land is producing, in consequence, more food, and sup porting in more comfort, this great additional population. It is a striking instance of the benefits of a free legislation. In these five parishes, inhabited by 22,880 per sons, there are fifteen churches, the largest having five, and the smallest two. It may also be inte resting to the curious in statistical details, and may show the state and distribution of property, to Ibe informed that in these five parishes there are 1184 estates paying land-tax ; and that these are occupied by 1370 farmers, of whom 773 are udal proprietors of the land they occupy, and 597 are life-renters, or tenants ; and these farmers have 1474 housemen, holding land in life-rent for their own and their widows' lives, and paying rent in work, and 278 unmarried farm servants not holding land. Of the lands held by tenants, several belong to the Church, of which the clergyman has the benefit: some to the State ; and the public functionaries, the amtmon, foged, sorenskriver, ,and military officers of the districts, have official residences, with land, as part of their emoluments, and which they may cultivate or let : finally, some to private proprietors, who possess more than one estate, and let, generally on life-rent with a fine, the land they do not occupy. 184 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. The regular income of those five parishes is enjoyed by five ministers ; but, to do the duty in the most extensive of them, they are obliged to have an assistant or chaplain. There are seven clergymen at present to minister to the 22,880 inha bitants. These chaplaincies, which are equivalent to English curacies, are the appointments which can didates, or young ministers who have passed the examinations and are ordained, first obtain. From these situations they are promoted to the more la borious and least lucrative ofthe regular church liv ings; those situatedin Finmark, Nordland, or among the islands ; and after serving for some years in these toilsome and inferior charges, they are con sidered to have a claim to be translated, when vacancies occur, to the more desirable and valu able livings. The effect of this arrangement, although just and considerate as far as regards the clergyman, is bad for the people. In Finmark and part of Nordland there are three languages, the Norwegian, the Finnish, and the Lappish ; and the clergyman, with the prospect of a removal in eight or ten years, has little inducement to over come the difficulties of two barbarous tongues, in order to be in a state to instruct his flock. The want of efficient religious instruction among the Laplanders, and the slow progress of the trans lation and use of the Scriptures in their language, may be ascribed to this cause. Among the regular clergy, there is one who has a superintendence over the concerns of four or five ofthe adjoining parishes; and the state ofthe RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 185 church property, buildings, and regular discharge of clerical duties, come under his cognisance : he communicates with the bishop of the diocese, and has a small allowance for performing these services, as dean or probst. It appears to be the only dignity in the church, except that of bishop. There are five bishoprics in Norway. The in come of a bishop, as already stated, is about 4000 dollars, which practically is, in this country, equi valent to as many thousand pounds sterling in England, viewed in comparison with the salaries of the highest functionaries in the country. The patronage is in the hands of the bishops and of the Norwegian council of state, of which a com mittee has charge of all the affairs of the church. The bishop recommends, and the council presents, to the vacant livings ; but every appointment, with all the candidates* applications and certificates, with the grounds of preference of the party to whom the living is given, must be inserted in the protocol of the committee of the council of state, which is examined and revised at each Storthing by a committee appointed for church affairs. There is a superintending power in Norway, also, of the public, exerted through the press, which checks any abuse of patronage in civil or clerical appoint ments. There being no party spirit, as in England, confounding right and wrong, in every question there is but one opinion, decidedly but temper ately expressed, on public questions, which no individual in office, however high, could resist. This influence is more sound and effective in Nor- 186 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. way than in any country in Europe in the present day. It is a peculiar characteristic ofthe Norwegian Church, that there is no dissent from it ; no sec tarians. A few years ago, a person of the name of Houghan had a few followers; but his doctrine on religious points did not differ Jfrom that of the estabhshed church. It was his object to inspire a more religious spirit, and more strict observance of the church doctrine ; so that his followers were similar to what is called the evangelical part of the community of the Church of England. But even this slight attempt at a division, within the pale of the church itself, appears to have had no success. There are several reasons for this peculiarity of the Norwegian Church. The principal, perhaps, is, that it has no temporal power; no political ex istence as a part of the state ; no courts, or laws, or interests of its own, jarring with those of the other classes of the community, and raising ani mosity between them and the clergy. The clergy are, in political rights or privileges, on the same footing as any other class of the community. The Lutheran religion is part of the State ; but not the ministers who are employed to teach it. They are represented in the Storthing like other citizens, and, having no separate interests as a body of clergy, enjoy individually the confidence of the people, and an unity of interests with them. They are often sent to the Storthing as their representa tives. This unity of worldly interests prevents dis sent in spiritual matters. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 187 Another cause of the great influence of the clergy, and ofthe total absence of religious dissent, is the great consideration in which the rite of con firmation is held. It is not here, as it practically is in the Church of England, a mere ceremony, in which the bishop knows nothing personally of the parties he is admitting into the church, and the parish priest knows little more that they were bap tized and are of due age. There is here a strict examination by the bishop, or the probst, or rural dean, into the young person's knowledge of his moral and religious duties, his capacity, acquire ments, and character ; and it is only after a long previous preparation by his parish minister, equal almost to a course of education, the confirmants being instructed singly as well as in classes, that the individual is presented for this examination. I was present lately at a confirmation of about twenty young persons in our parish church by the probst. The examination, in presense of the con gregation, occupied nearly two hours. It was not merely asking and replying, by a string of set questions and answers from the church catechism. It resembled more the kind of examination used in teaching the reading classes in the Sessional School in Edinburgh. It was a sifting trial to know if each individual attached the real meaning to the words he was using, and actually did understand what he had been taught on the subject of reli gion. It was evident that considerable pains had been taken with the instruction of each indivi dual. To pass such a confirmation, implies that 188 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. the young person is well grounded in the principles of his moral and religious duties, and is of good character and understanding. It is, in common life, equivalent to taking of a degree in the learned profes sions, being in fact a certificate of capacity for dis charging ordinary duties and trusts. It is accordingly so considered in Norway, " A confirmed shop-boy wants a place," — " Wanted a confirmed girl who can cook," — are the ordinary advertisements to or from that class of the community ; and the not being confirmed would be held equivalent to not having a character, either from want of conduct, or of ordinary capacity. Something similar pre vailed formerly in Scotland, but not to the same extent, A young man, of the labouring class, usually took a certificate of his good character from the minister when he removed to a distant parish. The confirmation in Norway certifies much more, as, in the face of the congregation, the confirmant has shown that he can read and has the use of his mental faculties to an ordinary degree, according to his station, and has moral and religi ous principles to direct him. It is extraordinary that the Church of England has not, like this Lu theran sister in the north, kept fast hold of a rite which connected her so closely with society, its education and its business. This simple discharge of an unexceptionable duty shuts out dissent from the Norwegian Church. When we consider the great extent of the Norwegian parishes, the merit of being laborious, zealous, and effective cannot be denied to the RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 189 Norwegian clergy. The church service is the smallest part of their duty, although the sermon is long, and delivered, as in Scotland, without papers. They have school-examinations, Sunday-schools, meetings of those who are in preparation for being confirmed, often at great distances from their dwellings, and a superintendence of the probst or bishop, which prevents any neglect or indolence in attending to those duties. It is my impression, that the Norwegian clergy are a highly educated body of men. As far as my experience goes, the clergy and students of divinity are acquainted with the literature of Eu rope, have read the standard works in the French and German languages, and are at least as well acquainted with English as our clergy in general are with French, The study of the great works on divinity, philo sophy, and church history, which have been writ ten in the German language, is a necessary part of the course here for the student of divinity. The classical studies are also carried on to a later period of life than in Scotland, by those intended for the clerical profession, and under teachers of a high scholarship. There are five high schools in the principal towns in Norway, in which 'the rectors and teachers are men, such as Holmboe, Bugge, Fresner, of known eminence as classical scholars : the student of divinity must be prepared in these schools for his professional studies, and is seven teen or eighteen years of age before he is con sidered fit to leave them for the university. In 190 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, proportion, also, to the other professional classes in the community, the clergy of Norway are richly endowed, and the church has always been the highest profession in the country, that to which all t-alent is naturally directed. Law and medicine do not, as in Scotland, withdraw youth of promis ing abilities from the clerical profession. It is a necessary consequence, that candidates are edu cated up to its value, and estimation in society. In this part of Norway the most eminent preacher is Bishop Bugge, His manner of delivery is sin gularly impressive, even to a stranger who can but imperfectly follow his discourse. It is calm, very earnest, yet almost conversational ; and is a style of public speaking very similar to that of Dr, Chal mers : his reputation as a preacher is similar. It is a peculiarity in all Lutheran countries, which strikes the traveller, especially from Scot land, that the evening of the Sunday is not passed, as with us, in quiet and stillness at least, if not in devotional exercises. He must be a very super ficial observer, however, who ascribes this to a want of religious feeling. It arises from the pecu liar and, in the pure Lutheran Church, universally received interpretation of the Scriptural words, that " the evening and the morning made the first day." The evening of Saturday and the morning of Sunday make the seventh day, or Sabbath, ac cording to the Lutheran Church. This interpret ation is so fully estabhshed, and interwoven with their thinking and acting, that entertainments, dances, card parties, and all public amusements. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 191 take place regularly on Sunday evenings. A Lu theran minister gives a party on Sunday evening at his house, at which you find music, dancing, and cards, without more scruple, or conception that there is any thing objectionable, than a Presbyterian minister has when he eats a slice of mutton for din ner on a Friday, and would equally think it su perstitious to object to it. We are very apt, in religious concerns, to measure our neighbour's judgment by our own. Yet, whether this interpretation of the Scriptural words, defining the Sabbath, be theologically right or wrong, it is politically wrong, and injurious to society. The half-day of Saturday is little re garded. The labourer cannot leave his work, make himself clean, and go to a distant church, for a portion of a day. The half-day of Sunday, also, is more liable to be encroached upon, than if the whole were, as with us, a day of rest, on which no manner of work was to be done. The progress of education among the working classes in Britain will probably make it necessary to unite the two plans at no distant time ; to make the half of Saturday a period of rest by political in stitution, as well as the whole of Sunday by divine institution. The educated working man in Britain is, at present, in a worse condition, in consequence of his education, than the untaught labourer, who has only his animal wants to supply. Take the most simple case. The educated working man generally wishes to read a portion of the Scriptures daily in his family. This is surely the most simple 192 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. and immediate result of education. He must oc cupy some portion of time in doing so, over and above the time which his family, in common with the families of all the ignorant and uneducated of his fellow labourers, must take for the ordinary business of life, for sleeping, cooking, eating, washing, marketing, and such household occupa tions. But this time will cost him money, or money's worth. It cannot well be less than half an hour, including the assembling of the family, if he is to read at all. Now half an hour a day comes to three hours a week, and in half a year, of twenty-five working weeks, it comes to no less than one week, of six working days, of twelve hours ; and by so much, by one week's work in twenty-five, can the untaught labourer undersell the educated one in the labour market. It is this advantage of uneducated labour which it seems to be the object of trades' unions and combinations to exclude. The educated labouring man of the pre sent day is, in fact, well entitled to say to the rest of the community, — You have educated me, you have given me the wants, and tastes, and habits of a moral, religious, thinking being ; you must give me leisure to use these endowments without preju dice to my means of subsistence ; otherwise, you have sunk my condition below that of my fellow- labourer, who requires only what is indispensably necessary for existence. It is very possible, that when the formation of trades' unions, for raising their rate of wages, lessening the number of work ing hours, and such objects as are scarcely com- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 193 patible with the unrestrained productive power of capital employed in manufactories, is traced to its causes, these will be found to be intimately con nected with the wants and habits of a people ad vancing in mental culture. It is very possible, that a day may come when it will be necessary to decide whether the education of the people of Great Britain shall be abandoned, as incompatible with the utmost productive powers of labour ; or those powers, as called into action by capital, be regulated by laws. The uneducated man can work fourteen hours a day, having no demands upon his time, but for food and rest ; while the other cannot exceed twelve hours, if he is to enjoy any benefit or gratification as an educated man. This di lemma, in fact, exists now ; although Lord Brougham, Mr. Hume, and the other friends of the education of the people, are afraid to look it in the face. The uneducated labourer reduces the educated labourer to work the same number of hours that he works in every trade ; and that num ber is not compatible with any of the purposes or uses of education, not even that of giving rehgious or moral instruction to his own family. If the Church of England were to make good a claim on the half of Saturday, preserving at the same time the whole of Sunday, as at present, and make it a period of rest from all work, it would be a remedy for the hard fate of the educated working man. 194 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. CHAPTER V. KINGS BIRTHDAY. MANNERS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. BALL AND SUPPER. LOYALTY. JEALOUSY OF NATIONAL INDE PENDENCE. king's STYLE CARL III. OR CARL XIV. ? BUDSTICK HUE AND CRY. REMARKABLE LANDSLIP. PEASANTRY. UDAL PROPERTY. UDAL LAWS. EARLY MATURITY OF UDAL SYSTEM. CIVILISATION OF THE NORTHERN INVADERS. SCALDS. THE GREY GOOSE. ITS ENACTMENTS. — JURY TRIAL. — ITS ORIGIN IN UDAL LAW. PRESENT ADMINISTRATION OF LAW. — COURT OF ARBI TRATION. — sorenskrivers' court. JURY TRIAL. CHRISTIAN V. LAW BOOK. LIBERAL INSTITUTIONS FOR 1687- IRELAND AND NORWAY. ENGLAND AND DENMARK. PUNISHMENT OF DEATH ABOLISHED. LOSS OF HONOUR AN EFFECTIVE PUNISHMENT. STIFTS AMT COURT. THE HOIESTE RET COURT A PART OF THE STATE. PECULIAR PRINCIPLE OF RESPONSIBILITY OF JUDGES. Levanger, January, 1835 I was invited to join an entertainment given on the 26th of this month, in honour of the King's birthday. I was glad of the invitation, as the party consisted of the tradesmen and dealers in the little town ; a class distinct in society from the gentry of the country. These distinctions, although not founded on birth or privilege, there being no nobility or privileged class, — nor on fortune, as the peasant proprietors have estates, and houses, and means of living, equal to the highest of the community, — are, notwith standing, as exactly observed here as in the most aristocratic countries. Education, manners, the be longing to the class of people of condition, that is, to the cultivated and educated part of the community, RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 195 appear to form a natural division without any effort, exclusive spirit, or feeling of jealousy. Individuals seem naturally to congregate with those who suit them best. There is nothing of the mixture of per sons of incongruous stations, habits, and education, which, even according to the most favourable ac counts of society in America, must be repugnant to the taste and comfort of individuals bred in the clas sified society of Europe : and there is no mixture in the same individual of manners and habits drawn from very different sources and situations, and which do not at all harmonize together, — a mixture more commonly found among the English than any other people. There is nothing to pretend to, and there fore no pretence. The one class has no preference above the other, in power, or wealth, or comfort, or influence ; and to appear to belong to the one class rather than to the other, could never enter the mind of any one. The ease and similarity of man ners in all persons, rich or poor, and their habitual civility to each other, arise from this equality. They mix together as little as in other European countries. The clergy, the public functionaries, the half-pay officers, the rich, the educated, do not habitually associate with the peasant proprietors, or the retail dealers in the country. It is a matter of taste and congruity, however, not of any feeling of superiority. Our entertainment consisted of a procession of about forty sledges, in which we drove a few miles into the country, and had tea and coffee at a public house ; and we returned to a ball and sup- o 2 196 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. per in the village. It was six o'clock in the morn ing before our gay doings concluded. We had abundance of wine and punch, yet I did not see a single instance of excess among the sixty or seventy persons present. If I had not known that the company was composed entirely of the tradesmen and dealers of the little town, their journeymen, apprentices, wives, and daughters, I should not have discovered it from their appearatve or de portment. The ladies were as well dressed, and danced as well, and the gentlemen as considerate and well bred towards each other, as in any other society. It was evident that it is habitual to this class, as well as to the higher, to behave with pro priety in their ordinary family intercourse, and that they had not to assume a set of manners foreign to their usual habits. This class in Norway, not being pressed by competition to give that unre mitting attention to business which the same class must give with us, have in fact more leisure, enjoy more social intercourse, and are more polished. Good manners go deeper down through society than in other countries. The Norwegians are unquestionably a loyal people, attached in the highest degree to their sovereign and his family. There, is however, an excessive jealousy among all ranks of the slightest infringement of their national independence by the sister kingdom of Sweden. This spirit, which was probably excited by the weak and abortive attempts to amalgamate the two countries, dis plays itself sometimes on the most trifling occa- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 197 sions. The great coats lately issued to a Nor wegian regiment happened to have yellow buttons instead of white as formerly. Yellow is the national colour of Sweden ; and this was seriously noticed as an attempt at amalgamation. On the official seal of some Swedish department, and on some coins lately struck in Sweden, the arms of Norway, a lion, are quartered with those of the province of Gothland, a flowing river, under the arms of Swe den ; just as the Hanoverian horse and Irish harp are quartered on some of our coins under the En glish arms. This, which probably arose from the fancy or taste of the seal engraver and designer, was reported and resented from one end of Nor way to the other, and will probably influence the spirit ofthe next Storthing. The Norwegians use a distinct commercial flag, but daily regret that they have no separate commercial relations and diplomatic representatives abroad. The inferior place which their national devices, as the flag, the arms, and the style, occupy in all situations in which the junction of the kingdom with Sweden. brings them together, is a subject of constant an noyance. The Swedish government shows many childish and impotent indications of dislike to the constitution and independence of No'rway. It is not by such a spirit that the amalgamation, even if desir able, could be promoted. The 17th of May is the anniversary ofthe adoption ofthe Norwegian con stitution. It is celebrated at home and abroad by every Norwegian. But the troops, and the public officers immediately under the control of the ex- 0 3 198 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. ecutive government, exhibit on that day no appear ances of public rejoicings. The officers, however, not under the control of the executive, as those of the custom-houses, display then the national flag. The glaring opposition and disrespect to the na tional feelings is deplored by all wise and moderate men, who are the more firm in resisting even the- smallest innovation proposed from such a quarter. This spirit displayed by the Swedish cabinet has consolidated the Norwegian constitution more per fectly in twenty years, than could otherwise have been done in two hundred; for opposition na turally begets opposition, and when applied fruit lessly, begets an increased determination to hold fast to rights. It is an idle dream on the part of Sweden to expect that, by such means, a nation consisting of but one class of people is to be amal gamated with, and governed by, one in which a numerous aristocracy and a corporate body of clergy are the legislators. Among the subjects of great discontent to the Norwegians is one not altogether so unimportant as may at first sight appear. In all public acts, monuments, seals of office, &c., the King is styled Charles XIV. He is undoubtedly Charies XIV. of Sweden, but of Norway Charles III. A case in point is that of James VI. of Scotland ; who, upon the union of the crowns, became James I. of Eng land, and after his accession all deeds or acts were under the titles of James VI. of Scotland and I. of England. The Swedish cabinet appears, therefore, to be wrong, as far as precedent should regulate RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 199 such matters. If Norway were a feudal country, in which all title deeds to estates ran in the name of the king, such a misnomer might produce in time very great confusion. If even His Majesty had occasion to sue a party in an English court of law, as Napoleon sued Peltier, and sovereigns often prosecute loan contractors and other parties, and if such suit were entered under the style of Charles XIV., King of Norway, it would, probably, occa sion the loss of the case. Nay, if a Norwegian subject had occasion to file a bill in the English Court of Chaticery, with affidavits made before a Norwegian consul, or other competent authority, whose commission to take such affidavits ran in the name of His Majesty Charles XIV., King of Norway, very great delay and expense, at least, might result to the Norwegian subject. The act of union of the two crowns, and the proof that Charles XIV- of Sweden was also XIV. of Nor way, would be required. In the event of naval war in Europe, in which, as in the last, neutral vessels had often claims for detention, unjust cap ture, &c., pending in the English Admiralty courts, it might occasion great delay, as no court of law could repel such a weighty objection as a mistake in the commision under which the affidavits and certificates that determine the case were taken, February, 1835, — There is a very simple and very ancient way of assembling the people in this country for public business. A budstick, or mes sage-stick, of the size and shape of our constable's baton, is painted and stamped with the royal arms, o 4 200 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. and made hollow, with a head to screw on upon one end, and an iron spike on the other. The official notice to meet, the time, place, and object, are written on a piece of paper, which is rolled up and placed in the hollow. This is delivered from the public office or court-house of the district to the nearest householder, who is bound by law to carry it within a certain time to his nearest neighbour, who must transmit it to the next, and so on. In case of two houses, equally distant, it must be previously determined by the foged at which he shall deliver it. If the owner is not at home, he is to stick it " in the house-father's great chair, by the fire-side ;" and if the door be locked, must fasten it to the outside. Each is bound to prove, if required, at what hour he received, delivered, or stuck it. He who, by his neglect, has prevented others from receiving the notice in time to attend the meeting, pays a fine for each person so absent. There are fixed stations at which the budstick rests for the night ; and it cannot be carried after sunset, or before sunrise. The householder to whom it comes last takes it back to the office. In a country so extensive, with its population scattered in val leys, divided by uninhabited Fjelde, and with few paths of communication, this primitive sort of ga zette is the most expeditious mode of publication. In the Highlands of Scotland, the stick, burnt at one end, and with blood on the other, was a similar device for assembling a clan in arms. It is probable that the haro, or cry used in Nor mandy for assembling the people to repel invasion, RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 201 or to prevent violence, and from which we derive our ancient legal term, still in use, of raising the hue and cry, was something of the same kind ; some peculiar cry, or shout, to be passed from mouth to mouth, on hearing which all were bound to assemble at appointed stations : and to raise which haro, without causes of the nature fixed by law, was a highly punishable offence. Our term of hue has puzzled the antiquarian. Probably the word meant, what it now does in the Norse lan guage, a cap, hat, or covering of the head, whence our English word hood is derived. To raise the hue and cry, was, probably, to accompany the cry by raising, or waving, the cap ; a custom still uni versal in England when people shout. These cir cumstances are trifling, but they give an idea of the state of society at a time when, from the ab sence of effective law, the whole community was obliged to give protection to property and to the safety of individuals by active interference. February. — A very remarkable accident oc curred on the 23d of this month, about twelve miles from this place. A farm-house, with forty or fifty acres of land, was suddenly swallowed up, or sunk in the earth, and three people perished. I walked to the spot next day, and am at a loss to account for the event. The farm, called Gustad, was situated upon an alluvial bank, sloping gently towards the Fiord, which formed a small round bight, or creek, before it. Behind this bank rises a pretty steep hill, or rock, of chloritic schist. This steep slope, on which the bank rested, has, I 202 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. imagine, been continued under water in the little bight, in which, as the fishermen told me, there was formerly a depth of ten fathoms. As there is a considerable quantity of snow on the ground, and not frost enough beneath to freeze running water, it is conceivable that water from the hill behind has circulated between the bank and the rock on which it was resting, and the farm and bank, being thus loosened, has slipped forward over a precipice below the surface of the sea. But there are diffi culties in this explanation. Two hundred mselings, or about forty acres, ofland would be an enormous landslip, to be occasioned by such a trifling rill of water as the background could produce ; and the slope of the land towards the sea appears, from what is left, to have been so gentle, that such a mass could scarcely have slid forward, even if loose ; and the soil is not ofthe nature of what is called a running sand,^ — it is vegetable mould upon a blue tenacious clay. There is, also, no chasm between the edge of what has stood and what has given way ; which one would expect, if one portion of land had projected and slipped forward from another portion. There is a difference of level, of about fifteen feet, between a little attached part of the house, standing on its original site, and the ruins of the rest, sunk, but appearing in the rub bish ; yet there is no change in the horizontal dis tance between the two. A slip of one portion of land from another would have left a chasm, I con ceive, between ; or, at any rate, the house upon the land that had slipped should have been found RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 203 launched forward from its original situation. It appears more like a perpendicular sinking, than a slipping forwards. Another circumstance diffi cult of explanation is, that the side of the round creek, opposite to this slipped land, was formed by a flat spit or tongue of land, not above two hun dred yards in breadth, and running out into the Fiord. This little peninsula had no background to throw down rills or springs, but was merely con nected by a small ridge with the mainland ; it was quite flat, and but very little elevated above the level of high water. The side of this peninsula next to the creek, into which the land of Gustad descended, has also slipped inwards, as it were, towards a common centre. These circumstances suggest rather a sinking of the fundamental rock itself, upon which the land rested, than a slipping off from the rock by the force of water beneath. March, 1835 The peasantry of Norway have always been free. From the earliest ages they possessed the land in property ; and were subject only to the general jurisdiction of the country. They were never adscripti glebes, as in the feudal countries of Europe, or subject in person or pro perty to local judicatories. The small kings who were expelled, or their independence annihilated, by Harald Haarfagre in the ninth century, appear never to have attained the powers and privileges of the great feudal lords in other countries, but to have always depended in some degree upon the great Things or meetings of the landholders, in the enactment of laws. Property and power neces- 204 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. sarily go together ; and, by the udal laws, the land was always the property of the people, not of a feudal class of high nobility : this gave them at all times, even under the nominally absolute go vernment of Denmark, much weight in legislation. The very different state of the peasantry in the rest of Europe during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, being mere slaves, attached to the soil, under the feudal lords and barons who possessed the whole property, sufficiently accounts for the extraordinary success which then attended the enterprises of the most inconsiderable bodies of the northern pirates called Danes. The people of other countries had nothing to defend against these Norwegian invaders. * Rolf Ganger, the great great grandfather of William the Conqueror, was aided by the peasantry in the conquest of Nor mandy. It would probably be found by those who should follow out such researches, that this was the true cause of that extraordinary supineness, at which the reader of the history of the middle ages wonders, that allowed in repeated instances a few hundred men landing on a coast to dictate con ditions, levy tribute, and conquer territories from a whole nation. It was only the classes of nobility and clergy who had any real stake in the country. It is not surprising that the people of Norway have in all ages clung tenaciously to their udal system and rights. During the four hundred years * Histoire des Expeditions maritimes des Noimands et de leur Eta- blissement en France au dixieme sifccle, par G. Dapping. Paris, 1826. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 205 that Norway was under the Danish crown, that government deemed it wiser to respect that sys tem, and even to cohect and give effect to the ancient laws regarding it, than to attempt its sub version, and amalgamation with her own feudally constituted state of society and property. Hence the folly of the Swedish cabinet in making such a proposal within ten years after the union of the two kingdoms. The attempt, like every one that fails, has only strengthened what it proposed to overturn. It has led the Norwegians to think upon and to estimate their peculiar social state, as compared to that of the sister kingdom and ofthe rest of Europe. It has developed the principles on which they had to legislate in unison with their udal system of social arrangements ; and the con viction that they had nothing to envy, or to adopt, is a result, it must be allowed, which the Norwe gians may fairly come to, on comparing their social condition with that of the Russian, German, Swe dish, or English peasanty. Udal or odel, as a term applied to land, to land holders, and to privileges attached to udal land, appears to have been originally the same word as the German word adel, signifying noble ; and it carries an equivalent meaning in all its*applications. Udal Ian dis noble land, not held from or under any su perior, not even from the king, consequently paying no acknowledgment, real or nominal, as a feu-duty or reddendo ; but held, as it has been proudly ex pressed, by the right by which the crown itself is held. Udal land is possessed, consequently, with- 206 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. out charter, and is subject to none of the burdens and casualties affecting land held by feudal tenure direct from the sovereign, or from his superior vassal. It is subject neither to fines on the entry of new heirs or successors, nor to escheats nor for feiture, nor personal suit and service, nor ward ship, nor astrictions to baronial courts or other local judicatories, nor to baronial mills or other feudal servitudes, nor to any of the ten thousand burdens and vexatious exactions which in the middle ages, and even in some degree to the pre sent day, have affected all property held under the feudal tenure. There being neither superior, nor vassal, nor feudal service connected with such land, there existed no legal necessity for the law of primogeniture. It is well known that, in all countries feudally constituted, the right of the sovereign or feudal superior to have a vassal of an age to perform the military service in con sideration of which the land was granted, was the foundation of the rule of primogeniture. The eldest son alone could generally have attained the age to perform this service. This right was even superior to that of hereditary succession, and in virtue of it a delectus personae was in the earlier ages exercised. The fiefs were not hereditary of right ; and even at the present day this principle is by fiction of law, so far effective and acted upon, that female heirs are in many feudal cases ex cluded from succession ; and in all feudal countries the eldest male heir has to pay an acknowledg ment to the feudal superior, on his entry as vassal RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 207 in the land. Udal land not being held for mili tary service to any superior, no delectus personae as to who should inherit it, was competent to any authority, and consequently no preference of the eldest male heir could grow into the law of suc cession to land. On the contrary, all the kindred of the udalman in possession are what is called odelsbaarn to his land, and have, in the order of consanguinity, a certain interest in it called odels baarn ret. Hence, if the udalman in possession should sell or alienate his land, the next of kin is entitled to redeem it on repaying the purchase money ; and should he decline to do so, it was in the power of the one next him to claim his odels baarn ret. It is only of late that this right of re demption has been limited as to time ; it must be exercised within five years of the sale : and it has been also determined, that the value of all im provements, as well as the original price, must be paid. The effect of this odelsbaarn ret is evidently to entail, in a certain degree, the land upon the kindred of the udalman. This same right exists, in fact, in Hungary, where land is held in large masses by a nobihty, as well as in Norway, where it is held in small portions by a peasantry; and necessarily has the same effect of cdhtinuing the land in the class which at present possesses it. It appears to me not improbable, that the pe culiar class of persons among the Scandinavian people called Scalds or Bards, arose out of this odelsbaarn ret. In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, the colonies of military emigrants which 208 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. issued from Scandinavia had spread over Iceland; the Faro Islands, the Orkney and Zetland Islands, and Hebrides, the kingdom of Northumberland, extending over a third part nearly of England, Normandy, and many districts between the Seine and the Scheld. Roving parties of these north- men appeared occasionally on every coast, from Constantinople to the White Sea. Some made permanent settlements under their sea kings; others only scoured the coasts as pirates for a few years; but each had some odelsbaarn ret or in terest connecting him more or less with land at home. To transmit from one generation to another, before the art of writing was in use, the memory^ of family descents and relationships, was a business essentially connected with the preserv ation of rights of property, where odelsbaarn ret existed ; and among a body of military emigrants, enriching themselves by the plunder of the fairest provinces of Europe, the rights of succession to property by redemption were of high importance. It is probable that the Scalds were not merely the wandering bards or minstrels witnessing and sing ing the warlike exploits of those whom they ac companied on distant expeditions, but were a class of men whose business it was to witness and record all events affecting claims of property, — the writers to the signet of their day. We probably hear only of the poets among this class, of those who attended the courts of the Scandinavian monarchs, and have transmitted to us saga of im portant historical facts ; and we conclude that the RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 209 .class of Scalds consisted of poets entertained at court for the honour and pleasure of the sovereign : just as if we were to conclude that the clerks of the court of session in Scotland are a class of poets, because Sir Walter Scott was a clerk of that court. The class of recorders of the ordinary events of births, deaths, marriages, and other cir cumstances affecting property, must have existed in a state of society in which property was not, as in feudal countries, entirely in the hands of a small number of nobles, and the succession to it regu lated by simple rules, and confined to a few indi viduals. This class, before writing was in general use, must have been numerous and important in society, where udal law prevailed. It is possible that we estimate erroneously the state of society in the tenth and eleventh centuries in Scandinavia., We take our ideas from the nar ratives of the monkish historians of the period, who represent the heathen northmen, who ravaged the coasts of England and France, sparing neither churches nor monasteries, and conquering pro vinces from the supine inhabitants, with numbers apparently the most inadequate, as barbarians little better than wild beasts, without law or religion. There must be exaggeration, as theue is evident inconsistency, in these representations. These bar barians were evidently the only people in Europe, at that period, possessed of the arts connected with the navigation of vessels on distant voyages. If we consider all that is included in this art, all that must have been set to work before two or 210 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. three hundred men could be transported to the coast of Normandy or of Kent, the ship building, rope making, sail weaving, iron forging, water- cask making, provision curing, all of which arts and many more must have reached considerable perfection before bodies of men, however enter prising, bold, and hardy, could by any possibility have undertaken and accomplished such voyages ; if we consider, too, that there must have been effective social arrangements by which such bodies of men were collected, and held together, and made available for attack and defence, as well as for navigation ; we must conclude that the term barbarism was more applicable to the invaded than the invaders. The inhabitants of England and France must have been behind those of Norway in the exercise of the useful arts, the enjoyment of property, and the operation of general and equita ble laws. If the state of law among a people be a measure of barbarism, these followers of Odin ap pear to have stood on a much higher step of civilis ation than their Christian contemporaries. Private wars had been abolished by Harald Haarfagre in the ninth century, 250 years at least before the right of the great nobles to wage war against each other had ceased in other countries. The local judicatories and privileges of the nobles had also been abolished, and the whole country governed by general laws adapted to the four great divisions of the kingdom in which the Things were held, from the period of the same monarch's reign. These were advances towards civilisation which RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 211 the Christian countries of Europe had not made at that period. The judicial combat between indi viduals, or Holmgang, as it was called by the Scan dinavian people, from the parties going to small uninhabited islets, caUed holms, to fight out their cause without interruption, was subject to regu lations or laws not introduced until long after the tenth century in the judicial combat of the other countries of Europe. A party challenged to the Holmgang could, in the tenth century, appoint a substitute to fight for him ; and the party worsted could ransom his life for three marks of copper, or for a consideration previously agreed on. The duel, the point of honour, the spirit of chivalry, the science of heraldry, all which are generally considered to have been the genuine offspring of the ancient feudal constitution and modes of think ing, appear really to have had their origin among these northern invaders, and to have been ingrafted by them on the feudal system which they found and adopted. The internal arrangements in Nor way for calling out the whole force of the country for military purposes, appear to have been much superior to those of any of the countries they in vaded. Haco, foster-son of Athelstan of England, had divided Norway, about the year* 956 or 960, into land and sea districts, with subdivisions, which were required to furnish each a ship, a certain number of men, certain arms, certain quantities of provisions, according to the local capabilities of each division of the district ; and these arrange ments appear to have been effective and perfect, p 2 212 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. long before any similar arrangements for the de fence of their coasts were adopted by other na tions. In countries where the feudal lords main tained a kind of independent rule within the state, such a general arrangement for a common object was scarcely practicable ; yet without it a country could scarcely be said to exist in security and civilisation. Such various and complicated ar rangements being matter of fixed law among the northern people, and the various arts which must have been exercised generally and with some de gree of perfection among them before they could have fitted out such distant and frequent expe ditions by sea, may well justify the doubt, whether the monkish historians who represent them as bar barians, destitute of the habits, ideas, or arts be longing to civilised life, were not themselves more barbarous as to all that regards law, liberty, and security of person and property. It may surprise those, who are full of preconceived ideas of the rude state of the northern freebooters who ravaged the coasts of Europe in the tenth cen tury, to find that law was in a more advanced state, and its power much more effective, among them than in the countries they were ravaging. They were not merely in that stage of civilisation when its first principles are acknowledged and acted upon, unless where power or violence interferes, which was the state of the rest of Europe at that period. Among the Scandinavian people the forms of law were fully established, and any flaw or irregularity in the forms of procedure before the courts pro- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 213 duced the loss of the case in the first instance. This was a development of law of which England, France, and Germany could not then boast. Be fore the year 885, the power of law was established in Norway over all persons of all ranks and classes, while in the other countries of Europe the inde pendent jurisdictions of the great feudal lords were not broken down till after a contest of ages. The power of the small kings, as they are aptly termed in Scandinavian history, to set law at defiance, or to perplex its regular march by local jurisdictions, was completely annihilated by Ha rald Haarfagre, who subdued and expelled that class entirely from Norway, and remained the sole sovereign of the country ; a position which other European kings attained only four centuries later. These small kings themselves appear never to have held the same full jurisdiction within their own dominions as the great feudal nobility of other countries : they were subject to laws established at the general Things or courts of the people, of which four were held in Norway yearly, in the dif ferent districts into which the country was divided. Each district was governed by the code of laws given out from these Things, as best suited to the peculiar local circumstances of theit division of the country. The " Grey Goose" * is the some what whimsical name given to the ancient Ice landic law book compiled for the use of that oldest of modern colonies, from the edicts of those Things, * Nordisk Tidskrift for Oldkyndighed, 1 h. 1 B., 1832, om Graa- gaasen ved Schlegel. p 3 214 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. and principally of that of the Gule district, as these Gule things' laws stood in the reign of king Haco, the foster-son of Athelstan of England. Haco began his reign in the year 936. Iceland had been discovered in the year 874, and colonised by the nobility and their followers, who fled from the persecution of Harald Haarfagre, who died in 934. It appears from the Grey Goose, that, so early as the year 1004, law was so flrmly established, and its procedures so regular and defined, that a special court of justice was established, for disposing of such cases as had been adjudged in the first in stance, on defects in the technical forms of pro cedure before the ordinary courts of law, without reference to the law or merits of the cases. Law and its administration must have been long settled before its forms could have grown into such im portance and intricacy. It also appears from the Grey Goose to have embraced, before the eleventh century, subjects which probably no other code in Europe, at that period, dealt with. The provision for the poor, equal weights and measures, police of markets and of sea-havens, mutual rights of succession to property situated in Norway or Iceland for the natives of each country, punishment of beggars or vagrants, provision for illegitimate children, wages of servants and support of them in sickness, inns for travellers, roads and bridges, protection of pregnant women and even of do mestic animals from injury, are subjects of which the Grey Goose treats. In the short period which had elapsed from the first colonisation of RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 215 Iceland, society could not have advanced to such a state as to produce a necessity for such a code of laws in that island. They are the laws of the mother country, adopted, as far as circumstances might be expected to require them, by the colony. These laws were collected into one code by Mag nus VII., Lagabaeter, or the law improver, who died in the year 1280. They were again collected, improved, and published in a general code, in the year 1604, by Christian IV. In 168/ the present code, drawn up from all the older and previously existing ones, and adapted to the changes which time had produced, was given out by Christian V. It is comprised in one pocket volume, and is to be found in every peasant's house in Norway. It has evidently been intended for the use and under standing of the common man. The arrangement is simple and distinct. Each law occupies a single paragraph of a few lines. The professional lawyer only can be acquainted with the numerous modifi cations and additions to this body of law by sub sequent enactments, or with the application of the law to special cases ; but, generally, no man in Norway can be ignorant of the laws affecting his property, or of his legal rights or duties. It appears at first view a singular anomaly, that throughout all this code, emanating from and sanctioned by absolute monarchs, some of whom were even des potic and tyrannical, there runs a perpetual strain of reference, in all matters affecting person or pro perty, to that which is the main protection of all civil liberty, the trial by jury. It may be doubted p 4 216 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. whether England does, certainly Scotland does not, at this day, enjoy all the essential advantages of jury trial, in matters regarding property, so fully as Norway has done from the earliest times. The anomaly disappears when we consider, that a re ference to a jury is, in fact, an unmeaning excre scence, when engrafted on the feudal law, in which there is positive rule and principle to be referred to in every matter respecting property ; and that it is the natural emanation of the udal system, from which both England and Norway derive this mode of trial. In the administration of the laws relating to udal property, under the principle of partition among children, and under odelsbaarn ret, the boundaries, extent, and value of the pro perty to be inherited, and also of each of the portions into which it has to be adjudged to the several heirs, are essential points in almost every case ; and these cannot possibly be determined without a reference to skilful men, locally ac quainted with the subject, and having no interest or favour for any party, — in short, to a jury. This udal law causes a great variety of interests, and of adjustments among heirs, which cannot be brought under any fixed rule. When an individual dies, for instance, his estate must be valued and divided among his lawful heirs : but one may wish to have it sold, and its price divided ; another, to have a portion of the land itself; one may be willing to buy the shares of the others, but only able to pay by instalments, or by yearly portions of the pro duce of the land : aU these are adjustments in RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 217 equity, to which law can only be applied in a very general way ; and which a jury, or, what is equiva lent to one, the finding of impartial skilful men, can alone determine. A reference to the judgment of such men is, accordingly, the basis of all law pro ceedings in Norway, as fixed by Christian V.'s law book ; and, from the very nature of the law of succession to udal land, it evidently must be co eval with the existence of such property. What ever might be the form of the government, it could not cease while the rights to property were acknowledged. In the administration of the feu dal laws respecting property, this necessity of a reference to a jury totally falls aways. The rule and application is the same, be the extent or value great or small. There is no necessity for any local knowledge ; nothing to determine by rules of equity. A jury could only be called upon to find that an heir bears the relationship he claims to stand in to the deceased; which is a question seldom doubtful. To this source, probably, the English jury trial owes its origin. It is far fetched to ascribe it to imaginary principles, handed down from the ancient Germans, by which every man was considered entitled to a trial by his own peers. A much more pressing necessity than any con nected with criminal justice arose daily under the udal law, of adjusting the value, extent, and other circumstances of property to be inherited. The northmen, for several generations before the reign of Canute the Great, possessed a large proportion of England ; and the conquest by their descend- 218 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. ants under the Norman was not likely to alter the tenure of land, and the institutions and laws arising out of it, which were common to both divi sions of these military emigrants at no very distant period, in their native land. The administration of law in Norway is on a good and simple footing. There are points in it which deserve the consideration of those eminent men who consider the British courts susceptible of some improvement. The court of first instance, the lowest in Nor way, if it can be called one, is the parish court of mutual agreement. This is a modern institution, which does honour to the wisdom and liberal spirit of the Danish government. It is the first great and decided improvement upon the old modes and forms of administering justice which has been at tempted by any of the ancient governments of Europe with success. It is a legacy from her for mer masters, for which Norway should be grateful. In every parish, the resident householders elect, every third year, from among themselves, a person to be the commissioner of mutual agreement. He must not practise law in any capacity, and his ap pointment is subject to the approval of the Amt man, or highest executive officer of the district. In towns, or large and populous parishes, there are one or more assessors, or assistants to the commissioner, and he has always a clerk. He holds his court once a month within the parish, and receives a small fee of an ort (ninepence) on entering each case. Every case or law-suit what- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 219 soever must pass through this preliminary court, where no lawyer or attorney is allowed to prac tise. The parties must appear personally, or by a person not professional. Each states his own case, and his statement is entered fully, and to his own satisfaction, in the protocol of the commis sioner, who must then endeavour to bring the par ties to an agreement, by proposing some middle course upon which both may agree. He acts, in short, as a private arbiter would do, and gives his opinion or judgment accordingly. If both parties agree to his finding, or advice, it is imme diately taken to the local court of law, or Sorenskrir vers' court, which is also held within each parish, to be sanctioned, revised as to rights of any third parties, and registered; and it has, without ex pense, the validity of a final decision. For in stance, if a person owes a simple debt, he must be summoned by the creditor to the court of mutual agreement. The debtor may explain that he can not pay the claim in money, but will pay it in corn or goods, or against a certain time, or has counter claims which extinguish part of it. All the state ments of both parties are entered fully by the commissioner in his protocol, and to their own satis faction. He then proposes what he conceives may suit both parties ; such as a reasonable time to sell the corn or goods, or a reasonable deduction for the counter claims. If both agree, the proposal is immediately registered. If one agrees, but the other does not, the party not agreeing appeals to the local or Sorenskriver's court, which sits once. 220 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. at least, in each parish in every quarter of a year ; but he will have the expenses of both parties to pay, if the terms of agreement proposed and re jected are judged not unreasonable. In this higher court, but which is, properly speaking, the lowest legal one, the parties appear, if they choose, by their law agents, or procurators ; but in this, and all the subsequent or higher courts, through which a case may be carried, nothing is received but the protocol of the court of mutual agreement ; no new matter, statements, or references to evi dence, but what stand in the commissioner's proto col. This is the best part of the institution. It confines the lawyer to his law, and brings the facts of the case, as understood by the parties them selves, before the court, without trick or disguise. Much legal talent is expended in our courts in cross-examining witnesses, brow-beating the dull and honest, involving in contradiction the equally honest of quicker temperament, and working on the personal temper of witnesses, in order to bring out such an appearance of a case as may deceive the judgment of an ordinary jury. This is all a very fine display of talent, but altogether inconsist ent with the substantial ends of justice. It may happen that the practised judge himself cannot always disentangle the truth from the contradictory statements which the ingenuity of the lawyer has contrived to twist round it. All this chicanery, which is the glory, and ought to be the shame, of the British bar, is cut off by the simple Norwegian arrangement, by which the only facts admitted to RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 221 proof, or to legal argument, are those stated, to gether with the evidence on which they rest, in this protocol. A multiplicity of small courts of law is undoubt edly an evil : so great, that Mr. MaccuUoch, a high authority on all points of political economy, proposes that, in England, no small debts, or no sum below a certain amount, such as 50?., should be recoverable at all by legal process, except ing wages and similar obligations. This, to be sure, would be curing the evil of giving undue credit, the thraldom in which the workman is thus kept by the master manufacturer, and the ruinous expense to the labouring class in suing or being sued for small sums ; but it would be curing it as cutting off the head would cure the tooth-ache. It would be monstrous, and opposed to all im provement in the social condition of a country, that the capitalist alone should have the benefit of law and justice, while the poor should be cut off from it, and brought back to that barbarous state in which, from the want of law, credit can not be given or taken in the daily transactions between man and man. It is true that the improvident, and even the provident, workmen were kept in a state of thraldom by their employers while the sys tem of paying wages with shop goods, or with a portion of the manufactured article, was legal ; but it is equally true, as was ably stated by Mr. Hume, that to put down that system by positive legal enactment was a direct violation of the very first principles of free trade. It was a glaring in- 222 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. consistency, as labourers in many of the most im portant branches of productive industry, as in husbandry, were still paid, and could only be paid, in the way that was declared illegal. It was also a prohibition against small capitalists engaging in any branch of manufacture, as they require this double use of their capital, — the producing the goods, and the securing purchasers, in their workmen, to carry on business with their moderate means. It is also true, that the multiplicity of small courts of law, and the cheap and easy access to them, fosters a spirit of litigation, furnishes a kind of excitement, similar to that of gaming, which is, perhaps, as pernicious to the character and happiness of a people as the denial of law itself would be. When Lord Brougham wished to see the day when cheap law might be had at every man's door in England, his Lordship probably meant a cheap equitable adjustment of differences, cheap equity, not cheap law; some establishment, in short, similar to the courts of mutual agreement, which would obviate the recourse to law, and repress, not encourage, the spirit of litigation. The small debt, or justice of peace, courts in Scotland, however useful, do not answer this end. They are courts of cheap law only, administered in general by the same local judge, the sheriff substitute, who on other days deals out the same commodity in his own court, but at a greater expense. This has a very different effect upon the spirit of a people from an institu tion in which an arbiter of their own appointing, who has nothing to do with law, endeavours to re- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 223 concile them before they go into a court of law, and whose office is of so much weight that they cannot pass it by, and can go into a court only with the statements made to him. In this institu tion, probably, — modified and altered, of course, to suit the different circumstances of the country, — may be found the true remedy of the evil com plained of by Mr. MaccuUoch. The next court is that of the Sorenskriver, or sworn writer, which is the lowest legal one. This judge sits under appointment from government ; but, like all other public functionaries, is not re movable at pleasure, even from one district to another. He must have taken a degree in civil and in Norwegian law ; and licensed procurators practise in his court. Norway is divided, for the administration of law, into four provinces, or stifts, and sixty-four sorenskriveries. Each sorenskri ver's district comprehends several parishes, or pres- tegields, and each prestegield generally has a court-house, in which the sorenskriver holds a court at least once every quarter of a year. The sorenskriver, like the Scotch sheriff, is the criminal, as well as civil, judge of his district : but the police, the arrest and keeping of prisoners, and all executive functions, form the duty of the Fogeds. Norway is divided, for this purpose, into four pro^ vinces, or stifts, being the same as for the adminis tration of the law, and into eighteen amts, and forty-four fogderies. In Scotland, there is a very awkward mixture of the duties of judge and executive officer in the sheriff. The same indi- 224 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. vidual whose feelings, or passions, or vanity, per haps, have been excited in the discharge of the executive duty of detecting and securing a crimi nal, has immediately to sit as judge in the case, although in that capacity he ought to be divested of all feeling or personal knowledge of matters brought before him. In civil cases, that, for in stance, of a nuisance, or encroachment on public property, the sheriff has first to order the matter to be brought judicially before him, and then de livers a judgment upon his own indictment. This awkward admixture of the incompatible duties of the executive and administrative, is avoided in Norway by the fogeds, who, being resident in their fogderies, exercise all executive public func tions in it. They collect the national and local taxes, take charge of the crown property and all public concerns, and report to their immediate su perior, the amtman of the amt, who again reports to the stiffs amtman, or amtman of the province to which the amt belongs. The Sorenskriver's Courtis of great importance. Besides judging civil and criminal affairs, it is also the court of regis tration for all debts affecting property in his district, and for ascertaining the value of, and the succession to, all property of deceased persons, according to the udal law of succession. It is necessarily, therefore, a jury court. The following is the con stitution of the Norwegian jury, as established by Christian V.'s law, and as it has existed since the year I687. The amtman, or the foged and sorenskriver under his authority, in the open court- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 225 house, on the last court day of the year, names eight resident men in the parish (each parish being a thing-laug, or court district), to be the law-right men, and to attend all meetings of the court in their district during the following year. The eight are to be taken, without selection, as they stand in the list for the payment of scat, or tax, in the parish ; and others can only be named in the same order from the list, to replace any of them who may be incapacitated by having an interest in the matter to be judged, or other legal cause. This standing jury acts under oath, and judges, along with the sorenskriver, in all matters relating to life, honour, property, and udal rights ; but in all inferior cases, excepting those specially ap pointed by law, the sorenskriver alone judges, like our justice of peace, but they attest his judgment, as forming a constituent part of his court. In judging with the sorenskriver, it is to be observed, this jury does not merely give in a verdict, or finding, under his direction, as judge, but the plu rality of the voices determine, he himself being only one of the number ; and instances are not wanting of his opinion being over-ruled. These are liberal institutions* for th§ year I687, * The present Danish monarch, with great good taste, made a parting present to his former subjects in Norway, of the manuscript of Christian V.'s Law Book. It is splendidly written on folio parchment, and bound in massive silver ; the boards of that metal, finely adorned, folding back on concealed hinges. Whether we consider the book itself, altogether a most magnificent piece of workmanship, or its con tents, the period at which it was compiled and promulgated, the spirit of freedom in which all its enactments are conceived, and the udal Q 226 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. and for a monarch invested with absolute legisla tive power. We may well ask where is the boasted superiority or priority of the English jury trial ? Denmark, in truth, has little to reproach herself with in her government of Norway during a period of nearly four hundred years. She may well turn to England, by whose influence, or with whose sanction, this long-established connexion was dissolved, and ask whether Ireland, which has stood for about the same period in the same re lation to England as Norway to Denmark, would be left at the present day by the English govern ment in the same state in which Norway stands ; the people in the enjoyment almost univensally of property, of the most perfect domestic tranquillity and personal security, and of ease, and comfort, and exemption from great poverty or crime, having ancient laws and institutions conceived in the very spirit of liberty, and carrying all the blessings of liberty and of justice, cheaply administered by the people themselves, to the very fire-side of the common man, and so well adapted to the condition of the country, that now, when the people have obtained the power of legislating for themselves, they know no better use to make of that power, than to confirm, hold fast, and defend by its means the civil rights, distribution of property, social ar rangements and laws, which they inherited from principles of property and judicial procedure established, it is the most valuable gift ever made to a nation. It is preserved in the library of the University of Christiania. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 227 their ancient masters. It is the highest and most striking tribute of praise ever paid by a nation to its rulers, that, after a change from a pure uncon trolled despotism to a government in which the legislative power is lodged entirely in the hands of the people, no essential change has been thought necessary or desirable by the people in the civil establishments, social arrangements, or code of laws left in operation in Norway by the Danish monarchs. Is this very striking fact in political history to be considered a tribute of approbation only to the former government of Norway ? Is it not also a satire on the undue importance which we attach, in the present age, to the mere forms of government? Does it not show that all these operate according to the state of property and enlightenment of a people ; that a nation may prac tically be in the enjoyment of civil rights, free in stitutions, property, security, and all the blessings of liberty in all that affects the well being of the many, under an absolute monarch, and may prac tically be destitute of all these advantages of liberty, as for instance in Ireland, although living under a form of government in which the people elect their own legislature? Is it not a speaking illustration of the text, that "property is power?" Where property is vested in the body of the peo ple by a just distributive law of succession, there, also, will be found that mass of power which se cures to the people civil rights, just laws, and all that belongs to the free use and secure enjoyment of property, whatever be the form of the legisla- Q 2 228 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. tive portion of the government. Where property is not generally diffused through the body of the people, but, by the operation of the feudal law of succession, is exclusively possessed by a few classes, there civil rights, just laws, free institutions, and all that belongs to liberty, are secured by a smaller mass of power, and are enjoyed by a smaller pro portion of the people. To the main body of the nation, who are destitute of property, the free use and enjoyment of it is but a name ; and the form of government is only a question of power between parties. The diffusion of property through so ciety must precede the diffusion of political rights. The latter have nothing to work upon but the former, and can have no existence independent of it. There were undoubtedly many and great faults in the Danish administration of Norway, but these were not of a nature generally to affect the condition and well being of the great body of the people. The preference almost exclusively given to natives of Denmark for offices in Norway, and the constant denial of an university in the king dom, were serious and heavy grievances ; but they affected directly only a small proportion of the community. The errors producing the most extensive evil consequences, that of running all branches of industry into monopolies in favour of different classes, and that of legislating too much, and putting the hand of government to concerns which might fairly be left to the free operation of private interests, were the faults of the age, and not of the Danish government in particular : even RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 229 at the present day they are committed and de fended by almost every government. The Sorenskriver's is the court of registration of all deeds, contracts, and debts affecting per sonal or heritable property within its district ; and this register is open to all. The property of mi nors, the interests of absent parties in the suc cession to udal and other property, the valuing, realising, and dividing it according to law among heirs, come under its charge. The whole pro ceedings are revised by the next superior one, which is the Stifts Amt court, or that of the pro vince. It consists of three judges, with assessors; is stationary in the chief town of each of the four stifts or provinces into which Norway is divided; and is the court of appeal from all the Sorenskri ver's courts in the province, and has also the revision of their administration. In all criminal matters whatsoever, the sentence of the Soren- skriver*s court is sent up to it before it is pro nounced, to be revised and sanctioned. The punishment of death was abolished in the Danish dominions about the end of last century. Slavery in chains for life, or for shorter periods according to the nature of the crime, is the punishment for all crimes in Norway. It may be doubted whether this be either wise or humane. If all crimes are visited with the same description of punishment, the ignorant, whom it is the great end of public punishments to deter from crime, will naturally consider them all as alike, — murder not worse than robbery, nor robbery than petty theft. Q 3 230 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. It is not wise to confound, even in appearance, the distinction between different degrees of guilt. The object of punishment is to deter others, as well as the delinquent himself, from crime. Slavery in chains presents always the same appearance: its longer or shorter duration is a part not seen, and not impressive. It affects the offender in due pro portion to his guilt, but not those who are to be deterred by his example. They can see only the same degree of suffering dealt out to the great est and smallest offender. The contamination of mind, also, to the offenders themselves, from the comparatively innocent and the most atrocious being subject to one common punishment, cannot be very favourable to their amendment. It may also be doubted, whether the system is really hu mane to the offender. If slavery in chains for life be really made a state of punishment, it is only in flicting a protracted instead of a speedy death. It is not humanity to starve a criminal to death, or to keep him in a state of half starvation until na ture gives way, instead of hanging him. It is not humanity to work or to flog him by degrees to death, or to chain him in a standing posture every night after over-working him all day, or to drive him to madness by solitary confinement and si lence. All these ingenious modes of torturing criminals to death are practised in those countries in which capital punishment has been abolished ; but the humanity of the slow instead of the sum mary death may be questioned. It is humanity to ourselves. We are spared the sight, or knowledge, RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 231 of the infliction of death on a fellow creature; but the infliction is not the less certain. The benefit of deterring others, by an impressive punishment, is lost ; and the control over its severity is lost, as the lot of the slave must depend on the personal character of his keeper or task-master. In this nation of small proprietors the sense of honour is more developed, and more generally dif fused, than in the countries feudally constituted. Loss of honour has been, from the earliest times, a specified effective punishment in the criminal law of Norway, standing next in degree to loss of life. The possession of property naturally diffuses through all classes the self-respect, regard for cha racter and public opinion, circumspection of con duct, and consideration for others, which flow from or are connected with the possession of pro perty, and render these influential on the morals, manners, and mode of thinking of the whole body ofthe people.' The Norwegian peasant has never like the Swede, the Dane, the Russian, or the German, crouched beneath the cudgel of the feudal baron bailiff. He has the feelings and proper pride of an independent man, possessed of property, and knowing nothing above him but the law. In real highmindedness he is ,the Spaniard of the north. Among a people whose national character and social condition are so formed, who are scattered in small clusters only over the coun try, and whose business and occupations are of the most simple kind, the loss of honour is not an ? unmeaning nominal punishment, as it would be ^ 4 232 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. among our manufacturing population. There is, and alway has been, much more of the real busi ness of the country in the hands of the people, and transacted by themselves, than in any other country of Europe. They have not merely the legislative power and election of their Storthing, which is but a late institution ; but, in all times, the whole civil business of the community has been in a great measure in their own hands. It appears to be the general spirit of the udal law, that the constituted legal authorities have rather a superintending, than a managing, power. The division of udal property among heirs, the guar dianship of estates belonging to minors, the settling disputes by the commission of mutual agreement, the provision for the poor, the support of roads and bridges, the regulations for the fisheries, the charge and conveyance of prisoners (as jails are only in the chief town of each province), the attendance on the courts of the district as valuators, arbiters, or jurymen, are among the affairs which devolve on the people under the superintendence of the legal authorities. The exclusion from these affairs and functions, which of course the legal sentence of loss of honour produces, is a punishment so severely felt, that there are instances of culprits, after that portion of their punishment consisting in slavery for a certain period had been completed, returning to their chains, committing on purpose some petty offence, rather than live as outcasts under the sen tence of dishonour among their former friends. It is also a remarkable trait of the open, simple. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 233 manly disposition of this nation, that a criminal very rarely, when arrested, attempts to deny or conceal any part of the fact, and usually at once makes a full avowal of all particulars, even of those which could not be proved. From the Stift Amt courts, cases criminal as well as civil may be carried by appeal to the final and highest court, that of Hoieste Ret, which sits in Christiania. The military sentences even of courts martial, if they involve a punishment exceeding three months' imprisonment, may be appealed from, and carried to this tribunal in time of peace ; and it is provided by the ground law, that in such cases the court shall add to its num bers a certain proportion of military officers. The Hoieste Ret, by the ground law, is one of the three estates of the constitution, and is independent of the executive and of the legislative branches. It is provided, however, that it must keep a protocol of its proceedings and decisions, which is to be laid before the legislative branch or Storthing on its meeting ; and the judges of this court, who are seven in number, may be severally impeached by the lower house of Storthing before the upper, which in such case is to form a court, along with the remaining members of the Hoie^e Ret, for trying the party impeached. A peculiar principle is adopted in the jurispru dence of this country, totally unknown in the feudal law, or in that of England. It deserves the consideration of those who are capable of giving such subjects a philosophic consideration ; 234 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. as the principle is not one of theory only, but is and has been in operation in this country from the earliest ages, being probably coeval with the ad ministration of the udal law itself. The judge is responsible for his legal decision. Upon an appeal from it to a higher court, he must defend it there, and is liable in damages for a wrong decision. This principle is so opposite to all theory and to all practice in our courts of law, where judges are entirely irresponsible for error of judgment, igno rance of law, or even for carelessness, partiality, or prejudice, however obvious and gross, that it may be interesting to give the precise words of this peculiar udal law from Christian V.'s code, as re published in 1833 in Christiania, under the inspec tion of the juridical faculty : — "Should any judge deliver a wrong decision, and that happen either because he has not in structed himself rightly in the case, or that the case has been wrongly represented to him, or that he has done it from want of judgment, he shall make good to the party, whom he has wronged by such decision, his proven loss, expense, and damage sustained ; and can it be proved that the judge has been influenced by favour, friendship, or gifts, or if the case is so clear that it cannot be imputed to want of judgment, or wrong instruction upon it, then he shall be displaced, and declared incapable of ever sitting'as a judge again, and shall forfeit to the injured party what he has suffered, should it be to the extent of fortune, life, or RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 235 honour." * It is also provided, in a subsequent clause, that if a judge die during the course of an appeal from his decision, his heirs are responsible for the damages ; but with the benefit of the con sideration in the higher court, that the defunct's decision cannot be suitably explained, and de fended, on the grounds on which he himself might have explained and defended it. It is provided that the decisions given in the lowest court, that of the sorenskriver, shall be defended by the sorenskriver and two of the jury or law-right men, who shall be empowered by the rest to ap pear for them, and they shall be bound to defend their decisions before the higher court. This pe culiar principle in the administration of law is by no means a dead letter. I find a report of a law case in the newspapers of this very month, in which the Stifts Amt court of the province of Christiania is condemned by the Hoieste Ret to pay sixty dollars of damages to a private party, in a question of succession to heritage not rightly decided, upon its appeal from the Sorenskriver's court ; the decision being of course reversed, and that ofthe lower court affirmed. A case recently occurred of an estate being sold, under authority of a decision ofthe Sorenskriver's court; at a price admitted to be highly advantageous to all con cerned, and with the concurrence of the trustees of the property, and all the heirs interested in it. The party in trust, however, was an insane * Kong Christian den Fermtes Norske Lov, 1687. Bog. i. cap. 5. art. 3. Christiania, 1833, ditto cap. 7. art. 1. 236 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. old woman, incapable of giving a legal assent; and on the appeal of her personal curator, the decision of the sorenskriver was found wrong, and he was adjudged to purchase back the estate, and reinvest the party in it at his own expense. The trustees who sold, and the purchaser who bought, had done so under authority of a legal decision. They, therefore, were not the parties to be called on to defend the sentence in the higher court; it was the judge who gave it. This is the ordinary course of law ; and it is certainly a very straight forward course. Since I687, when Christian V. published the code now in force, from the old laws then in use, this principle of the responsi bility of judges has been rather sharpened than blunted. The inferior judge is subject to fine, in cases where he would have no damages to pay for injujy from his wrong decision ; and if his decisions in the judgment-seat have been re versed three times, from his want of instruction on the cases, he is displaced. The undue delay in giving judgment, which this heavy personal re sponsibility of the judge for his decisions might almost excuse, is provided against by law. He is obliged to give his decisions within six weeks after the record is closed, unless both the parties agree to crave a further time, or any special lawful ob stacle, of which the superior court would be cog nisant, interposes a delay. If we consider fairly this peculiar principle of udal jurisprudence, it appears, in truth, no more than reasonable that the man who, voluntarily and RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 237 by his own seeking, holds the office of judge in the community, should, like every other member of society, be answerable for the evil he may occasion to others by his incapacity, want of industry, and careful research into the business before him, even for want of sound understanding, legal knowledge, or any other cause. There is no foundation in reason for the kind of sanctity, derived from the middle ages, with which our judges, to the present day, envelope their office, and claim irresponsibility for the mischief they may occasion by professional ignorance, folly, or incapacity. It is derived from the same period of civilisation, and stands upon the same principle, as the exemption of the clergy in the middle ages from responsibility to the ordinary laws and courts of the country, or of the clerk who could read his breviary from its legal punish ments. The king can do no wrong ; but it is rather too much, in the present state of society, to hold that all who are in authority under him, as judges, can do no wrong also; and that judges in all those inferior courts from which it is competent to appeal should be totally irresponsible for their ignorance, carelessness, or partiality. If one of two parties is to suffer by a wrong (^ecision, it appears in common sense much more reasonable that it should be the judge who delivered it, and who had voluntarily accepted of his office, than the innocent client or party wrongfully adjudged, who had no option but to bring it before his court. But who would accept ofthe office of judge under such responsibility ? This question naturally arises 238 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. on a slight consideration of the great variety of in terests, the intricacy of the rights, and the uncer tainty of the laws, which in a wealthy and com mercial nation affect property. What may be practicable in a poor country like Norway, in which law and property are in the most simple state, seems totally inapplicable to countries in the state of England or Scotland. Yet, as matter of speculation, without reference to what is now prac ticable, the subject, as far as regards Scotland at least, admits of a different view. At the begin ning and down to the middle of last century, Scot land was a poorer country than Norway is now ; her trade less exten.sive ; her commercial trans actions, both domestic and foreign, far less im portant or complicated ; and property of all kinds in as simple a state as it was then, or at least is at present, in Norway. If the same principle of the responsibility of judges for their decisions had been law in Scotland from the same period when it was adopted in the code of Christian V. in 1687, would not all the variety, intricacy, and un certainty in the laws regulating property have been diminished instead of increased in the course of time, and the responsibility attached to the functions of judge have grown less instead of greater ? Every decision given would have been, to a certain degree, a fixed and incontrovertible pointin law; and a great mass of erroneous, con flicting, and contradictory decisions, which involved injustice at the time, and remained as the elements of future injustice, could not have come into exist- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 2-39 ence. In Scotland, at no very remote period, the appointment to this sacred function of irresponsible judge of life and property was unblushingly claimed as the proper perquisite of political infiuence, and the office bestowed as the reward of political sub serviency. While such was the nature of the patronage, would not the country have been better served and its jurisprudence in a better state if all its judges had, since 1687, been appointed with such a principle of responsibility before a higher tribunal for their decisions ? There would have been no want of able judges. The sound lawyer, conscious of possessing the legal knowledge, judg ment, and industry which entitle him to take his place among the foremost of his contemporaries, would treat with scorn the idea of being intimi dated from accepting the office of judge by the risk or responsibility of having his legal decisions revised or reversed by any other professional man. The weak creature, indeed, who has crept from behind into the judgment-seat by the aid of poli tical influence, conscious that he ought not to be there, and that he wants the qualifications to come to sound legal decisions unless by chance, would necessarily want the moral courage ta accept of such an office with such a responsibility. In Norway there is no want of able lawyers as candi dates for judicial function, with all its responsi bilities. Procurators seek to be sorenskrivers. Advocates aspire to be judges in the Stifts Amt courts or Hoieste Ret court. Why should it not have been so in other countries, as in Scot- 240 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. land, if the same principle had come into operation at a period when property was in a similar state ? Good government would gain a steady basis by the adoption, even now, of such a principle, with the modifications which the different state of so ciety and property in different countries might re quire. The administration of justice would never be converted into an instrument for serving the temporary views of political power, and could never be unduly infiuenced by the spirit of party, even in times of the greatest excitement, in a country where the judge might be called upon to defend his decisions before a higher court, and be liable for the injury occasioned by a wrong one; where the higher court, too, is a constituent branch of the state, independent of the executive and legislative, its members irremovable and ele vated above local or party feeling. In Norway, in prosecutions connected with the abuse of the free dom of the press, and in many cases in which the executive government had apparently a strong feeling, this highest court of final resort, the Hoieste Ret ofthe Norwegian constitution, by the calm independence of its judgments, has proved itself neither influenced by the spirit of the cabi net nor by that of the people, but to be truly and effectively a third estate in the body politic. residence in NORWAY. 241 CHAPTER VI. ANOTHER FAIR. SKINS. — DOGS BRED FOR FUR. — BOOKS AT THE FAIR. — BIBLE SOCIETY'S OPERATIONS COUNTERACT THE DIFFUSION OF THE BIBLE IN FOREIGN LANDS. LAP LANDERS. PECULIAR RACE. PRESENT STATE. NUM BERS. LANGUAGE. VALUE OF STOCK REUUIRED TO SUBSIST A LAPLANDER. THE FJELDE LIFE ITS AT TRACTIONS. CORN BANKS. — THRASHING MACHINES PROBABLY A NORWEGIAN, NOT A SCOTCH INVENTION. FENCES IN NORWAY. DESCRIPTION. ADVANTAGES. ECONOMY. RUSSIAN POPULATION. POWER. POLICY. VALUE TO RUSSIA OF A SEA COAST. NORTHERN PROVINCES OF FINMARK AND NORDLAND. THEIR CONNECTION WITH NORWAY WITH RUSSIA. PROBABLE VIEWS - OF RUSSIA ON THAT PART OF SCANDINAVIA NORTH OF THE 62° OF LATITUDE. — IMPORTANCE OF SUCH AN ACQUISITION. INDICATIONS THAT IT IS CONTEMPLATED. Levanger, April, 1835. — We had another fair in our little town in the beginning of March, which lasted a shorter time, but was more lively than the December one. The Jemtelanders with their coffin-shaped sledges, closed with lids, making not bad beds for a snowy night on the Fjelde, for which purpose they seem constructed, appeared in great numbers. They purchased horses, fi^h, manufac tured and colonial wares, for the Swedish and Russian fairs. Young, sound, and very handsome horses were sold for 40 or 45 dollars. I expected to have seen more skins of wolves and bears at a market so near to their homes ; but such furs find a better sale among the nobles of Sweden and Russia, than among the Norwegian udallers. 242 residence in norway. Those brought here were principally of the rein deer and goat, which are dressed with the hair on, and are used as blankets by the labouring class. There were two skins of the beaver in the fair. The animal, although not extinct, is rare in the Fjelde, and lives solitary, not like the American beaver, in society. The fur or skin used for their winter pe lisses by the Fjelde people is really handsomer, although much cheaper, than that of the wolf or bear. It belongs to a particular kind of dog with a remarkably fine, soft, and glossy fur. These dogs are bred for the sake of their skins ; and it ap pears to me that many of the best of the dark brown or black muffs and tippets of our English ladies, are merely well-selected skins of these Fjelde dogs. A pelisse of such fiir costs about 18 dollars, while that of wolf skin costs 40 or 50. A fur pelisse is not however indispensable in this climate. The great majority, four-fifths at least, of every assemblage of people, wear great-coats of good substantial home-made blue cloth. A few wear great-coats made of goat skin, prepared so as to be perfectly water-proof and light. It is lined with cloth, made like a modern great-coat, and would be a comfortable, dry, useful coat for a rainy night outside the mail coach. From what I have observed at the two fairs in this place which are among the most considerable in the Peninsula, I am satisfied of the correctness of the observation I made at Dronthiem, that the great subscriptions and exertions in England for printing and distributing the Scriptures in foreign RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 243 countries, are counteracting their own object, as far as respects those countries in which the printing and selling of books are established trades. At this fair, several thousand people are assembled, many of whom dwell in the valleys high up in the Fjelde, remote from other men, and scarcely within the verge of civilised society, and with little opportunity, except at these yearly fairs, of supplying their wants. There appeared to be a considerable inclination among the common peo ple to buy and read whatever came in their way in the shape of a book, and to take home some thing of the kind from the fair, just as we see at our country fairs in Scotland. Almanacks and ballads seemed in considerable request, the old folks buying the former, and the girls with their sweethearts very busy over the latter. There were school books, cookery books, the law book of Christian V., the ground law of the Norwegian constitution, the transactions of the Storthing of 1824, to be found in the shops ; also a reasonable supply of the catechism, and of the book of com mon prayer, as used in the Norwegian church : but there was not a single copy of the Bible or New Testament. The Scriptures have evidently been driven out of the market * by the Society furnish ing them greatly cheaper than could be afforded by those who have to live by the printing and * In the year 1816, in the bishopric of Bergen, there were found to be 3906 Bibles in a population of 146,999 persons. Budstikkens tredie aargang. R 2 244 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. selling of books. The natural distribution through every corner of a country of all that the inhabi tants use or may require, is by the hands of traders stimulated by their own interest to bring supply to every door at which there is any chance of finding demand. It is dangerous to interfere with this natural course. The trader is actuated by the fear of loss as well as by the hope of gain. If he had no capital at stake, no loss to dread as well as profit to hope, his exertions will only be half of what are necessary for supplying a country. The application of this to the present question is ob vious. The British and Foreign Bible Society may print a sufficient stock of Bibles to give one to every family, or even every grown person, in a foreign country, at half of the ordinary price. They may send this stock to the principal towns, and even the parishes ; but still the question remains,- How are these books to be distributed ? If they are delivered to the trader at even half the or dinary price, he has just so much less induce ment to bestir himself in getting them sold as he has less of his own trading capital embarked in them, and less loss or inconvenience to apprehend by a tardy sale. Give him the copies for nothing, or for a trifle, and it is evident he would not be at the expense and trouble of packing up and transporting to distant markets, fairs, or other places of sale, goods which occupied little or no portion of his trading capital. If trade then be the means adopted by the Society for its Bible distributions, they are depriving that means of half RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 245 the stimulus which urges it in supplying mankind with their other wants. If on the contrary, they trust to the good-will and zeal of agents, either paid, or actuated by christian charity, it is in cumbent on the good and able men who direct its affairs to satisfy the world that this is a perma nently effective means, and that the channel of trade would be imperfect and temporary compared to distribution by their agents. In our smaU parishes in Britain, zealous agents, well-disposed persons, and the clergy, may undoubtedly effect for a time, and perhaps even permanently, a very wide distribution of the Scriptures, and may out strip the slow, but sure and ever returning, pace of the trader. In foreign countries, population is scattered over a much larger space. Parishes in the north of Europe approach very often the ex tent of English counties. The clergy are over whelmed with duties, which render it impossible that they should be the active agents for the dis tribution. They can only be the depositaries of the stock to be distributed around them. The scarcity of money, also, is so great, that the peasant, or man of the lower class, is much more able to pay the trader who brings to his door the things he requires, the Bible among others, the very highest price in the way of barter, than to pay in money the lowest price to the minister or Bible Society's agent. Money is not his usual and readiest means of payment. It is scarcely so among a large proportion of our own labouring population. It may be doubted whether there is R 3 246 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. any benefit to them, or any real advance towards the object by a system under which that portion of the people of Europe can only get at a copy of the Bible through a medium which they have not to give for it. It may be doubted also, whether the natural principles of supply and demand on which Providence has placed the wholesome dis tribution through society of all that is good for man, can, in the case of religious instruction, be safely superseded by the exertions of a society's committee and agents. If there be any truth in these observations, they appear seriously to de serve the consideration of the Society, and of the thousands and tens of thousands who are yearly ¦subscribing their mite to its funds in the purest spirit of Christianity. They are not made with any hostile feeling, but simply to intimate a reason able, and, to appearance, well-grounded, doubt of the means being suitable to the great and bene volent end they have in view. April, 1835. — In my evening walk one day this month, I fell in with a Laplander dead drunk, and fast asleep upon the snow. His wife was walking backwards and forwards, watching him; sometimes endeavouring to rouse him, and get him on his legs ; sometimes sitting down close to him to warm and prevent the cold from overpowering him ; but not appearing in the least impatient or uneasy. It was a curious picture. The Laplanders who come to the markets in the low country, to sell frozen venison, reindeer skins, and cheese, leave their reindeer twenty or twenty-five miles from hence RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 247 in the Fjelde, and lodge in barns and outhouses like our gipsies ; but, in the Fjelde, they lodge under tents or wigwams, of a few sticks set up and covered with a piece of coarse woollen cloth or skins, such as one may see at the corner of every wood in the parts of England frequented by gip sies. The Laplander has, certainly, beyond all other Europeans, peculiarities of feature and ap pearance, not easily described, yet which decidedly indicate a separate breed or race. The slit of the ey^e running obliquely from the temples to the nose; the eyes small and peculiarly brown, and without eyelashes; the forehead low and projecting; the cheekbones high and far apart; the mouth wide, with ill- defined lips; the chin thinly furnished with scattered hairs rather than a beard ; the skin decidedly of a yellow hue, as in the cross-breed of a white person with a mulatto, — all these pecu liarities strike the eye at once, as distinctive of a separate race. The structure of the body also seems different. The bones are considerably smaller as well as shorter than in other races ; and those of the thigh have apparently a greater width be tween them. They form a curve with the leg bone down to the foot, so that in standing with their feet close together, all abovg is far apart. They have also that peculiarity of a distinct race, the odour from their bodies being to our sense different from that of ours, and to us raw and wild — if scent can be so described. They are not a handsome race, certainly, but I have seen coun tenances among the young people of pleasing ex- 248 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. pression. The pair I found on the snow, at least the lady, could not be called ugly ; but, perhaps, her quiet patience, and visible attachment to her husband, made her appear to advantage. . There is no want of intelligent expression in their coun tenances ; and they are far from being a stupid people. When driven by necessity to leave their Fjelde life, and betake themselves to the occupa tion of fishermen in the boats of the people of Nordland and Finmark, they are noted for becom ing, in a very short time, expert and bold boat men. This class of Laplanders are so far ad vanced in the arts of civilised life, that they are even distinguished as boat-builders in Alten Fiord, Lynger Fiord, and other places. Another class have also exchanged the wandering life for fixed habitations of turf, or even of wood ; they keep cattle, goats, and pigs, as well as reindeer ; and, like the other inhabitants of the Finland or Quan race, raise hay crops. A third class keep rein deer only, and live in tents, but roam about within a particular district or parish, and consider them selves entitled to the exclusive pasturage of their tract of Fjelde. The number of actually wander ing Laplanders who have no home, but lead a true nomadic life, following their reindeer from the North Cape down to the 62d degree of north lati tude, is very inconsiderable. There are as many gipsies, tinkers, and strollers in England and Scot land, without any fixed habitation, as all this part of the Lapland nation. In the year 1825, the total number of Laplanders of all ages and sexes RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 249 within the Swedish territories, was only 5964 ; and of these only 931 led a nomadic life with rein deer ; and 376 wandered about as fishermen on the lakes and rivers, servants, and herdsmen, or beggars, without reindeer flocks. In Norway the numbers are not so distinctly known ; as, to avoid paying scat or poll-tax, they remove from the Norwegian into the Russian or Swedish territory, and wander back again, when they find it con venient ; but they are not estimated at more than 6000 ; and the whole of the Lappish people pro bably does not exceed 12,000. The language is altogether different from the Norse, or Swedish, or from that spoken by the Quans or Finland race, who have travelled from the east side of the Bothnian Gulf into Finmark and Nordland, and form the greater part of the po pulation of those provinces. The Lappish tongue is apparently very rich in those inflexions or termin ations "which denote the different relations of objects. There are ten cases of nouns marking various rela tions of presence, absence, distance, which in other languages are denoted by distinct words or prepo sitions. The language appears not to have been altogether reduced to a printable state, by the adoption of proper signs for those sounds which our alphabet cannot express. It has been studied, and grammars of it published, by Leem, and by Professor Rask ; but their labours were not in tended for the Laplander, but for the continental philologist. In the hundred years from 1728 to 1828, all that has been printed for the use of the 250 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. Laplander, is a catechism, a translation of a few of the Psalms, and the first two chapters of the Gospel of St. Matthew.* There appear to be difficulties from the difference of dialects, even among this handful of people, and from their scat tered and partly wandering state, which make it impracticable to give them school instruction in reading, and consequently to convey knowledge to them by the press. The Americans appear to overcome such small impossibilities. They have given the Cherokee instruction, religion, a printed language, and even political newspapers in it. The Europeans have not, to this day, given the Laplander the Scriptures in his language ; and if the Bible were translated, it would be useless to him, as they have not taught him reading. His religious instruction at present consists in hearing a sermon in an unknown tongue, which the clerk translates, sentence after sentence, on the spot, into the Lappish. It is curious, and, but for the serious nature of the subject, would be very amus ing, to observe the inconsistency of human action, and how much imagination influences the under takings of the most sober-minded and sincere. The Danes were among the first who sent out missionaries to distant lands, to India and Green- * The Reverend Mr. Stockfleth has, it is said, finished a translation into the Lappish tongue, of the New Testament and some of the books of the Old, and is to be in Christiania for two years and a half, with an allowance from Government, in order to superintend the printing. It is not mentioned how the Laplanders are to be taught to read, or whether that be a part of die business that will be postponed until this long-projected translation be ready for its readers. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 251 land, seeking, amidst dangers and privations which excite and gratify the imagination, to instruct the heathen and diffuse the knowledge of the truths of Christianity ; and they forgot, in their zeal, the more obscure and easy duty of instruct ing the heathen at their own door, — their fellow subjects the Laplanders, The condition of the wandering Laplander forms a singular union of real wealth with real poverty. To support a family in the Fjelde, a flock of from three to four hundred head of reindeer is necessary. He who possesses only from one to three hundred, must depend for subsistence partly on flshing in the lakes and shooting, or must betake himself to the coast, or to husbandry in a fixed situation. The value of a reindeer is about one third of that of a cow : it sells for three or four dollars, and a cow from nine to twelve ; and the meat, skin, and horns of the one, sell as readily as those of the other. A flock of 400 reindeer, the minimum which can sup port a family, supposing only one-fourth of the number to be full-grown, and the. other 300 to be worth only one-third of their value, must altoge ther be equal to a capital of 600 dollars, or about 120/. sterling. Yet the yearly produce of this capi tal, which is greater than the value of all'the property possessed by three or four families of the working class in a civilised community, and with which they would be far removed from want, is insufficient to support aLaplander, even in the state of extreme pri vation in which he habitually lives. This is a strik ing instance of the real expense of living in that 252 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. natural state, as it has been called, or rather that barbarous one, in which man consumes what he produces, and lives independent ofthe arts of civi lised life, its tastes and enjoyments. The Lap lander uses nothing which he does not make for himself, except the iron pot for dressing his vic tuals, and the piece of coarse cloth which forms his tent. He consumes nothing but what his rein deer yield him ; his occasional excess in brandy, and his use of tobacco, are not ordinary indul gences. Yet without the tastes, habits, and grati fications of civilised life, or any of its expenses, the Laplander, with the above capital, is in po verty, and destitute of an assured subsistence. This shows the real expense of that half savage life, which, from the accounts of emigrants and travellers in America, we are apt to suppose is the least costly of any, because it has neither comforts nor luxuries to pay for, and produces what it consumes. The Laplander's condition is the beau- ideal of that sort of life. Five shillings would undoubtedly purchase all that he uses in a year. of those articles which are not indispensably necessary for existence ; yet a capital which, with their own labour, would maintain three famihes in the enjoy ment of the comforts and decencies of civilised life, according to their station, does not keep him from positive want. The Laplander, who pos sesses a thousand or more reindeer, and who is con sequently a man of considerable property, lives in the same way as the poorest ; enjoys no more of the luxuries of life, and has no higher tastes or RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 253 habits to gratify. It is said, that very considerable portions of the silver currency of the country are lost, in consequence of this class of Laplanders hoarding, from generation to generation, all the money they obtain by the sale of their surplus pro duce; and that the spot in the Fjelde where the treasure is buried, often cannot be discovered by the heirs. The Fjelde life appears to have its charms. The young couple of Laplanders, whom Mr. Bullock brought to England in 1819, returned thither with their share of the profits. In the year 1792, Mon sieur Vivrette, a president of the parliament of Dijon, took a Lapland girl with him to France. She married a substantial tradesman in Paris, and lived happily with him ; but, on the death of her husband, she converted all his property into money, and hastened back to Jukasjervi Lapmark, to pass her old age as she had passed her youth. One may conceive a considerable attraction in such a hfe, wandering over this vast plateau with all their property around them, independent, free from care, and with the daily excitement which the various occupations of seeking pasture, frightening the wolf, tending the flock, fishing, and hunting, afford. A young and clever English sportsman, especially if he had a taste also for any branch of natural history, might pass a summer very agreeably with his rifle, his fishing rod, and his tent, among the Fjelde and lakes, encamping where fancy or sport might lead him, and carrying all his accommoda tions on a couple of country ponies. It is not 254 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, wonderful that the poor Laplander, who, although certainly never oppressed or ill-treated, is slighted by the civilised inhabitants of the country, should prefer the Fjelde, where he is conscious of no in feriority to other men, and where his powers, such as they are, are called into action, and supply his wants. April, 1835 It is among the traveller's mor tifications to discover, that while he is fancying himself very successful in obtaining information, he is passing by objects very deserving of notice. On my way to the remarkable landslip, formerly described, by which the farm of Gustad was en gulfed, I observed a number of sledges trans porting sacks of corn to a large red-painted build ing, standing by itself near Alstahoug church. On inquiry I was told the farmers were taking corn to the magazine. Was it a corn market ? No. Was it the minister's tithe ? No. Tithe is only a few pecks of grain from the largest farm, and corn markets do not exist under the corporation system, which fetters all traffic. I quite forgot the subject, however, till the other day, when I saw sledges taking away corn from the magazine : I then found it was a very interesting and peculiar in stitution, which is common over all Norway. There are, as observed above, no dealers or weekly markets attended by purchasers, who buy at one place and sell at another. If the farmer has any grain to spare, he can do nothing with it, unless he happens by chance to find con sumers on the spot. There is no intermediate RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 255 dealer between the corn grower and the consumer. Under such a system, agriculture can never flourish, nor can the country be independent of foreign supply. From the want of a certain and ready market for his farm produce, the farmer na turally wastes it. His housekeeping, with its four meals a day, its consumption of brandy, ale, butter, cheese, milk, and other farm produce, besides his keeping superfluous horses and servants, is far from frugal. A Scotch farmer's family, from the same extent of land, and from an equal crop, would have at least one half more to sell. Nor way could probably subsist its own population in ordinary seasons, if its domestic trade were free — if the agriculturist had the stimulus of ready and free markets, and his habits of living were formed upon the certainty of being able to turn into money all he could save or spare. As it is, how ever, there is some surplus grain, without dealers to buy it, and these magazines are very ingenious institutions for supplying the want of this inter mediate agency between the producers and con sumers. The farmer takes his surplus grain to it, and for the time it remains, he receives at the rate of one eighth of increase per annum,: if he de posits eight bushels he can take out nine at the end of twelve months, or in that proportion for shorter periods, and he is charged at the same rate of one eighth per annum for any portions of his quantity he may take out. If he overdraws, or had none deposited, but receives a quantity in loan, he pays for such advance at the rate of one 256 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, fourth of increase per annum ; thus, if he takes eight bushels he pays back ten at the end of twelve months, or at that rate for the time he has the loan. This is a savings' bank for corn, probably the most ancient of these establishments. It often occurs that night frosts blight the crops on par- ticular farms, even in seasons when those around in general are good. But for these ingenious establishments, the farmer might be in great dis tress for seed or bread. The small profit which occurs upon the transactions defrays the expense of a building, a clerk, and such items, and the con cern is entirely under the management of the bonder, or peasant proprietors. I am afraid we are a little too apt in Scotland to claim the merit of inventions which we never made, and which are the results of necessity pro ducing similar contrivances in all countries. We claim the invention of savings' banks ; yet here they exist all over a country in regard to the primi tive materials of food and seed. We claim also the invention of the thrashing machine ; yet it is diffused over this part of Norway, so much more universally than in Scotland, that our right to the invention appears very doubtful. In the parish of Overhalden alone, on the Namsen river, about sixty miles north of this place, there are, according to Kraft's statistical account, sixty thrashing mills, some with grinding machinery attached, and some driven by water. It is certainly not probable that a Scotch in vention should find its way to Norway, and be RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 257 much more generally diffused in its most remote districts than in any part of the country which claims the invention. It seems much more likely that, like the savings' bank, it was borrowed from our poor neighbour in the north by our ingenious Scotch inventors, although both are carried into effect with inferior materials, — corn instead of money, wood instead of cast-iron. The construc tion of the thrashing machine is the same in both countries ; but in the Norwegian, the feeding rollers, being of wood, are necessarily of larger diameter, and the straw is consequently presented to the beaters on the drum in greater lengths ; so that the heads of grain are much less perfectly struck by the beaters than if presented to the stroke in the shorter lengths given out by feeding rollers of smaller diameter. Civilization and no civilization are curiously blended in this corner of the world. In the above parish, which reckons 153 proprietors, 97 tenants, 101 housemen with land, and 60 thrashing ma chines, there are 30 families of Laplanders with 2800 head of reindeer. May, 1835. — The fence in general use in Nor way and Sweden might be adopted with advantage in many situations in England and Scotland, where small wood or thinnings of plantations can be ob tained. Its advantages to the agriculturalist are, that it occupies as little ground as hurdles or sheep-flakes; may be put up or removed as quickly; is as good a security against cattle as the best hedge or stone wall ; and is constructed of such s 258 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. wood as can be put to no other use. Two hedge stakes, about six or eight feet long, are stuck into the ground opposite to each other, about four inches apart ; and at every three or four feet, accords ing to the lengths of the wood to be laid like rails between these upright sticks, a couple of them are stuck into the earth. The couple are tied together in three or more places, according to the height to be given to the fence ; each tie is about a foot and a half above the other. The ties are made with the small branches of any kind of tree with the sap in them. These branches are roasted on a fire kindled on the spot, and in that state are as easily twisted and tied as a piece of rope yarn ; and being charred, are much more durable. The transverse pieces of the fence, or what corresponds to the rails in a common wooden fence, consist of slab boards ; that is, the outside boards sawn from round wood, or poles, or old branches of any kind. They are run in, one piece above another, between the two upright sticks, and with one end resting upon the tie, or upon the piece under it which is supported by the tie, and the other end resting on the ground. The pieces are laid with such a slant that the weight rests principally upon the ground, the ties only supporting the heads of these cross pieces in the air. The space between the ties is filled quite full with the boards or sticks thus resting with one end upon the ground. The whole length of the fence being in contact with the ground at so many points, and the uprights con nected together also at so many, this fence is RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 259 of great strength and stability, although composed of pieces of wood singly of no strength ; and be sides its formidable appearance to cattle, it can support great weight. Snow, although of great weight, seldom breaks it down ; and when broken it can be put up again immediately. In many parts of England, posts and rails cost five or six shillings a fathom, and a great deal of time and trouble is wasted besides in sinking the posts, re placing the horizontal rails in the mortices ; and after all they make an imperfect fence, as cattle and horses get over and sheep under it. Hedges take up much land, cannot be shifted from place to place, and are a perpetual annoyance from gaps and breaks. For a wooded country this is cer tainly the cheapest fence. It can scarcely cost two pence a fathom. Three men will put up forty fathoms in a day. May, 1835. — The population of the Russian empire, including Poland, Finland, the Caucasian and the Siberian tribes, amounted, according to the official returns ofthe year 1830, to 49,000,000 of people. The number of the human race exist ing on the face of the earth is computed, or guessed, by learned men of the present day, at 800,000,000. Of the whole human species, there fore, nearly one-sixteenth part is under the Russian government. Every sixteenth human being that is born is a Russian subject. The objects and views of a government, ruling over so large a pro portion of mankind, cannot be measured by those which actuate other powers. Extension of domi- s 2 260 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. nion, and such objects of ordinary ambition, may fairly be admitted to form no objects of Russian policy. It is not by accession from without that this mighty power can become more powerful. It is judging partially when we ascribe to its govern ment a desire for additional territory, a love of conquest, and all those other motives which have actuated minor potentates. It is within herself alone, that the ambition of the most bhndly ambi tious monarch who ever held a sceptre would seek for. the additional greatness of the Russian empire. But although extension of dominion, unless as re quired for internal security, and all the objects ofthe ordinary ambition as well as the ordinary jealousies and fears of smaller powers, must fall out of view, on fair consideration, in an estimate of Russian po licy, Russia may fairly and reasonably have objects, and even positive duties, to fulfil towards that large portion of mankind which depends for civilization and social happiness on her sway, which will un settle the world as much as the wildest ambition. It cannot be for any length of time that a power which rules over so large a portion of the human race, and whose millions of subjects are daily acquiring more and more the tastes and habits of civilized life, should submit to be excluded from that great highway over which passes almost every article which those tastes and habits of civilized life require. Russia must have a side of her dominion on the Atlantic. We may endea vour to conceal the truth from ourselves, but it will be no unreasonable demand on her part, RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 261 when she is prepared to make it, that so many millions of rational beings as dwell under her sway should enjoy, in common with the rest of mankind, that common good of nature, intended, like the air we breathe, or the water we drink, for the use and enjoyment of all the human species, — viz. the free access over the great ocean to those countries and climates of the earth which produce the ob jects required by man in a civilized state. The Baltic and the Black Sea are but loopholes for supplying such a mass of society with the pro ducts of the tropical climes, the sugars, coffees, cottons, tobaccos, and all the other articles re quired now for their use and well-being. Russia will have reason on her side when she tells the other European powers to make room for her on the coast of the world's great ocean ; and that she requires a wider gate for her supplies, and one not shut up by nature for half the year, and liable, during the other half, to be closed by every petty power which may have a few ships of war to blockade the entrance. There is an amount of human happiness, a mass of interests, and an ex tension of civilization among the human species, involved in this view, which may, if considered without prejudice or local feeling, outweigh all the advantages that mankind derive from the Euro pean system of a balance of power among, small states, which, like a balance of houses built of cards, tumbles to pieces as fast as it is erected. It is therefore not among the events which could be reckoned unjustifiable in principle, if, on the s 3 262 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. first rupture of the present political arrangements of Europe by a war, Russia should urge that the supply of her vast population with all that civiliz ation requires can no longer be sacrificed, in order to preserve the political existence of a second-rate power, connected by no family ties with any other monarchy, and by no important interests with any other state ; and it is within the verge of pro bability that Sweden and Norway, the Scandina vian peninsula, may be the battle-field of the first great war we have in Europe. It is here that Rus sia will endeavour to acquire for her empire a side to the sea. It is only by the possession of an ocean coast, that she can ever become a naval power. That great and certainly rational object of Russian ambition — rational and justifiable, when the above circumstances are considered, — can only be ac complished by the acquisition of a portion at least of this peninsula. The European powers them selves have settled the principle. Her acquisition of Finland, a country far exceeding Norway in population and fertility, proceeded avowedly upon the principle that it was too near to her modern capital, and too convenient and important for its supplies and security, to remain in the hands of any other power. The principle was admitted as valid by the other European governments. It was ac quiesced in that, for the sake of its convenience to Russia, this noble portion of the Swedish do minions should be incorporated with the Russian empire. The extension of the same admitted principle will comprehend Norway and Sweden, RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 263 or such portions of these countries as it may be politically convenient for Russia to acquire. The exclusive navigation of the Black Sea, the posses sion of the Dardanehes and of Constantinople itself, would be acquisitions very inferior in real importance to Russia to the line ofthe sea coast on the Atlantic side of this peninsula, north ofthe 62d degree of north latitude. This cut of the peninsula, which in wealth and population is insignificant compared to Finland, would place Russia at once at the head of the naval powers of Europe. It would give her innumerable harbours and fiords, open to the navigation of the Atlantic at all seasons, — for these fiords in the north are never frozen, — each capable of containing in safety all the navies of the world, and connected by sea with all navigable parts of the globe ; and by land on the best of rail roads, the snow, during a great part of the year, with Finland, and the centre of all Russian power and wealth, St. Petersburgh itself It would ren der Russia independent of other nations for the supplies she requires of Trans-atlantic productions; and would thus make her mistress, in time of war, of her own naval products, without which no European power can fit out a fleet for sea, and which now she must supply even her enemies with, in the very crisis of war, for the sake of obtaining those supplies in return through them. She would have a commerce of her own over the Atlantic. From the nature of the country and climate, the land transport of goods across the peninsula does not encounter the obstacles which those accus- s 4 264 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. tomed to roads and distances in other latitudes would imagine. When snow and frost have made all roads even, smooth, and hard, for transport by sledges, the iron railways of England do not give greater facility of draught to animal power than these winter roads. The distance across from Levanger on the Dronthiem fiord to Sundsval on the Bothnian gulf, may be 280 or 290 English miles. The herrings, salt-fish, and dried fish of the Norwegian coast, although these are goods of which the value cannot admit of expensive land carriage, find their way regularly, not only across this part of the peninsula, but to the markets of Haparanda near Tornea, which is above 500 En glish miles from Sundsval. The merchants of Tornea, which is now a Russian town, frequent regularly the winter markets in Lynger fiord, and other parts of the north coast of Norway. It would be an imputation on the good sense and ability of the Russian cabinet to suppose that it is not preparing for such an acquisition, should any of the political convulsions in Europe which may be expected in the course of human affairs put it in the power of Russia to make the acqui sition fairly, and according to the now admitted principles of acquisition of territory among states. Russia fronts Europe on a line extending from Archangel to the Black Sea. ' The manoeuvring is all on the left extremity of this line; but the real object in view may be where the real ad vantage to be gained obviously is, — on the extreme right of this line. That this object is in view RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. ' 265 may be inferred from other circumstances besides the desirable nature of the acquisition itself. The two northern provinces of Norway, Nordland and Finmark, east and west, are, in consequence of the monopoly system of trade in Norway, both in ternal and foreign, connected with the mother country by the most slender ties, and are rather colonies than integral parts of the kingdom. The inhabitants, of whom a large proportion are of Finnish, not Norwegian descent and language, de pend upon Russia for all the necessaries of life, — grain, meal, and the materials for carrying on the fishery by which they subsist ; and by the prudent treaty which Russia concluded in 1828, regulating her trade from the White Sea with these provinces, the inhabitants are daily becoming more and more dependent upon her. The subject furnishes such instructive views of the ultimate effects of all monopoly on trade, that it deserves more parti cular elucidation. The country from North Cape down to the great Namsen river is divided into two amts or pro vinces : Nordland, anciently Helogaland or Helge- land, which marches with the province of North Trondhiems Amt ; and Finmark, to the north of Nordland, which is divided into East and West Finmark. These two extensive provinces, with all their islands, contain a population of only 80,941 persons. Agriculture is here but a secondary bu siness. The crops of grain are too inconsiderable, and too precarious, to subsist the inhabitants. The winter fishery in the Lafodden islands, from the 266 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. middle of February to the middle of April, and the summer fishery over all the coast, which in some branch or other gives occupation for the rest of the year, furnish the inhabitants with the means of purchasing grain and other necessaries. The aver age value of the winter fishery is estimated by an intelligent writer, the Amtman Blom, who has filled the office of foged in the district, at 430,987 dol lars, or 86,500/. sterling, valuing the products at the prices paid or credited to the inhabitants by the privileged merchants of Bergen, Dronthiem, and the intermediate towns. The merchants send out vessels with the articles required in the coun try, and receive the produce of this eight weeks' fishery in payment. This trade was originally in the hands of the Hans Towns, particularly Bremen. They had in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a factory, or rather fortress, in Bergen*, where they exercised an authority almost independent of the government, and had subfactories in Nordland * The Hanseatic Association, at their great meeting, anno 1498, in Lubeck, consisted of seventy-two towns. They had four principal companies, in London, in Bruges, in Novorogorod, and in Bergen. There is a curious account of the establishment in Bergen, in Hol- berg's Beskrivelse over Bergen, 1757, at which time it was not quite extinct. It appears to have been very similar in its construction to the late Canadian Fur Company, the servants advancing through the ranks of apprentices, journeymen, overseers, factors, to be partners, and the whole living in a kind of military discipline, in houses of the comptoir or factory, and not allowed to marry. In the early part of the sixteenth century they were at the height of their prosperity, and were reckoned to amount, in Bergen, to the number of 2600 men ; a powerful force on one spot in that age. The fish trade, at that period, was one of great importance, as the consumption was » religious observance, and Newfoundland had not been discovered. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 267 and Finmark, and possessed the exclusive privilege of buying the fish and other commodities of the inhabitants, and of supplying them from these fac tories with the articles they required. The Hans eatic trade with these countries was exactly similar to the monopoly now exercised by our Hudson's Bay and Canadian Fur Company in the territories of North America, within which they claim an exclusive privilege to trade with the Indian tribes. On the decay of the Hanseatic commerce, the towns in which their comptoirs or head factories were established, viz. Bergen and Dronthiem, suc ceeded to their trade and privileges, and maintain the system to the present day. Christiansund and one or two minor towns have succeeded, after a long struggle, in obtaining a share ; but otherwise the trade remains shut for the people of Norway at large. The merchants or shopkeepers who are settled and dwell in Nordland and Finmark, and in the Lafodden islands, are licensed burgesses of Bergen, Dronthiem, or other privileged towns. Each has a certain tract of coast or circle belonging to his shop or factory, within which no other per son is entitled to buy or sell. These privileged traders pay a certain tax, and are obliged to receive and entertain travellers, as the sole innkeepers within their circle ; and their exclusive privilege has become hereditary, attached to the house or factory in which it may be exercised by a duly pri vileged trader. The state of a country or pro vince in which every necessary and luxury must be purchased, and of which the trade is so fettered, 268 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. may be guessed at. The privileged capital finds an easy and sufficient trade in supplying the coffee, sugar, tobacco, brandy, and such articles, required by the persons who fish for each merchant. Any extension of industry or of trade to or from the country, is not necessary for its employment ; and, like the dog in the manger, what it cannot do itself it will not allow any other Norwegian capital to do. The supply of these two provinces with food, and with much of the materials for the fishery, has consequently fallen entirely into the hands of the Russians from the coast ofthe White Sea. The privileged Norwegian traders find an easy living, and a sure profit, each in his own trad ing district. They are not driven by competition to engage in any new branches. They take ac cordingly, and pay for in brandy, colonial pro ducts, and such articles, what the industry of the inhabitants produces during the eight weeks of the winter fishery ; and leave to the Russians the beneficial trade of feeding the population, and of receiving in payment all that their industry pro duces during the other forty-four weeks of the year. As far as regards industry and production, these provinces may truly be said to belong to Norway only for eight weeks of the year ; and to be connected with the mother country only through a few mercantile houses in Bergen, Chris- riansund, and Dronthiem. A population* of up- * The whole value of property in Nordland and Finmark was, according to the tax upon |)roperty for liquidating the obligations of the State, equal to three and a half jier cent, only of the amount of the whole property of Norway. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 269 wards of 80,000, raising little or no grain, deals with the mother country only to the value of 86,500/. sterling, or little more than 20*. a head. It is a striking example of the results of monopoly. If the trade had been free to all native Norwegians, as it is in every country where trade has flourished, to its own subjects at least, there would have grown up in Norway a body of traders to and from these provinces, carrying on every branch in which em ployment and profit could be found ; and Norwe gian commerce would have been conveying its own fish in its own vessels to the White Sea, and bring ing back the meal, hemp, sailcloth, cordage, and other necessaries now supplied by Russia. The country, instead of having a trade which employs only the yachts or tenders that now bring the fish from Lafodden, would have also had the trade which gives employment to from two hundred to three hundred square-rigged Russian vessels. It is in truth a satire upon free institutions, that under the absolute government of Russia, the farming peasant on the coasts of the White Sea is as free as he would be in America to fit out a vessel, embark his farm produce, and trade with it to a foreign country ; while the farming peasant under the almost republican constitution of Nor way cannot exchange his own produce with those very provinces of his own country to which the Russian has free access. The free admission, with out paying any duties in any port north of Trom soe, was gained by Russia in the treaty of 1828. It was one of necessity on the part of Norway. 270 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. Its exclusively privileged merchants could not feed the country. The ordinary sluggish channel into which their trade had settled was that of sending certain quanties of goods at certain prices, and bringing back certain quantities of fish at certain prices ; the prices being fixed for the season pre viously by themselves. There was neither spare capital nor competition to supply these provinces with the necessaries of life. The Russian govern ment is awake to the advantages of this trade, — ^for the considerable body of excellent seamen which it is rearing, and the prospects of naval power im mediately connected with it. By an ukase pub lished in August 1835, at a time when the Russian cabinet apparently was occupied only with the affairs of the East or of Spain, and its negotiations at Kalish and Toplitz, the important step was taken of declaring the trade to and from Finmark and Nordland free to all ranks and classes of Rus sian subjects in the districts of Archangel, Cola, and other trading places on the White Sea ; and granting a reduction in their favour of the import duties payable in other parts of the Russian em pire on salt fish and other commodities. The ukase not only grants this reduction to the sub jects of Russia, but also to the people of those two provinces of Norway who may trade to the White Sea ; thus placing them in a more favoured situ ation with regard to trade than their fellow-subjects in the rest of the united kingdoms of Norway and Sweden, What would our government say, if a foreign power were to grant special immunity or RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 271 favour to the trade of any portion of its dominions which, like Ireland or Canada, might happen to be but loosely connected with the body politic ? If it be allowable to draw any inference from pubhc measures, none other can be drawn than that Russia is preparing, by the most judicious and unobjectionable means, for any change in the con nection of these two provinces with Norway which political circumstances might at any future period enable her to carry through. Besides this, the disproportionate military esta blishment kept up by Russia in the islands of Aland in the Bothnian Gulf, almost within sight of the Swedish coast, and the disproportionate naval force of twenty-two sail of the line kept up in the Baltic, — disproportionate as compared with any possible call for military or naval defence on that point of her dominions, — clearly show that she is prepared for aggression, as well as for defence, on that point, and is ready armed to act, upon the spur of the moment, if just and reasonable grounds should be presented, either from the political state of Europe in general, or of Sweden in particular. It is to be remembered that, according to the principles of legitimacy, there exists a dormant but not extinguished claim in the Vasa femily to the Swedish throne. If the constitutional and legiti mate principles should come into active collision throughout Europe, and if the Spanish peninsula should ultimately be settled upon the constitutional principle, it is obvious that a counterbalance on the opposite principle would be sought for in this 272 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. peninsula. It is no absurd conjecture that the price of such a restoration of legitimacy would be the provinces north of the 62d degree of north latitude, or of the natural mountain boundary of the Dovre Fjeld, Fille Fjeld, and Lange Fjeld, which divides Norway into north and south divi sions at that parallel of latitude ; and while Sweden as a legitimate instead of a constitutional monarchy would be more than compensated for the loss of Jemteland by the acquisition of South Norway, as an integral part of her dominions, the other legitimate monarchs of Europe, by rearing up at once a Russian naval power on the coast of the Atlantic, able, with its existing fleets and resources, to cope instantly with Britain on the high seas, from that position, would gain an ascendency in the affairs of the world which it is evident they must either now in this age attain, or they must lose their present power in the legislation of their re spective governments, and submit to be constitu tionally limited, as the Kings of Great Britain and Norway are, to executive functions only. If these views of the political position of the Scandinavian peninsula be not altogether visionary, there is but one course for the Swedish monarchy to take : it is, to place itself in advance of the liberal governments of Europe, to engage on its side the sympathies of all nations which have or desire to have free constitutions. It would not be to uphold in Sweden the universally decaying feudal structure of government, that other people would arm in her defence : it would not be to RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 273 support a constitution of king, lords, and clergy, in which the nation has in effect as little weight as it would have under the Russian government. The world is so far enlightened, that the advan tages to mankind and the ultimate effects on ci vilization would be weighed against the evils of a transfer of power and territory, where, as far as regards the condition and rights of the people, the transfer is but a name. If the short-sighted policy of the Swedish cabinet had proved success ful in the attempt to overturn the institutions of Norway, and to amalgamate her constitution with their own, public opinion would prevent in Great Britain any effectual and popular intervention in aid of a government which had so little respect for constitutional rights. It is from Great Britain alone, that interposition or aid from without can ever reach these kingdoms ; and it is not from the British cabinet of the day, but from the public opinion and feeling of the British nation, that these must come to be effectual. 274 CHAPTER VII. EMIGRANTS OF SMALL CAPITAL. — NORWAY BETTER THAN CANADA. LAND CHEAP. — LABOUR CHEAP. — HOUSES GOOD MODE OF PURCHASING LAND BANK OF NORWAY. — PECULIAR SYSTEM OF BANKING. — MORAL CONDITION AS AFFECTED BY THE GENERAL DIFFUSION OF PROPERTY PHYSICAL CONDITION. — LODGING COMPARED TO THAT OF THE SCOTCH PEASANTRY. — FOOD. — LIVING IN A NORWEGIAN FAMILY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. USE OF SPIRITS. — TEM PERANCE SOCIETIES. — GRAVESEND SMACKS. — BOTHY FOR FARM SERVANTS. — BED-CLOTHES. FOREIGN LUXURIES. — CHEAPNESS. BONDING SYSTEM. — CLOTHING HOUSEHOLD MANUFACTURES. ADVERTISEMENT OF A FARM TO BE SOLD. — VALUE OF MONEY. CLIMATE. Levanger, May 1 835, — There is a class of emigrants from Great Britain, for whom I con ceive this country is better adapted than Canada. All that land or water produces there is pro duced here, with the addition of good roads, good houses, an easy communication with Bri tain ; and society in the country itself, with all its institutions and arrangements, in a more ad vanced state, than it can reasonably be expected to have attained in newly peopled countries. It appears also, from the accounts given by Mr. Fer guson, Mr. Stewart, Captain Hall, and other tra vellers who have recently visited various parts of North America, that cleared habitable land, with good dwelling houses and farm offices on it, and in a state of cultivation to support the purchaser's family immediately, without the privation and misery of the back-settler's existence, but with a RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 275 reasonable portion of the decencies and comforts of civilized life, and with an easy access to markets by water carriage, is actually dearer in America than land possessing similar advantages in Norway. Norway is certainly not a country in which the emigrant can make money ; and being peopled fully up to its resources, it could absorb none of our labouring class of emigrants. The man who can work at a trade, or even at ordinary farm work, will do much better in America; he who has a little capital and wishes to increase it, and knows how, will also, I have no doubt, do much better there. The system of monopoly in favour of particular classes, which, as I have before ex plained, fetters all branches of industry in Norway, would prevent the success or even the admission of foreign capital or industry into any trade or manu facture. Norway is not a country for either of those classes of emigrants. But there is a class who can neither work nor trade, but who have a little money either as capital or as income, which they merely seek to live upon with some degree of comfort. They may have the wish, but are sen sible they have not the skill, to turn their capital to any advantage. For such people it js evidently ruin to emigrate to a country where labour is dear, as it is in America ; for labour is the very thing they must buy, cost what it will. From age, want of health and strength, or of practice, such persons have no physical ability to work. Cheap land is of no use to them without cheap labour to culti vate it. The dearness of labour in America T 2 276 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY-. makes it no doubt an excellent country for those who have labour to sell ; and very good even for those who, although they must buy common la bour at a dear rate, have some profession, busi- ness, trade, or occupation of their own, by which they can make others pay at a dear rate in return. But how does it answer for the emigrant who has but a small capital or income, and is out and out a consumer, not a producer,— who cannot labour himself in any way that is profitable ? This is the case of nine out of ten of those who have not been bred early in life to steady manual labour. The retired officer, the man bred at the desk, or ac customed only to sedentary employment, perhaps to no regular employment at all, stands in this situation. To this class the country in which labour cosfs sixpence a day is ten times better than that in which it costs five shillings. Norway presents many advantages to such emigrants. Land is cheap, and labour to work upon it is cheap. A piece of ground cleared of wood, inclosed, and long under cultivation, with a space behind of half- cleared land for outfield pasture, and capable of improvement ; with excellent log-houses upon it, two stories high, weather-boarded outside, lined inside, and with two goodly rows of cheerful win dows ; and this dwelling surrounded with barns, stables, cow-houses, and every sort of accommoda tion for crop and cattle, on such a clean and roomy scale, that the cow is better lodged than the cow's mistress is on many farms in the north of Scotland; near to a river, lake, or fiord, affording fish in RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 277 abundance ; fire-wood and building timber on the land ; and the farm large enough to keep a score of cows, six horses, and a small flock of sheep and goats, winter and summer, and to maintain a family and servants in all that land usually produces, leaving a surplus for sale sufficient to pay taxes, wages, and to provide the comforts and necessaries of life to a fair extent, — all this may be bought at from ten to twelve hundred pounds sterling, or even less ; and this in a country enjoying a free govern ment, abounding in proprietors of the same medium scale, and with none of a permanently higher class ; penetrated in all directions with excellent roads and navigable arms ofthe sea; furnishing markets for agricultural produce within itself; and with towns in which all the enjoyments of refined society may be found, and the productions of other climes and other countries may be obtained at the cheap est rate ; and, lastly, the whole within ten days' journey of England. This is surely preferable to any thing that America or Australia presents to the emigrants who merely want a domicile where they can live on their small means, with as many as possible of the comforts and advantages of Eu ropean life. To those helpless, handless people, the command of cheap labour is the* most indis pensable of their comforts. This advantage they have in Norway. The land is cultivated, as I have before explained, by a class of married farm servants who hold cottages with land on the skirts of each farm at a fixed rent for two lives,— that of the cottar tenant and of his widow, — under the T 3 278 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. obligation of furnishing a certain number of days' work on the main farm at a certain rate of wages. The ordinary rate is twelve skillings or 4^d. a day, with victuals ; and for married farm servants eight skillings, also with victuals. In many of the best cultivated districts of Scotland, a similar system prevails ; but the situation of the Norwegian house man is much better than that of the Scotch mar ried farm servant. Land not being of such value, he has more of it ; and what he holds is not merely a rig or two of potatoes and a cow's grass in summer, taken from year to year from a tenant, and de pending on his good-will or on the endurance of his lease, but it is a regular little farm, keeping generally two cows and some sheep, and producing a full subsistence for a family, and held for two lives. The law of the country has specially fa voured this class of housemen. In default of a written agreement registered in the parish court, the houseman is presumed to hold his possession for his own life and that of his wife, at the rent last paid by him. He can give up his land and remove, on giving six months' notice before the ordinary term, and is entitled to the value of the buildings put up at his own expense, which he may have left ; but the landlord cannot remove him or his widow so long as the stipulated rent and work are paid. By law also a regular book should be delivered to the houseman, in which his payments are entered by the landlord, and which in case of dispute would be adjusted at the end of the year in the court of the parish. The sons and daughters of RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 279 this class of housemen are the domestic servants and the ordinary labourers of the country. The territory being peopled fully up to its resources, it is only when a vacancy occurs in a houseman's place, that a young man can settle in life and marry; and his chance of obtaining the vacant house and land depends entirely upon his con duct and character. It is this check which keeps the class of servants and labourers as willing and obedient as in England or Scotland. There are great advantages in this system of supporting and paying the labourers in husbandry. The land-owner or fanner might as well propose not to feed his horses when he has no work for them, as not to feed his labourers. By the com munity, and out of the general mass of its property, the agricultural labourers must be fed, whether there is work for them or not. This can only be done either by a poor rate ; or by this way of giving them means to feed themselves by their own industry, and giving them a life-rent pro perty of their own to work upon, and fall back upon, in case of sickness, want of work, dearness of provision, or other general or local calamity. It is a very common arrangement among this class in Norway, if old age, sickness, or the death of the houseman himself and the infancy of his chil dren sljould prevent the occupant in possession from furnishing the stipulated rent and work, to give it over to a young man, reserving a living, with house-room and fuel, as long as the original life-rent interest of the parties endures. Thus T 4 280 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. the old, infirm, the widows and children subsist, without being burdensome as paupers ; and the young man who works the little farm has his own living in the meantime, and the prospect of suc ceeding to the original life-renters. The subject of emigration is so full of interest to the numerous class of small capitalists or an nuitants who are but little adapted for the life of labour and privation which settlers in a new colony must submit to, that any information with regard to the state of property and society in a country in which land, all things considered, is as cheap as in America or 'Australia, and labour and the other comforts of hfe cheaper, and which is comparatively at our own doors, will probably be welcome. At the risk of being tedious, and of repeating observ ations over and over again, I shall give at length the views with which I have been impressed of the state of the different classes and of property in this country. In Norway the law of succession has prevented property from being accumulated in large masses. The estates of individuals are in general small; and the houses, furniture, food, comforts, ways and means of living among all classes, appear to me to approach more nearly to an equality to one standard, than in any country in Eu rope. This standard is far removed fr^m any want or discomfort on one hand, and from any luxury or display on the other. The actual par tition of the land itself seems in practice not to go below such a portion of land as will support a family comfortably according to the habits and RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 281 notions of the country ; and it is indeed evident that a piece of ground without houses on it, and too small to keep a family according to the national estimation of what is requisite, would be of no value as a separate property. The heirs, accord ingly, either sell- to each other, or sell the whole to a stranger, and divide the proceeds. The duty of the sorenskriver, or district judge, consists prin cipally in arranging this kind of chancery business; and all debts and deeds affecting property are re gistered with him. The heirs who sell very often, instead of a sum of money, which is seldom at the command of the parties, take a life-ifent payment or annuity of so much grain, the keep of so many cows, so much fire-wood, a dwelling-house on the property, or some equivalents of that kind. It is rare to find an estate without some burden of this kind. It is called the kaar or wilkaar ; that is, the condition upon which the estate or gaard has been sold. The value put bythe seher upon his reserved annuity is naturally, as no man supposes that he himself is to die at an ordinary age, vastly greater than its real value according to the computation of the chances of life ; and a small money price over and above the kaar contents him. This is one cause which keeps the price ofland be^ow the value at which we wouldestiraate good old tillage ground, producing as heavy crops of oats and bear as our best land would produce under the same imperfect management. Another cause keeping down the price ofland is the Odelsbaarn right. By this the heir, even although he was the party who sold the property himself, is entitled to redeem the land sold 282 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. from the purchaser by paying back the price. The bonder or peasant proprietors are extremely tena cious of this feudal right, although its effect evidently is to reduce the marketable value of their estates. The latent hope of the proprietor, that he or his family may again acquire the paternal acres, blinds him to the obvious consequence that no man will give a fair price for land which may be taken back at a future period. The time of redemption is now limited by law to five years, and the cost of im provements as well as the purchase money must be paid back. The right is practically therefore no real impedirhent to a purchaser, as he can easily discover whether the seller or his heirs can be in a situation by any chance in the course of so short a time to repay the purchase money and improve ments ; and practically it operates in his favour, as, though only a bare possibihty, it is valued as a condition affecting the property for five years, and to be reckoned against its price accordingly. To these causes of the cost of land being so moderate in Norway, must be added one which the emigrant should never forget. Land in Norway will give a comfortable living to the owner, but will do no more. No investment beyond what a man occu pies and uses for his family would be profitable, because where almost all are proprietors tenants are scarce ; and from the standard of living being high, and formed upon a state of society in which almost all are proprietors of the farms they culti vate, and are living fully upon the produce, a re spectable tenant would live as well as other people of his class, that is, as well as the laird himself It RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 283 would only be a small surplus that, after taking out of the produce his own living and that of his ser vants, he would have to pay as yearly rent. It is usual, therefore, when a person happens to have more than his own family farm, to bygsel the land; that is, to let it at a trifling or nominal yearly rent for the life of the tenant and of his wife, the man and wife being always joined in these leases, and to take a fine or grassum when it is granted .or renewed. That quantity of land which supplies a family with farm produce, and requires no great skill, activity, or capital to manage, is all that is wanted by any individual. There is consequently little demand for land, while family arrangements among heirs often fill the market without any demand. The peculiar, and, for the wants of the country, well imagined Bank of Norway, facilitates greatly the family arrangements with regard to land. This bank was founded on the 14th of June, 1816, and has its head office in Dronthiem, with branches in the principal towns ; and is under the direction of five stockholders, with a council of fifteen repre sentatives ofthe other proprietors. Its capital was originally raised by a forced loan or tax upon all landed property, and the landholders became share holders according to the amount of their respective payments. In a short time these shares became a valuable stock, and are at a considerable premium. The transactions of this bank are conducted upon a principle totally opposite, to that of our Scotch and other banking establishments. It is there con sidered as a first principle that the bank should hold only available securities, as bills or bonds 284 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. only at a short date, or payable at a short notice, for its issues or advances. But such a system would have been of little use to a nation of land holders. The National Bank of Norway is there fore a bank for landed property, and discounts mercantile bills and personal securities only as a secondary branch. Its principal business consists in advancing in its own notes, upon first securities oyer land, any sum not exceeding two-thirds of the value of the property, according to a general va luation, which was taken in the year 1812, and in which the seed corn, horses, cows, and other par ticulars, ascertaining the value and extent of each farm, are very generally noted. The borrower pays half-yearly to the bank the interest of the sum that may be at his debit at the rate of four per cent, per annum ; and is bound also to pay off five per cent, yearly of the principal, which is thus liquidated in twenty years, and he has only the interest upon the balance each year re maining against him. The lender, the bank, has a twentieth part of its capital replaced each year, and draws four per cent, for the use of what re mains outstanding. In the event of non-payment ofthe interest and instalment at the regular period, the bank of course proceeds by a summary sale of the property by public auction, to realise its se curities. A circulation of paper money issued on this basis is evidently next in point of security to that ofthe precious metals. Its profits may be low, as its whole capital is turned over only once m twenty years, and the principal benefit may be RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 285 from the circulation which the notes command, in consequence of the known security on which they rest. The accommodation, however, thus afforded to a nation of small proprietors, is of very great value, as the money required to pay off' the shares of brothers and sisters in the estate can be obtained, with the certainty that it will not be called up in one sum at any uncertain period. Would a bank upon the same principle be able to support itself in England ? The want of a system of registration of debts affecting land would be an impediment to such an attempt. The uncertain value of land, as long as the corn laws exist, and the poor are not provided for by any permanent system, would be another. There are others per haps as insuperable, from the competition for cir culation, and the complicated interests connected with the whole financial and banking systems in Britain, which render what is undoubtedly working well and beneficially in the simple concerns of a poor country like Norway, altogether inapplicable to a country in such a different state. This state of property, and its general diffusion through the social body, has, I have no doubt, a beneficial effect on the moral, as it certainly has on the physical condition of the people. The former must always be very much a matter of theory and conjecture to the traveller ; and his sweeping con clusions, drawn from the insolated facts which happen "to come within his limited circle of observ ation, are of little value. As vice, however, or immorality, is not so much connected with the 286 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. State of wealth or poverty as with the inordinate desire for the one and the inordinate dread of the other, afavourable conclusion may be formed respect ing a country in which wealth is the exception, not the rule, by which people form their modes of living, and has consequently few of the charms which attend its possession in other societies, and no sort of consideration, political influence, or weight in the affairs of the community. The desire for it is thus considerably blunted; it is not the same actuat ing, engrossing principle of human action, and the spring of much that is evil and immoral is removed. The dread of poverty is also less influential where extreme destitution is as rare as great wealth, and where there is so much less difference in the com forts and consideration of the richer and poorer classes. Regarding the physical condition of the people, as to food, fuel, clothing, lodging, educa tion, and property, any man who travels with his eyes open, and takes opportunities of discerning, may form an accurate judgment; and he may leave it to higher intellect to trace the effects upon the moral character and condition of the people. There is no nation so well lodged as the Norwegian, none so generally well provided v.ith fuel. These are gifts of nature to the greater part ofthe country. In the islands, and along some parts of the coast, building timber is not produced, and even fire wood is so scarce that peat is beginning to be gene rally used ; but these are pecuhar situations, in which the inhabitants are compensated by the near ness to the fishing grounds. In the dwellings RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 287 generally of the labouring class, the squalor, dampness, darkness, and total want of accommoda tion and comfort of the sod-built hovels which disgrace the face of the earth in Scotland and Ireland, are unknown. The meanest habitation has wooden floors, windows, apartments for the family to sleep in, besides their sitting room ; also fit places for keeping their food. It is highly ^characteristic of Scotland, that within sight of its Parthenon, human dens may be found in which whole families — father, mother, and grown-up daughters and sons — are lodged under one roof) without other division into apartments for the de cent separation of the sexes than is made by a wooden bedstead placed in the middle, without other floor than the r£^w earth ; the walls of sods and stones, not lined with wood inside ; the roof a mass of damp rotten straw and decayed vegetable substances, supported by a few sooty rafters ; the windows a single pane or two of glass stuck in a hole in the thatch or the wall ; the family provi sions of meal, salt meat, herrings, milk, butter, all huddled together in the single room, in which all the wet stockings and sweaty shirts are fuming and drying, and all the exhalations ofthe crowded inmates, cooking, eating, and sleeping, are poisoning the atmosphere. If the cost of the architectural toys which adorn the Scotch metropolis had been laid out in forcing upon the consideration of the legislature the wretched condition of the labouring class in respect of dwellings suitable to a civilized and educated people, and the necessity, whatever 288 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. financial obstacles might be alleged, of doing away with all the duties affecting the building mate rials — the wood, glass, brick, tile, slate — which prevent the erection of wholesome, decent, and comfortable habitations for the mass of the nation, it would have been in better taste, than the present laughable, or rather melancholy, contrast between the palace ofthe laird and the hut ofthe peasant. In respect of food also, the lower class in Norway appears to be better provided. It is more neariy similar in kind and quahty to that used by the higher class. This may appear a trifling cir cumstance, yet it is of some importance. It is not a sound state of society where the upper and lower classes have nothing in common ; where, as in Scotland, the mode of living, dwellings, food, and even dialect, are so different that the higher class might be taken by a stranger for a distinct tribe inhabiting the same land. In England even, the gentry are more closely knit with the labouring class, from the business of the poor rates and of their magisterial duties, which necessarily produce some intercourse, some knowledge of their con cerns. The distance between the two classes is more closely filled up there than in Scotland, by its more numerous middle class. In this country the difference in the way of living between high and low is small, because every man lives from the produce of his farm ; and from the want of ready markets for farm produce, and the necessity of finding money to make their annual payments of taxes, or of instalments to the bank, or of por- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 289 tions to co-heirs in their estates, they live with the utmost simplicity and economy with regard to every thing that takes money directly out of their pock ets. In their housekeeping, the only articles for which they must go to market are coffee and sugar, and similar groceries. In the consumption of what the farm produces, there appears little fru gality to those accustomed to see every article sold or estimated at high market prices. I shall best illustrate this by an example of their way of living. I was acquainted with the family of the pro prietor of a farm which maintains sixteen cows, four horses, a score or more of sheep, and the same of goats. I consider this farm to be about the ordinary size of properties in this part of Nor way. There are many much larger keeping up wards of forty cows, some much less keeping three or four only ; but the latter are generally occupied by fishermen, housemen, woodmen, or others not depending altogether on the land for subsistence. The number of cattle which the crop can support all winter, and the grass all summer, gives to those acquainted with farming a better idea of such estates than the extent in acres ; but they must recollect that the milking and working stock are kept during the long winter of seven months, or more, principally on hay, and that sown grasses for hay not being in general use, but the land, after a bear crop following potatoes, left to sward itself with natural grasses for four years, and to form the hay land, the proportion of grass to arable is greater than in our farms. The servants constantly 290 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. employed are two lads and a dairy maid. There are also two housemen paying their rent principally in work, and maintained on working days. In the morning the first thing the family take is coffee. There are districts in which even the dairy maids expect it. The work people have a cake of oat or bear meal with butter, and a dram of potatoe brandy. About nine what we should call break fast is set out, consisting generally of slices of meat, tread and butter, cheese of various inds, smoked salmon, and such articles ; and at this meal the Norwegians generally take a glass of potatoe brandy. Ale and sometimes tea makes its ap pearance. The work people have for breakfast milk, soup, and bread and butter, or pottage and milk with oatcake, and make a substantial meal. At twelve, or in some places earlier, comes dinner. This is a spare repast compared to an English or German one. It is the custom of the country, instead of one or two heavy meals, to take food often in the day. I have seen even a table d'hote dinner without any meat, and never more than one dish ; the rest fish, potatoes, and soup. The work people have herrings, potatoes, and bar ley broth with bread ; or bacon, salt meat, and black puddings, instead of fish. They have meat at least twice a week in every family ; bacon, and beef, and mutton are cured and stored in autumn for this pur pose : the family after dinner take coffee. In the afternoon comes a second edition of the breakfast, with slices of meat, dried fish, bread, butter, cheese, ale, brandy, and tea. The work people have again a RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 291 substantial meal, similar to their first breakfast, and a dram. It struck me as a circumstance very cha racteristic of them and their condition, when I saw a little girl go out to some labourers who were re pairing a road at a little distance, with their bread and butter, and cheese, and the dram bottle and glass, and returning with several slices of the bread and butter left, and a portion of spirits left in the bottle. To take more than a single glass at that meal seemed not to enter their minds, although they might have used what they pleased ; and they are not a sober people. Having, from its cheapness, and its being made at every farm house, the free command of spirits, with only the restraint which propriety and fitness impose, they use it as gentlemen in former days used their wine, that is, to excess on festive occasions ; but without that diseased craving at all times, however unsuit able, which seems engendered among our labour ing people by the limited opportunities of getting liquor, produced by its high price and the fiscal restrictions on its distillation and sale. Unable to get it when they would, they take it when they can. This effect of restraint, as the strongest excitement to indulgence, is natural ; and perhaps but for it the gratification would scarcely be thought of. The attempts of well-meaning people to do away entirely with the use of spirituous liquors among the labouring class by temperance societies, ap pear not altogether well considered. There are occasions of severe labour and exposure, when the human frame, by general experience, requires the u 2 292 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. temporary excitement of spirituous liquors or some substitute for them : to moderate, not abolish this natural desire, is alone useful and practicable. The practice of the Gravesend fishing smacks is the most instructive lesson on this subject. When those vessels go to the North Sea fishery, a supply is put on board, of the porter sold in the alehouses of Gravesend ; the very same on which every man when on shore gets drunk as often as he can afford it. There is no daily allowance served out of this liquor, which is of extremely good quality; but every man may go to the cask when he pleases and draw what he wants. The practical result is, that even among this class, after the novelty of having the liquor at command is over, the liberty is so far from being abused, that less is consumed on the voyage than if an ordinary daily allowance had been served out. The supply laid in is often brought back not nearly consumed. The people have no excitement to take more than a draught when thirsty, as they have it at pleasure, and for nothing. The cheap access to liquor appears to have similar effect on the habits of the labouring people in Norway. They are not a sober people ; but I have remarked that I never saw one of them drunk when he was especially required to be sober. I never saw a man at work, or a soldier in regimentals, in liquor. It is not common, as in Scotland, to meet a person in the streets or on the roads in a state of intoxication. They take con venient times and places for their potations; and weddings, baptisms, burials, besides the Christinas, RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 293 midsummer, hay and corn harvest home, and other festivals, give times and places enough with out much alehouse or spirit-shop meetings. But we have still another meal to get through. Supper comes at nine o'clock, and is the counter part of the dinner, or rather the principal meal, as meat is more generally used at it than at dinner. The working people have pottage and milk, broth, potatoes, or fish, at this meal. A sort of fish dried without salt, called by us sethe (gadus virens, or carbonarius), is much used. It is a coarse fish, not esteemed with us ; but here it is first steeped in a ley of wood ashes, when the alkali combines with the oily matter and leaves a gelatinous, and apparently very nutritious food, formed out of a very unpro mising material. Thus four regular meals a day, with two drams, form the stated fare of the labouring class. This is a diet very superior to that of the agricultural la bourers in Scotland, who have their allowance of oatmeal and milk, usually without any other kind of provision ; not even butter, bacon, or fish. The food of the Scotch labourers is in one respect better, — that the oatmeal is more substantial, from the grain being shelled before grinding, and the meal sifted. Their accommodation, — the bothy, which Cobbet^so justly stigmatises as disgraceful to a civilized country, and which, from the total want of comfort and often of cleanliness, is ruinous to the domestic habits of the labourer — is so inferior to the accommodation of the farm servants here, that the Scotch gentleman who sees the latter must u 3 294 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. blush when he remembers how his own farm servants are lodged. There is a bothy here, as in Scotland, on every farm, called a Bortstue. It is usually a separate house detached from the main one, and better, — I speak on the authority of Scotch farm ser vants bred in Aberdeenshire and the Mearns,— than the dwehing-houses of many respectable farmers paying considerable rents in that part of Scotland. It consists of one large well lighted room with four windows, a good stove or fireplace, a wooden floor, with benches, chairs, and a table. At the end is a kitchen, in which their victuals are cooked by a servant, whose business it is to attend the bortstue and cook for the people. The space above is divided into bed-rooms, each with a win dow, and the doors lead into a kind of covered gallery, open at the side, such as we still see in some of the old inns in London ; and in this gal lery the bed-clothes are hung out daily, whatever be the weather. The whole house is washed every Saturday, the floors sprinkled, according to the custom of the country, with green sprigs ; and in every respect, excepting an article or two of fur niture, these rooms are as good, and are as warm, clean, and cheerful, as those in the main house. In this large room, the people sit and take their meals, and the tailor, shoemaker, harness-maker, and such tradesmen as go round from farm to farm, execute their work. There is a room in the main house in which the spinning, weaving, and other female work is carried on, under the eye of the mistress. In respect of bedding and bed- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 295 clothes, the working class is better off with us. Rugs and blankets are cleaner and wholesomer than fells ; that is, skins of sheep, goats, or reindeer, dressed with the wool or hair on. These, quilted together, form universally the bedding of the la bouring class in Norway ; and one consisting of six sheep-skins costs about a dollar and a half. It is cheaper certainly than any blanketing, as six shillings would not furnish a labouring man's bed in Britain. It is also much warmer, as the natural skin of the animal, with the hair or wool on, surpasses as a non-conducter of heat any artificial preparation of wool or hair. The Lap lander in his skin dress, and in a skin bag which he puts over his head and shoulders, will sleep night after night on the snow in the fjelde, in a degree of cold which would extinguish the life of one exposed to it in any woollen clothing. They are not hardier than other people. There is probably no very great difference between the capability of different human frames to withstand the extremes of cold. It is undoubtedly the nature of the cloth ing that keeps their bodies in warmth, while ours are cold. The skins, with this advantage, are however far from being so cleanly as the manu factured bed-clothes of our labouring class, which can be washed and scoured. These details may seem trifling ; but gentlemen and ladies are not the only readers in the present age. There is a numerous class to whom the most minute inform ation respecting the comparative mode of hving, diet, comforts, even the bedding, fuel, and lodg- u 4 296 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. ing, and especially the civil station in the com munity of the middle and lower classes in other countries, comes with a peculiar and home-felt in terest. Norway sends her produce, wood and fish, to every European country, and by the return of her vessels is supplied with every foreign article that she requires at the cheapest rate of freight. The import duties are very moderate. Articles which have been in use, and are not intended for sale, as furniture, books, clothes, or household goods, are not subject to duty. In the payment ofthe duties, the merchant is allowed a facility by the custom-house system which enables him to sell his goods at a cheap rate, hav ing no part of his capital invested in the payment of duties previous to sale. It appears to be supe rior to that of our bonded warehouses, being much more economical both for government and for the merchant. The importer takes his goods at once to his own warehouse or shop, on giving security for the amount of the duties ascertained by the custom-house officers at landing, keeps a book of his sales, and pays the duty every three months upon the quantity which appears to have been sold. Government thus in fact receives its duties from the consumer, and the merchant's capital is left free for more active employment. The inha bitant of Norway receives the products of many countries, tea, coffee, sugar, manufactures, and other goods from the British, Hamburgh, and Dutch markets, wines and brandies from the French and RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 297 Spanish, often at a cheaper rate than the people of those countries. Land carriage and municipal taxes make the wines for instance of France, Portugal, or Spain, dearer to the inhabitants of those countries than to the citizens of Bergen or Dronthiem. Coffee, sugar, tea, a little French brandy, and a little tobacco (though the Norwegians smoke less than any other continental people), are the principal articles in this country which take money out of the pocket of the housekeeper ; spiceries may per haps be added, as all sorts of good provisions are spoilt by a cookery derived from the times of the Hanseatic League, when cloves, and cardamoms, and sauces, and mixtures long since forgotten in England, were in high repute. Other articles are found almost all within themselves, according to the common phrase ; that is, either produced at home, or some kind of substitute used ; or they are wanted altogether, and from habit not missed. In the country, shoes and clothes are made at home. The shoemaker and tailor go round, cobble, and sew for a few weeks at each gaard, getting their maintenance, and being paid frequently in meal, potatoes, butter, or other produce. There are looms at work in every house in the country. Carding, spinning, and weaving are constant occupations of the mistress and female servants. Woollen cloth, substantial but coarse, excellent bed and table linen, and checked or striped cotton or linen for female apparel, seem the ordinary fabrics in progress. The family of the bonder, with the ex- 298 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. ception perhaps of his Sunday hat, is generally clothed in home-made stuffs ; and the country church is but little indebted to Glasgow or Man chester for any display of finery. They, however, are well clothed. Boots, gloves, and in bad wea ther great-coats, are worn by ordinary working men, and a person in rags is rarely seen. A set of clothes for Sunday is possessed by every individual. This is the case in Scotland also ; but in England it is not at all uncommon that the working man has only his working clothes, and a clean smock frock over all, to go to church in. The people of con dition, or upper class, dress as in other countries ; and this is perhaps the principal expense in their families beyond those of the bonder, as foreign manufactures are dearer ; and it seems to be a kind of conventional distinction, there being none in living or lodging, that the one class wears foreign and the other home-made stuffs. This family manufacturing is not the most approved way of supplying a nation with cloths at the cheapest rate and of the best quality. There is unquestion ably a waste of time and labour, if the production alone be considered ; and the article is more costly, although vastly inferior in quality, to what skill and capital aided by machinery can produce. But it is a better condition for the mass of the population of a country, that generally one man should have work of some kind or other for twelve months in the year, than that two should have each only six months' work. If the domestic manufactures of cloth, leather, utensils, implements, now carried RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 299 on in every household in Norway, were superseded by the labour of distinct classes, as in England and Scotland, employed only in such manufactures, would the advantage of superior quality and cheap ness compensate the great evil of labourers not having work during the six months of the year in which agriculture is totally suspended ? It may be doubted if Norway would make a good exchange, if her present household manufactures, coarse though they be, which employ perhaps four per sons in every family in Norway during the winter season, were exchanged for the possession of one second-rate manufacturing town, which would no doubt supply all those articles much better in quality and with much less waste of time and labour. There may be a greater national good than the cheapness, excellence, and extension of a manufacture. The wealth of a nation, that is, of its state or government, may depend much upon productive labour well applied, and upon great accumulations of manufacturing capital to apply it ; the happy condition and well being of a people seem to depend more on the wide distribution of employment over the face of a country by small but numerous masses of capital. To the emigrant of moderate ^capital, it may be interesting to hear what he can get for his money within six days' sail of England. He can compare it with what is promised him in Canada or in Aus tralia. The following description of an estate is taken without selection from the advertisements in the daily newspaper, the Morgen Blad, of property 300 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. to be sold. It will serve also to describe the usual accommodations and buildings on such small estates in this country. " A two-story dwelling-house, with seven apart ments, of which two are painted. A large kitchen, hall, and room for hanging clothes, and two cehars. There is a side building of one story, containing servants' room, brewing kitchen, calender room, chaise-house, and wood-house. A two-story house on pillars with a pantry, and store-room. The farm buildings consist of a thrashing barn, and barns for hay, straw, and chaff; a stable for five horses ; a cattle house for eight cows, with divisions for calves and sheep. There is a good kitchen garden, and a good fishery ; and also a considerable wood, supplying timber for house-building, for fences, and for fuel, besides the right of cutting wood in the common forest. The seater or hill pasture is only half a mile (that is, three and a half English miles) from the farm. The arable land extends to the sowing of eight barrels of grain and twenty-five or thirty of potatoes (the barrel is half a quarter), besides the land for hay ; and the farm can keep within itself, summer and winter, two horses, eight cows, and forty sheep and goats. There is also a houseman's farm and houses. It keeps two cows, six sheep, and has arable land to the sowing of one and a half barrels of grain and six barrels of po tatoes. The property adjoins a good high road, is within four miles (eight and twenty English miles) of Christiania." — It is offered in the adver tisement at the price of 4000 dollars. This is JIESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 301 probably one third more than the usual price of such properties, as the district about Christiania is more favourably situated for markets, and land sells considerably dearer, than in other parts of Norway. The amount of taxes, general and local, including tithe and poor-rate, would probably be for such a property not less than twenty-five dollars. This class of emigrants should never forget that there are three different sorts of value in foreign money, in all that regards their concerns and si tuations. One is its mercantile value in exchange, as compared with our own currency ; another is its value in exchange for corn, labour, house rent, fuel, or other necessaries or luxuries in the country of which it is the currency ; a third is its value in society, arising from its distribution in small or great por tions. Among penniless people the man with a sove reign in his pocket is rich. In a country in which property is distributed generally among the inhabit ants, and there are not the extremes of very enor mous accumulations of wealth and of excessive destitution and want close to each other, the medium point ofthe fortunes of individuals is low ; and a very little above that point is a state of com parative affluence. The emigrant family should endeavour to understand and enter into this con ventional value of money in the country in which they settle, as well as its exchangeable and econo mical value. When a few hundred dollars are the amount ofthe ordinary incomes of the families of the first society, a few dollars more are of great 302 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. relative importance ; and the dollar is in this point of view altogether equivalent to the pound sterling with us. The emigrant should learn so to consider and value it in his expenditure, and should rub out of his recohection altogether that this dollar, which is of so much weight in social use and estimation, cost him only one fifth of a pound sterling. Climate, or the ordinary course of summer and winter weather, has much influence on the emigrant's comfort. In Norway the weather is in general more steady than in Britain ; it is either good or bad for considerable periods. The western part, especially about Bergen and along the coast, is proverbially rainy, owing to the high mountains which collect the clouds driven from the sea. But the country behind this barrier is on that account particularly dry, perhaps rather too much so. The summer is delightful. In the sunny narrow glens it is too warm at noontide, and the air too thickly peopled with flies, midges, mosquitoes, and all those bloodthirsty enemies of human quietude ; but the evening and midnight hours are delightful, and peculiar to Norway. The sun is below the horizon for so short a time that the sky retains the glow, and the air the warmth and dryness, which are grateful to the eye and to the feelings. The damp raw chill which generally pervades the air even of our midsummer midnights is not felt in the interior of Norway, where one may be out of doors all night with de light. Winter too is pleasant. The air is cold ; but it is a dry, sound, exhilarating cold, which in- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 303 vigorates even the fireside man, and entices him to long walks and brisk exercise. It is not the damp, raw, shivering, nose-reddening cold of our sea air, which makes even the healthy draw to the chimney-corner. The in-door climate in winter is also excellent. The rooms are so large as to be in general well aired, and so equally warmed by the stoves that one feels comfortable in any corner ; and the log upon log make such tight dry walls that currents and draughts of wind and damp are never felt. The disagreeable season in this climate is spring, the transition from winter to summer, — that is, in April and May. One feels then the soft genial breath of spring, the sun shines bright and warm, the lark is in the sky ; but all the earth is white, and the eye is tired of white, and seeks in vain for the soft tender green which the feel of the air promises. The jingle of the sledge bells, so cheerful in a dark winter day, does not at all har monize with the song of the lark in a glittering sunshine. The snow too is painfully bright to the eyes under an April sun. Where it melts vege tation bursts forth at once ; but the patchy un picturesque appearance of the country, with a knob of rock here and a corner of a field there ap pearing through the white covering, deprives us of the pleasing impressions of an English spring. The rapid advance of vegetation is more astonish ing than pleasing. It is not agreeable to step thus at once from dead winter to living summer, and to lose the charm and interest of the gradual re vival of all that has leaf or wing. 304 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. CHAPTER VIII. FISHING IN NORWAY. — HIRE A FARM. — DESCRIPTION. AN CIENT FRESH-WATER LAKES. MIDGRUNDEN GAARD. FARMING. — RENT. ASIATIC ORIGIN OF SCANDINAVIANS. LAPLANDERS, CELTIC USE OF HORSE FLESH. HEREDITARY ATTACHMENT TO THE HORSE. BERSERKER. PECULIAR INTOXICATION. DOMESTIC SERVANTS IN AMERICA — IN NORWAY HOUSEKEEPERS IN FAMILIES PROVISIONS. — CAPERCAILZIE. — PTARM IGA N JERPER BEA R-SHOOTING. — HYBERNATION OF ANIMALS. — CONDITION OF BONDER CLASS. EQUALITY OF MANNERS. EXCURSION TO SNASEN-VAND. ANCIENT SEA BEACH ABOVE THE PRESENT LEVEL OF THE SEA. EXCURSION THROUGH THE FJELDE. — BARK BREAD. ViERA LAKE. SHJJEKKERHATTE. BIVOUAC. SHJSIKKER VALLEY. — TREES AT VARIOUS ELEVATIONS ABOVE THE SEA. FURU. GRAN. — BI RCH. June, 1835. — I passed an agreeable winter in the district of Skogn. I have not perhaps con veyed an adequate idea of the simplicity and good taste conspicuous in the way of living, and of the amiable manners of the upper classes, the country gentry, the public functionaries, and families of condition. It is difficult to do so without entering into detail, which, although honourable to their hospitable and kind spirit, would be violating the sanctity of that private unostentatious rational life which they lead. The winter was remarkable, though not for cold, yet for the quantity of snow which had fallen at a late period. In many parts of the Fjelde it was twenty feet deep. The torrents and rivers were rushing silent and brimful. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 305 like streams of melted metal, across the country. There was no real impediment to travelling, for the roads and bridges, and the arrangements for keeping them in repair, are admirable. But there was the impediment to the curious traveller, that he can see nothing of a country covered with snow, however far or fast he may travel. I had been seized, too, last summer, with the mania of angling. Fishing is not such a tame insipid sport in Norway as it may be in the Paddington Canal or the New River. It requires legs and eyes to get over the steep promontories which dip into deep and dark pools, from which the cry of the luckless angler who slips in would never reach human ear. The gentle fisher, also, will do well to sling his rifle across his shoulders. He may, in following the Fjelde stream, come to some green and lonely nook which foot of man never trod before, and while he is chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy, may pop upon a bear, which might chew him. Fishing, however, and snow water never go on together. The rivers were thick and heavy with melted snow ; and it was evident from the state of the streams, and the snow-clad background of the Fjelde, that it would be the end of July before the half-melted snow and the dead cold waters had run out.* In spring I determined for these good reasons, and as the language was no longer an impediment to doing what I pleased, to fix myself for some time where I should be near to good fishing streams, to the Fjelde, and among that class of society which is 306 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. peculiar to Norway, and does not exist in any feudally organised country, — the bonder, or small udal proprietors. In May I hired one of these little udal estates for twelve months. It may amuse, and perhaps be useful, to enter into the details of my mode of living. This place is situated in the valley of Vaerdal, one of the main openings running from the plateau of the Fjelde into the fiord of Dronthiem. A river of considerable magnitude, as broad as the Tweed, runs through it, and the land on each side is of excellent soil, and cultivated in a continuous chain of small estates. This beautiful valley is three or four miles in breadth at its outlet into the fiord, but not above half a mile in breadth from, rock to rock where my farm is situated, which is about fifteen miles up from the sea. In the middle of the flat of rich dry loam covered with the finest verdure, runs the river, abounding in all that delights the angler, — deep and silent pools, alter nating with shallow gravelly beds, over which the current runs briskly and musically; the banks free from the annoyance of brushwood, the water from stumps, dead branches, or weeds ; and salmon and trout abundant. About three miles further up than my abode, the river falls out of a higher valley, by a cascade about sixty feet high, into that of Vaerdal. The former, called Helgodal, extends about twenty miles, and is occupied in a continuous chain of farms, at least on one side. The crops of grain, however, in this higher valley are not always safe from early frost. At the upper RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 307 end it branches into uninhabited Fjelde glens, or seater valleys, used only for summer pasturage by the farmers in the lower tract. Each farm has its own seater, on which there are houses for the accommodation ofthe dairy-maids, herd-boys, and cattle, who reside at the seater generally from the beginning of June to the end of September. It is impossible to see these valleys without being struck with the conviction that they have been chains of fresh water lakes which have burst the barriers that retained them, and have been suddenly laid dry. On ascending the steeps which bound the flat alluvial bottom of the valley on each side, and which consist generally of banks of a gravelly soil, one is surprised to find a kind of upper terrace of excellent land, cultivated and inhabited like the bottom, and consisting of the same soil, a friable loam. This terrace rests against the primary rocks ofthe Fjelde, which are here limestone, marble, and gneiss, or rock of the micaceous family, of which the laminae are sin gularly twisted and contorted; and the terrace has evidently been the bottom of an ancient lake which has been bounded by these Fjelde ridges. This lake has probably been drained by some sudden convulsion ; for the slop^ to the level below are steep and sharp, which they would not have been if exposed to the long-continued action of waves or currents. The gaard which 1 hired is among the smallest of the udal estates into which this valley is di vided. A description of it may give more precise X 2 308 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. ideas than any general observations can do of the condition ofthe interesting class of bonder, or small land owners. My farm consists partly of a flat piece of land between the brae and the river, but safe from floods, and of about eighteen acres. This part is intersected by the pubhc road through the valley, and fenced in at each end from my neighbours' land by a mutual wood paling. The brae rises steep behind, but is covered with good grass where it is not overgrown with brushwood. On getting to the top, about eighty feet above the river, one finds the upper terrace consisting also of good alluvial soil, but more clayey than the flat below, and also more intersected with small dells or guUeys, which appear by their steep sides to have been formed by the rush of waters at once withdrawn. The land here belonging to my gaard may be about forty acres; and some flat parts have been under crop, allowed to rest four or five years when exhausted, and again taken up. Behind it, and fenced off by a hill dyke of wood paling, is the Fjelde, or rather the forest, of which the portion belonging to each farm is marked out by a lane cut through the trees. It yields fuel, wood for fences, and building timber; but the rock, a species of marble, is so near the surface that it is incapable of any improvement. There belongs also to this farm, twelve or fourteen miles up in the Fjelde, a seater or summer pasture, with good houses. There is also a detached spot * * A detached piece of meadow or arable land is called the Eng of the farm. Hence probably the name of England, which, whether ap- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 309 with a houseman's farm, and another has his dwelling and farm on the upper terrace. The steading and dwelling-house of this farm are situ- ed on the lower flat of land by the roadside. It consists of a dwelling house, divided below into a small lobby, kitchen, and store closet ; one good and large room, of the breadth of the house, with four windows, and a small bed-room with two windows adjoining to it. The upper story is di vided into three apartments. This is below the average of accommodation on such properties in this part of Norway. The servants' house, or bortstue, consists of a good sitting-room with three windows, a kitchen adjoining, and the upper story divided into sleeping apartments. Between these two houses is the appendage to all Nor wegian dwellings ¦ — the store-room on pillars, with its steps detached from the building. It consists of two rooms, one above the other. A four-horse stable and a sheep-house, with hay-loft above, to which there is a wooden bridge that admits the horse and load of hay into the loft itself; and a cow-house for twelve cows, with a similar loft and bridge. These bridges are formed of spars from the ground to the door of the loft, laid with as small a slope as the ground will admit : they are universally used, and deserve to Ibe so ; as they save a great deal of the pitching and handling of plied to the original seat of the Anglo-Saxons in Sleswick, or to their conquest in Britain, was descriptive of the kind of country, and its relar tive position to the countries around. x3 310 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. sheaves and hay which take place even on our best constructed farm steadings. I doubt if so mtich as twelve acres had been under crop at one time. The rest, to the extent of fifty or sixty acres, was necessary for pasture before the stock was sent to the seater, and for hay. Three horses, or at the least two, eight cows, and a score of sheep and goats, would be the usual stock of the Nor wegian farmer ; and besides the two housemen, who had their victuals on the days they worked, with eight skillings per day of wages, there would be a lad at the house all the year, a woman to cook and attend the cattle and dairy, and the farmer's own family to subsist out of the produce of such a property. Having no rent to pay, the farmer is less depending upon money-bringing crops than with us. Butter, cheese, and milk, enter largely into family consumption. If grain and potatoes for the use ofthe farm, and a little surplus for sale to pay the land-tax and buy luxuries with, can be raised by the farmer, all the purposes of farming in Norway are answered. There are not, as in other countries, considerable masses of population in towns and villages unconnected with agricul tural production for themselves, and drawing their food from the adjacent land. It is obvious that the basis of all agricultural improvement is wanting in Norway — markets for what improvement can pro duce. This is partly owing to the state of pro perty. Where all are producers more or less of their own food, from the Laplander on the Fjelde to the fisherman on the ocean, there can be no RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 311 very effective demand for agricultural produce. Husbandry never can become what it is in Scotland and England, — a manufacture of corn, mutton, beef and other provisions, carried on by a class of manufacturers called farmers, who have large capitals embarked in their business ; and having high rents to pay for the sites and premises on which they work, and much competition to meet in some articles from foreign manufacturers of victuals, must adopt many improvements and modes of husbandry not applicable to the farming of a country in which the farmer has only to ma nufacture out of his own land his own subsistence, or very little more to pay his taxes with, and where the extent of land possessed in one place by any one is too small to admit of regular husbandry on the same principles as in Britain, In which way, under which system of holding and occupying the land of the country — that of England, Scotland, and Ireland, or that of Norway — are the people of the country best off ; in the best condition; best provided, natural circumstances of soil and climate considered, with the means of comfortable and civilised subsistence ? That is the true question which interests the mass of the British nation, in comparing its condition with that of this handful of people in the north: not which Tiation manufac tures most or best cotton cloth from a bale of cotton, or most or best corn or mutton from an acre of land. It will admit of no doubt, that the condition ofthe people in this country, possessing all the land and property among them, and sub- X 4 312 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. sisting from it, is a happier condition than that which the feudal system has engendered, and entailed upon the people of the other countries of Europe. It may be useful to an emigrant to mention that the rent I pay for this little udal gaard is forty-one dollars, which includes eleven dollars repaid in work done by two housemen ; so that the real rent is thirty dollars. The taxes amount to fourteen dollars, including the district assessments for roads and bridges, which are heavy, as there are no turnpike dues levied in Norway ; and including also taxes for the police and other local objects: but not the poor-rate, or church, schoolmaster, and minister's ,dues. The latter are all under a dollar. The poor- rate is the maintenance of an indigent man for a week in the year, whose work, in stripping leaves from the branches of brushwood for the winter food of the goats, more than repaid his aliment. The cows which I purchased cost from nine to eleven dollars each, and are handsome, fine-boned, thin-skinned animals, like the Guernsey breed. Sheep and goats cost a dollar or a dollar and a fifth each. A good little horse, four years old, cost twenty-five dollars. A good cart with harness eight dollars. These trifling details are tiresome to read, yet may be very useful to know. As to furniture of wood, such as chairs, tables, bedsteads, the farm servant is generally carpenter enough to make such articles very neatly, I repose in carved work which might adorn a prebend's stall in an old cathedral, and sit on cushions of skin which would RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 313 have graced his parlour in the days of Queen Elizabeth. The most expensive article in every room is the stove or kakle-oven, which, although only of cast-iron, and very rudely formed, costs about twenty dollars. It is in universal use, the open chimney being now confined to the Fjelde bonder. June. — The Asiatic origin of the Scandinavian race, and of that religion of Odin or Asa-Odin, which prevailed among them until the eleventh century, is placed beyond a doubt, although the causes and exact period of their migration are matters of conjecture only. It appears also un deniable that the original inhabitants before this migration were the progenitors of the present Lapland race. Whether any other people inha bited the country at that period seems uncertain. The tales, legends, or traditions in the Saga relative to Jetter, who were at once giants and wizards or demons, would seem to establish that some people more formidable to the large-sized Asiatics than the diminutive Laplanders may have existed in the country. Yet witchcraft or supernatural powers, which to this day are ascribed to the Lap lander by the vulgar of the other race, would naturally give rise to the idea of superior size and strength, when the Laplander, driven to the Fjelde and to the extreme north, became out of the range of personal knowledge to the majority of the people, and, consequently, a being for imagin ation and credulity to enlarge. There is no evi dence from remains of tombs or other objects that 314 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. any third race ever inhabited the country. The two are as distinct in physical appearance as the varieties of a species can be; and as, owing to their totally different habits and modes of living, in termarriage is extremely rare, their distinctive characters stand out more contrasted and less graduated into each other than in other countries — as Scotland — which are peopled by two different races. The affinity between the Norwegian and the German is obvious. The mind in viewing them cannot avoid classing them as belonging to one original stock, although unable to point out or express the peculiar points of similarity. By the same instinctive operation which discovers at once what is called blood in horses, or the cast of coun tenance in families or nations, one is impressed, on seeing the Laplanders, with the conviction that they are a branch of the great Celtic family which seems to have occupied Europe before the im migration of the Gothic people from Asia. The cast of countenance, the colour ofthe eyes and hair, the structure of the frame, and even the liveliness of gesture, are so similar in the best specimens of the Lapland people to what one meets with in those countries in which there are still remains of the Celtic blood, — as the south-west of France, Wales, and the highlands of Scotland, — that the mind is at once impressed with the conviction that they are of the same breed. Clothe a handsome Lapland girl in the Welsh costume, and place her with a basket on her arm in the market-place of Chester, and the stranger would chuck her under RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 315 the chin, and ask what she had got to sell, without suspecting that she was not a Cambrian. Try the same experiment with a specimen of the Gothic race taken even from any English county, and the eye would at once observe the difference. The descriptions given by many travellers of the Lap landers are caricatured. They are ugly in old age undoubtedly ; but the country has yet to be dis covered in which the lady of sixty enjoys the bloom of sixteen. I would like a few shares in the steam packet company to such a land. Like the lower classes in all countries who are much exposed to the weather, and suffer great fatigue, they soon appear old, and are then abundantly ugly; but among ten old women of the labouring class in the south of France, nine would carry away the palm in this respect from the Lapland ladies. The young are often pretty : fine dark hair, fine t^eth, lively dark eyes, good complexions, small features, and a good-natured expression, can enter into no combination which is not at least pretty. The Asiatic origin of the Gothic tribe which wandered into Scandinavia is marked even until the eleventh century by a circumstance not mentioned, I think, by the Roman historians as characteristic of the ancient Germans, though considered likewise of oriental derivation : they retained the custom of using horseflesh as food. The dearest of all animal food would be the flesh of the horse. He consumes the produce of a much greater area of land than ruminating animals of the same weight. Indigenous inhabitants of the peninsula could 316 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY'. never have fallen into this habit, as having too little land to produce such food. It was only on the vast plains of Asia, where the range of pasture is boundless, that it could have originated. When the tribe settled in a land of fjelde and forest, in which the horse could only be bred in compara tively limited numbers, its flesh was eaten only as a luxury at religious festivals. In the year 956 Hacon, the foster son of Athelstane of England, was obliged by the bonder to give up his attempt to introduce Christianity; and as a proof of his sincerity, he partook in the feast of horseflesh in honour of Odin. The use of horseflesh was hence considered a proof of paganism. By the bloody Saint Olaf it was punished with death or mutilation ; and the insurrection which drove him from the throne, and after the battle of Stikklestadt in 1030, brought Norway for a time under the sway of Canute the Great of England, was occasioned by his cruelties towards those who were accused or suspected of using this food, and consequently of having relapsed into paganism. The Icelanders of that age appear to have possessed some power. They refused to adopt Christianity unless on the condition of being allowed to use horseflesh as for merly, and refused altogether to allow Saint Olaf to form an establishment upon a small island on their coast. The tribe of Anglo-Saxons do not appear to have used horseflesh before their conversion to Christianity, from which it may be conjectured that the wandering of their progenitors into Europe may have been of a different epoch, or from a different RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 317 original abode, from that of the Scandinavians, Is it a fanciful or just observation, that the people of every spot in Europe in which this Scandinavian tribe obtained settlements in after ages, — Northum berland and Yorkshire, Normandy, Naples, — retain a stronger attachment to the horse, and a better breed ofthe animal, the consequence of long here ditary care, than those ofthe neighbouring countries ? In England and France, the horse is to this day in greatest perfection and most carefully attended to exactly within the bounds of the ancient Nor man establishments — the kingdom of Northumber land, and Normandy ; and graduates into an inferior breed, with less habitual good treatment from the lower class, as these bounds are receded from. The present Norwegian is as fond of horseflesh as his forefathers ; not for food, but for conveyance. Every bonde keeps a cariole or a gig for himself and wife to drive in during summer, and a double sledge for winter ; and to walk even the shortest distance is a mode of progression as little thought of as in Arabia. I am not more than three quarters of an English mile from the church of Vuku, in which there is service every third Sunday. The bonder on each side of me invariably go thither in their carioles or gigs, as well as those who come from the further end of the Helgodal, or from Vaera, or Suul, twenty-five to thirty miles distant. At a funeral from the next house to mine of a labouring man, not a single person attended on foot. There is no part of Europe less adapted for cavalry movements than this part of Norway. In a hun- 318 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. dred English miles along the Dronthiem fiord, and northwards, there are but three spots at the mouths of rivers on which there is ground sufficiently level for a regiment of cavalry to exercise ; and even those small alluvial spots are so obstructed, and commanded by knobs of rock and brushwood, that a single company of their own excellent riflemen would cut up all the horsemen that could be col lected on them, and prevent all supply of forage even from the immediate vicinity. For a hundred miles back in every direction, the country is of the same description, there not being ten acres ofland together which is not commanded. Yet cavalry is the passion ofthe country. The horses are sup ported on a system very economical for government, which would only be tolerated in a very horse- loving country : but it is popular here. Each gaard of a certain value has to provide and keep a horse of the size and age suitable for the service. It may be used by the bonder for all light work on the farms, and for riding or driving about ; but must be kept in good condition, and is inspected once in a quarter of a year. For six or eight weeks in summer it is called out, and the bonder are allowed so much per day while it is on service, and which amounts to about twenty-two dollars. The animal during that interval is fed by govern ment ; and if injured is paid for at a valuation. This allowance is reckoned an advantage by the bonde, who in truth would keep the horse for his pleasure at any rate. The men who ride these steeds are a sort of local militia, sons of bonder RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 319 and of housemen of a certain age, who serve for five years, and are only embodied and paid for a few weeks in summer. Such is the aptitude of this people for military exercises, owing, perhaps, to the free use of their limbs, previously acquired by con stant practice with the axe in wood-cutting, that I have been told by officers, English and foreign, who were competent to judge, that their appear ance at drill was extremely respectable, far beyond any that troops not permanently embodied usually make. Another oriental usage which the Scandinavian tribe appears to have retained to a late period, was that of taking opium or some intoxicating drug, which rendered the class who secretly used it — the Berserker — insensible to danger or pain in the bat tle field, inspired them with a fury or madness more than human, and made them during the paroxysm capable of preternatural exertions of muscular energy. A proportionable lassitude and weakness followed the excitement. It is evident from the occasional descriptions given of the Berserker in the Saga, that they were under the influence of some powerful and peculiar kind of intoxication during their Berserker-gang. That produced by spirituous hquors, even if distillation had been known at that period, would not produce similar effects on the human frame, as it disables the limbs from acting in general, whatever may be the fury ofthe words and gestures. Ordinary drunkenness could never render the individuals ofthe Berserker class formidable among a people addicted them- 320 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. selves to excess in fermented liquors, the effect of which is little different from that of those distilled. There is said to be a way of preparing ale still known among the bonder in some parts of Bergen Amt, which is supposed to be the beverage used by the Berserker. Instead of hops, it is prepared with the leaves of a plant which grows in miry spots on the Fjelde, and is known by the name of Paast. It is possible that the infusion of some indigenous plant may impart peculiar intoxicating power to liquor. In some parts of Scotland, there is a vague traditionary opinion that ale may be brewed from the flowers of the heath plant. I suspect it would be all the better of a little malt ; but the intoxicat ing power of different plants, and the effects of that power, have never been soberly examined. I have met with a gentleman in the course of my inquiries on this subject, who had himself expe rienced the effects of the ale prepared with paast, and he has no doubt that it was the means used to inspire the Berserker with their peculiar fury. He met with it at a bridal among the bonder on the side ofthe Hardinger fiord, where he happened to be quartered. It inspired an activity and contempt of danger, and a capability of extraordinary feats of exertion, in scrambling over precipices, running, leaping, and such exercises, which the party could not have accomplished but under its influence ; it also left a lassitude and debility proportioned to the temporary madness it had inspired. June. — The class of domestic servants in Ame rica appears, by the accounts of travellers, to add RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 321 little to the comforts of social life. They appear to labour under a constant morbid desire to show that they are equal in all respec^ to those whom they serve, or, as they express it, help. The cause of this lies perhaps as much in the posi tion of the master as of the servant class, in American society. Rank and privilege do not exist, or give no social distinction. Wealth can command no particular respect, where to the ex tent of a good and independent living it can be so easily acquired ; and education to a certain extent is common to all. The serving class are in the right. In the structure of the society, there is no basis, real or fictitious, upon which the employer can claim respect from the employed. In this country, rank and privilege have as little influence and are as entirely abolished as in America ; and probably in no quarter of America of equal popula tion, is property so universally diffused among the inhabitants, and a comfortable and equal, or nearly equal, mode of living in the essential points of food, lodging, fuel, and clothing, enjoyed by all classes. One would expect, therefore, that the same com fortless and almost acrimonious relation between master and servant should exist here. This is not the case. The country having for ages been peopled up to its resources, its different classes are as distinctly separated, and with as little blending together, as in the feudally constituted countries, in which the separation is effected by legal privi leges and established ranks. The magic circle which education and manners draw round the cul- 322 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. tivated class, and within which wealth alone even in England cannot intrude, is occupied as in other countries by persons of various degrees of riches, but who clearly and indisputably are superior in mental acquirements as a body to the bonder, or class of small proprietors. The latter form a totally distinct body, which, although possessing property, and the whole political influence in the country and in the legislative branch of government, do not constitute or consider themselves the first class. The respect which they pay to others, is the school in which the lower class of housemen or labourers learn to respect them. The difference between the bonde and houseman is not in education, manners, or way of living, but in property, and in the power which the land-owner has of choosing his labourer. In America, until the land is fully peopled, it must be the labourer who chooses the master ; and this relation, which may exist there for many ages, appears to make domestic servants a necessary evil, rather than a source of comfort in social life. In Norway there is no want of proper respect between master and servant, although the constitution of society, the distribution of property, and the elec tion and powers of the legislative assembly, form a much more democratical body politic than that pf the United States. Men-servants for in-door work are rarely seen in Norwegian households ; but in almost every family there is a housekeeper. The quantity of articles to be laid in at once for the whole year, and to be given out daily or hourly, makes this necessary, even RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 323 in bonder families. In the families of condition, the housekeeper covers the table, brings in the dinner, and takes her seat next the lady of the house. If any thing is wanted, she gets up, waits on the guests, and sits down again ; and it is impos sible not to admire the good taste which is uni versally shown in Norway, in the treatment of this class of persons. They are in manners and educa tion far removed from the class of servants, and are invariably treated with as much consideration and respect as any of the ladies of the family, and usually invited into company with them. It is not improbable that this trait of amiable and ancient manners may have been transplanted to, and re tained in, the United States ; where in fact many ofthe old European ways of living appear still to linger, and may be the foundation of all the wrath and wit ofthe English travellers at seeing the female who has been providing for the wants of the guests take her seat quietly among the company when her assistance is not required. The English keep their servants at a greater distance, and treat them with less affability, than other nations ; and it is singular, but natural enough, that this is in exact proportion to the small original difference there may have been between the master and the servant. The English nobleman and private gentleman is usually kind and considerate to his servants ; he is often famihar, always affable to them. The grocer or linendraper treats them with aristocratic hauteur, and is often a much more helpless, comfortless being without their attendance than persons of an Y 2 324 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. elevated rank. I have known a shopkeeper's son ring the bell for his servant to snuff the candles, snuffers and candles being on the table before him. An English Gil Bias could give us curious peeps into human character. An emigrant family coming to this country •to live, either permanently or for a short period, should bring no servants with them. A maid-ser vant's wages are from eight to ten dollars yearly ; and they are much more neat and handy than coun try girls usually are, at least in Scotland. A good housekeeper expects no more than twenty or twenty- five dollars, or four to five pounds sterling, yearly. June. — Having when I first went to occupy my gaard, sent all the stores of sugar, coffee, tea, flour, and such articles as I thought necessary, by sea from Dronthiem to a little village at the mouth of the river of Vaerdal, and got them transported up the valley to my cottage, I set off in my cariole, a little anxious about a supply of eatables where there were no markets. I found no difficulty. The kind bonder around had sent in presents of eggs, and cheese, and butter, and trout, and salmon ; and before evening I had cows in the meadow, and sheep on the hill, and a larder replenished with tydder, roer, ryper, and jerper, and sundry goodly roasts of reindeer venison. The tydder is the bird known of old in Scotland by the name of caper cailzie, but now extinct. The cock, as formerly mentioned, is a noble bird, of the size of a turkey cock, and with a bill and claws of great strength. I have found no food, however, in the gizzard, that RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 325' seemed to requirf. such powerful tools; only the needles ofthe pine, with a great number of little crystallised pebbles or gravel of quartz. The roer is the female, and in size, plumage, and appearance, so different from the male, that it has received a dif ferent name in the language. These birds might pro bably be domesticated, as the wild turkey has been. They are strong bold creatures, and a few of the chickens which I attempted to rear appeared less delicate than the young of the turkey. I lost them by some neglect, but I have no doubt they might be reared more easily than turkeys. The ryper is our ptarmigan, but somewhat larger and better clothed than in Scotland. In flavour these birds are much inferior to the game of the Scotch hills. They feed on the needles of the pine and fir, and have generally a slight taste of turpentine. The jerper, however, is a more delicate bird for the table than any of our game. It is of the grouse species, not larger than a full-grown pigeon, and its meat whiter than that of our partridge. It lives on the birch leaves, and is only found among birch woods. The Fjelde bonder shoot all these bh-ds, in season or out of season, and generally indeed after they have paired and are laying eggs, as they are then most easily got at. The birds are all shot with single ball ; and the bonder are very expert with the rifle. The jerper or ryper is a small object to hit with ball. July. — I went out one night in June, after I was settled, with two bonder to look for a bear. In June, when the snow on the Fjelde begins to y3 326 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. melt and green patches appear, the female bear comes out of the woods with her young ones to feed; and this is the best time to shoot them. There seems to be danger enough in the sport to make it interesting, but not so much as to make it formidable. Two or three people unite, and generally proceed with caution, ready to support each other, as to fall in with the bear unprepared, or to wound without disabling him, would be dan gerous for a single sportsman. We set off about six o'clock in the evening, and climbed up to the plateau ofthe Fjelde, which maybe eight hundred Or a thousand feet above the bottom of this valley; and the slopes are steep, broken, and thickly wooded. On the plateau or table-land of the Fjelde, the trees are more scattered, and appear in masses only in the vales and sheltered depressions of the. ground. The rest is a mixture of large stones or rocks of gneiss, or primary schistus, mo rasses, very little heath, and some sheltered dales of grass, which look more green and beautiful from the desolation all around. About fifteen ffr twenty miles from our valley, some of the small rills which run into it are interlaced with others which run into the branches of rivers falling into the Gulf of Bothnia. These river sources are separated by no particular elevation. The hills or mountains scattered upon this table-land, although of consi derable height above the sea level, are not strik ingly elevated above the visible base. The highest in this quarter, Hermandsnaze and Shjaekerhatte, do not exceed 3800 feet above the sea, and the RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 327 Fjelde base from which they rise is probably 1800, We came before midnight in front of a forest at the foot of a hill, where there was a spot of lively tender grass, and our sport consisted in bivouacking all night under bushes, and watching, with our rifles prepared, every appearance of move ment from the forest. It was good light infantry exercise ; and although we saw no bear, I was much gratified with the night's amusement. It gave me an idea of what it might be, if half a do zen of our young English sportsmen were to take to the Fjelde for a summer, with tents, good rifles, and a few dogs. I was gratified also at seeing the seaters or out-pastures belonging to farms thirty or forty miles distant in the lower country. They would be beautiful little grass farms. The sheel ings or houses are low log huts close together, and resembling very much a Highland cottage farm in Scotland. They are situated generally in some valley, near a stream or little mountain lake. Each farm in the valley has its own seater in the Fjelde, with buildings on it ; and there is often a consider able quantity of bog hay made and stacked in summer at the seater, and carried home on sledges in winter on the snow. Without the snow levelling all obstructions, the timber, and hay, and products of various kinds could never be brought to the lower country. In Norway the bear retires to his den, which is generally some sheltered hole in the rocks of the Fjelde, in November, and remains in a dormant or inactive state without , food until April. The Y 4 328 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. female brings forth her young, and suckles them during this period of hybernation. The animal functions are therefore not entirely suspended. It is said that there is nothing found in the stomach or bowels of the bear when he is tracked to his winter lair and killed, and that he eats nothing for some days before retiring ; that he is quite fat at that period, but when he re-appears is very meagre and exhausted. This habit of hybernating in a dormant or torpid state is a remarkable con dition of animal life in particular climates. It seems induced by temperature or supply of food, and to be regulated by these, not by anything in the economy of the animal structure or constitution. The bear in his half-tame state loses this habit. Many of the smaller animals, the field-mice, the lemmings, and perhaps many of the birds, pass the winter in this climate in a state of occasional torpidity. They retire, and are not to be seen during the continuance of very severe weather in winter. It is very possible that hybernation may at some former period have been a much more general condition of animal life on our earth than it is now. In this way the vast accumulations of bones in the celebrated caves of Franconia and Yorkshire, especially those of the hyena and such solitary carnivorous animals, might be accounted for. The bones of such animals as, from the nature of their food, must be of solitary, not gre garious, habits, might be found dispersed and scattered over a country in every place where they happened to escape decomposition, but could not RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. ¦ 329 be found accumulated in one cavern, unless that cavern happened to be the most suitable place in a large tract of country for the animals to resort to for safety in the dormant state. The same cavern would be used generation after generation ; and possibly animals of the same epoch which in their usual state of activity would never resort to the same locality, might congregate on the approach of their semi-torpid state in the same cavern for hybernation. The period of torpidity might be so different in different animals, that the deer and the hyena might sleep together with impunity in the same cave. It might be, to a certain degree, as certained by direct experiment in our zoological gardens, what habits various animals would assume if exposed gradually to such a change of temper ature and supply of food as might be expected to induce hybernation, or the collecting a winter store of food in a den. July 20. — One hears often in Norway from the most intelligent men that the bonder class, or small proprietors, live too high, indulge too much in ex pensive luxuries, as coffee and sugar, frequent and expensive entertainments at each other's houses, carioles, sledges, and harness of a costly kind, and even a horse or two more than the farm work requires to drive about with. In proof of this is adduced the great want of money among them to pay even the most trifling taxes or other sums. The difficulty with regard to money is obvious ; but I attribute it not to the want of property or produce, which is worth money, but to the want 330 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. of sale from the absurd restrictions on the freedom of internal trade. A man with land worth three or four thousand dollars, and with crops, potatoes, horses, cows, and all sorts of products in abun dance, is often at a loss for flve or ten dollars. It is very possible that this difficulty of selling, and almost necessity of consuming the farm produce, may occasion habits of indulgence and even waste. Their houses, and in the best rooms their furniture, beds, and all other household plenishing, are as good as those of the gentry in the neighbourhood ; but then their estates are as good also. They are in fact the gentry of the country, and the gentry are the aristocracy ; but without privilege, prefer ence, or even pretence of any superiority. Pre tence of any kind is altogether foreign to the Norwegian character. I have not seen an instance of that sort of vanity which makes a man assume an importance which does not belong to him. There is nothing to assume ; because, comparing class to class, the bonder is the most important, influential, and possessed of most property. The luxury which is complained of has evident good con sequences. People must live like their neighbours. The house must be good ; the beds, stoves, furniture, and so on, neighbour-like ; and each of these re quisites is a more effective preventive check on the early or improvident marriage of a young bonder couple, than if they had got Malthus and Chalmers, with all their moral restraints and considerations, by heart, and repeated them every evening before going to bed. This luxury, also, which is, after all, RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 331 not carried to any blamable extent, gives a very pleasing and unexpected urbanity to their manners. It is probably the effect of their frequent enter tainments, or gilds, at each other's houses. The bonde not only treats strangers or neighbours with the forms and expressions of politeness be longing to the usages and language of the culti vated classes, but there is a strain of civility I have observed towards his wife, children, and servants in ordinary intercourse, which is often wanting among our middle class. He is not in the smallest degree what we call a vulgar man, although often a homely uncouth-looking person, from the antique cut and coarse material of his dress. But I speak ofthe man, not of his costume. If there be a happy class of people in Europe, it is the Norwegian bonder. He is the owner of his little estate : he has no feu duty or feudal service to pay to any superior. He is the king of his own land, and landlord as well as king. His poor-rate and tithes are too inconsiderable to be mentioned. His scat or land-tax is heavy, but everything he uses is in consequence so much cheaper ; and he has that which renders the heaviest tax light, — the management of it by his own representatives, and the satisfaction of publicity and economy in its application. He has the satisfaction of seeing from Storthing to Storthing that the taxes are diminishing, and the public debt paying off. He is well lodged ; has abundance of fuel; and that quantity of land in general which does not place him above the neces sity of personal labour, but far above want or 332 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. privation if sickness or age should prevent him from working. He has also no class above him ; nobody who can look down upon him, or whom he or his family look up to either to obtain objects of a false ambition, or to imitate out of a spirit of vanity. He has a greater variety of food than the same class in other countries ; for besides what his farm produces, which is mostly consumed in his housekeeping, the Fjelde, the lakes and rivers, and the fiords, afford game, fish, and other articles. He has also variety of labour, which is, perhaps, among the greatest enjoyments in the life of a labouring man ; for there is recreation in change. His distant seater, his woodcutting for fuel, his share of the fishery in the neighbouring river or lake, give that sort of holiday work which is re freshing. His winter toil is of the same kind ; as steady agricultural labour in the field is out of the question. It consists in making all the implements, furniture, and clothing that his family may require; thrashing out the crop, attending to the cattle, dis tilling his potatoes, brewing, and driving about to fairs or visits. The heaviest part of it is driving wood out of the forests, or bog hay from the Fjelde. He has no cares for his family, because he knows what their condition will be after his death. He knows that his wife succeeds to him, and as long as she lives unmarried the only difference made by his death is that there is one less in the family. On her death or second marriage, he knows that each of his children has a right to a share of his property ; and according to their number he makes his arrangements for their either living on the land RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 333 as before, or dividing it, or for being settled in other occupations and taking a share of the value when it comes to be divided. July. — There is no circumstance in the con dition of the people of this country which strikes the observer more than the great equality of all classes, not only in houses, furniture, diet, and the enjoyment of the necessaries and comforts of life, but in manners, habits, and character : they all approach much more nearly to one standard than in any other country ; and the standard is far from being a low one as to character, manners, and habits. In these the educated and cultivated class are, to English feelings at least, far above the higher classes in other foreign countries. They seem to have more affinity to those of our own countrymen; but the lower classes appear to have made a nearer approach to the higher than in other countries. This is probably owing to the diffusion of property going on perpetually through all the ranks of so ciety , and carrying down with it to the lower strata its humanising influences upon the cha racter, the civilisation, the self-respect, the moral jestraint, the independence of spirit, and the amiable manners and consideration for others in domestic intercourse even among tlpe lowest of the people, which in other countries are found only among the classes in easy circumstances. The cause seems to be that between the distribution and general dissemination of property by their peculiar law of succession, and the general simpli city ofthe way of living, a greater proportion of the people really are in easy circumstances than in 334 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. any other country in Europe. The alternate de scent and ascent of property through the whole mass of society, like heat applied to the fluid in a caldron, has brought the whole to a nearly equal temperature. All have the ideas, habits, and cha racter of people possessed of independent property, which they are living upon without any care about increasing it, and fi:ee from the anxiety and fever of money-making or money-losing. Midgrunden Oaard, July. — In the course of the summer, I made an excursion to the Snaasen Vand, About seven miles inland from the present sea strand, at the head of the fiord, and about sixty feet above the present high-water level, there is an ancient sea-beach of a very remarkable character. Above the house of Fossum, and forty feet higher than the lake of that name, which is formed by the river that runs from Snaasen Vand into the fiord at Steenkjffir, the sea-shells are so abundant that they might be applied to agricultural purposes, and they lie close to the surface. On crossing the bridge over the river which joins Fossum Vand to Rein Vand, about a mile further on, and near to Fov Church, we find a large bed of sea-shells, which have been used in mending the road, for a a considerable distance, towards Snaasen Vand. They are entire ; the upper and under ones of the muscle, cockle, and clam are united, and the mus cles grouped together, as in their living state ; so that this bed has clearly been the spot upon which the animals lived. The razor-fish shell, which is fragile, and will not bear to be rolled about by the RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 335 waves, is also to be found entire. The common buckie, or white large whelk, is also abundant. All the shells I could find are common, and to be met with on the shores of the fiord at the present day; and many of them retain their original colour : the muscle its blue, the razor-fish its brown, and the scallop the pink hue, which some of the fresh shells have. From the entire state of the large scallop and large smooth cockle or clam shells, I conclude that this has been the native bed on which they grew. Through the parish of Skey, this ancient sea-shore may be traced by a similar deposit of shells. At Hegle Bridge, about six miles inland from the shore at Levanger, I found, in the course of the summer, the shells of the cockle, muscle, and whelk ; and about twenty miles nearer Dronthiem, in the steep hill side be tween the station-house of Fordal and that of Forbord, the cockle and clam make their appear ance at about the same elevation above the sea. The large peninsula near the mouth of the Dron thiem fiord, called Oreland, is also stated by Von Buch to be covered, under a layer of moss, with a stratum of sea-shells. From these indications we may conclude that a shore, in a direction nearly parallel to that of the present one of the Dron thiem Gulfi and on a level, at least sixty feet higher, has existed at a recent geological period. The sea has left the land, or the land the sea, so recently that shells, in their native bed, retain ing in part their natural hue and enamel, are not covered with any thickness of decayed vegetable 336 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY.. soil. The historical period of known points upon the line of the present shore, is better ascertained than in most localities in early modern history. Steenkjaer, Maere, the site of the principal temple of Odin at the introduction of Christianity, and the city of Dronthiem, are known points, which existed on their present sites between eight hun dred and a thousand years ago, as they are fre quently mentioned in the historical Saga of Haar fagre and his successors. But the most ancient of them, as well as the highest above the present sea level, is Maere, which stands on a small eminence or hillock, near to the present shore of the fiord, in Sparboe ; and although there are no remains of the temple, there is no doubt whatever of the identity of the spot, and it may be assumed to have been above water for at least a thousand years ; yet it must have been several fathoms below it at the time these muscle, and cockle, and scal lop shells, which still retain traces of their natural colours, were inhabited by living animals on this ancient shore. Man cannot build such permanent dwellings as these animals. As the Dronthiem fiord may be considered, with reference to the peninsula, as the reverse side to the Bothnian Gulf, and it is no improbable conjecture that the two may have joined, the ancient level of the sea on this side is very interesting. The retiring or the raising ofthe land ofthe peninsula could be ascer tained with more precision, if it can be ascertained at all, on this coast, on which there are no local accumulations of mud or river deposits, by which RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 337 the land gains at one place and loses at another, than in the Baltic or the Bothnian Gulf. The imperishable primitive rock and the water allow of no third agent, such as the river accumulations on flat coasts, to confuse the observations. It is evi dent that a sea-shore has been where these beds of shells now rest upon the land, at least sixty feet above the present shore. It is evident, also, that a thousand years have made little, if any, alteration upon the relative position of known points to the present sea level. The assumption of the Swedish philosophers, that the change of level in the Gulf of Finland is at the rate of about four and a half feet in the century, must be somehow erroneous, if applied to the retiring of the sea ; because in that case the sea, a thousand years ago, would have stood forty-five feet higher than at present, and many points, as those above mentioned, known by historical record to have then occupied their pre sent position, would have been under water. If applied to the rising of the land above the sea, the observation may be correct ; because this may be local, and not equally on both sides, and in all parts of the peninsula. The land next the Gulf of Bothnia may be rising at the rate of four and a half feet in a century, and that on^this side not so much in a thousand years. My landlord has a very extensive estate in the Fjelde, extending at least forty miles along the Swedish frontier,- and comprehending valleys filled with valuable timber. I was glad of an oppor tunity of accompanying him on an excursion to z 338 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. some distant parts of it. We drove up the valley of Helgodal, which is a continuation of Vaerdal under a different name, but on a higher level. The main branch of the same river which runs through Vaerdal waters this valley, and falls from it by a noble cascade, called Herfoss, upwards of sixty feet high, into the lower valley. This ar rangement of valley above valley is common in Norway, and occasions singular appearances. About half a mile higher up in Voerdal than my gaard, a very large stream seems to issue from the very summit of the hills which bound the the valley on one side, and descends a mighty torrent, never frozen in consequence of its magni tude, and turning twelve or fourteen corn rrtills perched on the declivity. On ascending to the summit of the hills from which it seems to issue, one finds a quiet sluggish river, winding through a flat upper terrace, at least two hundred feet above the valley, into which it precipitates itself, and being in fact the outlet of a lake upon this higher level, which is about seven miles in length. It would be an upper valley, if a shght obstruction to the issue of its waters by this channel were re moved. It is of more value as it is, affording, in winter and summer, the means of grinding the corn of a large district, and supporting by this branch of industry the little village of Ullevil. It is the finest range of perpetual water power I ever saw. What would it not be worth in some parts of England for turning machinery ! The length of this upper valley of Helgodal is about RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 339 twenty-five miles ; and on the north it is occupied by farms, on which the crops are as good and as far advanced as in our lower valley. The opposite side, being in the shade of the steep grounds behind, is a mass of forest, with only one or two farms. In these narrow valleys, where the sun is low in winter and spring, the sunny side is of great importance. Opposite to where I live, there is a little farm, which does not see the sun for fifteen weeks in the year. About twenty miles up the valley of Helgodal, a fine stream joins it from the north-east, form ing a very picturesque waterfall. It is called the Shjaekker; and trout of eighteen pounds' weight are sometimes taken at its foot. The angler could not find in Norway so good a situ ation as the head of Vaerdal valley ; the streams and lakes within reach are so numerous, of a size to be within command of the rod, and free from the obstructions of sunk trees or weeds, or marshy borders. We followed the south branch of the river, and, as far as cultivation extends, found a good road with bridges over every side stream. The last farm, Brataasen, is situated on a steep immense bank of gravel and loose earth, the deposit, I conceive, of a lake which has filled Helgodal, and made an issue for itself at the great waterfall of Herfoss, where it has left similar steep mounds and accumulations, all of which rest immediately upon the primary schist ofthe Fjelde, We left our carioles at this farm, and with a guide took to the Fjelde, leading our horses, as riding z 2 340 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. was not practicable. It is difficult to convey an idea of the dreary aspect of this plateau, and its utter solitude. The soil covers only in patches the naked rock. Every hollow is a pool, or a morass. Trees are sprinkled over the surface; but they do not enliven the scene, being the dark, stern-looking pines, which appear almost like a piece of the rock from which they are growing. Many were standing with all their branches dead, stripped of the bark to make bread, and blanched by the weather, resembling white marble, — mere ghosts of trees. The bread is made of the inner rind next to the wood, taken off in flakes like a sheet of foolscap paper, and is steeped or washed in warm water to clear off its astringent principle. It is then hung across a rope to dry in the sun, and looks exactly like sheets of parchment. When dry it is pounded into small pieces, mixed with corn, and ground into meal on the hand mill or quern. It is much more generally used than I supposed. There are districts in which the forests suffered very considerable damage in the years 1812 and 1814, when bad crops and the war, then raging, reduced many to bark bread. The extended cul tivation ofthe potatoe since that period has pro bably placed the inhabitants ofthe lower country beyond the necessity of generally resorting to it ; but the Fjelde bonder use it, more or less, every year. It is not very unpalatable, nor is there any good reason for supposing it unwholesome, if well prepared; but it is very costly. The value of the tree, which is left to perish on its' root, would buy RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 341 a sack of flour, if the English market were open. They starve, and we shiver in our wretched dwell ings, although each country has the means of reliev ing the other with advantage to itself; and all for the sake of supporting colonies, and other interests, which add little to the wellbeing of the people of Great Britain, Towards night, we came to a considerable lake, about seven miles in length, called Vajra, which is the source of the main branch of the rivei of Vaerdal. Seven families, tenants of my landlord, dwell on its borders. They are true Fjelde bon der. Corn, or even potatoes, cannot be raised here. In a patch of a few yards of potatoes planted on the bank the leaf was already yellow, touched by the frost, on the last days of July ; and clothes laid on the grass all night were stiff with hoar frost in the morning. Woodcutting is even out of the reach of these Vaera people, owing to the distance, and^ uncertainty of floating the trunks to the saw-mills. They live entirely by tending cat tle, fishing in the lake, and in winter shooting game for sale. These appear not very productive occupations, yet are the people well off. Cheese and butter are products as saleable as corn ; the extent of pasture, and of bog-land^ for hay, enables them to keep as many cattle, sheep, and goats, as they can manage. The house in which we passed the night was clean, with two rooms, wooden floors, glass windows, a cellar, and with cattle houses apart from the dwelling-house. For sup per we had trout and milk ; with butter that was z 3 342 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, clean and excellent. Our beds were composed of birch leaves and branches, with reindeer skins for bedclothes ; and the chimney, for they had no stoves, contained a blazing crackling fire, by no means unpleasant even in July. The people were clad in their own coarse-manufactured cloth, but not in rags ; and although we came unexpectedly, the house was clean, with no appearance of slut- tishness or disorder. The rents of these people are very trifling, about six or seven shillings ster ling ; but I presume they had paid a sum at entry, and hold the farms for their own and their widows' lives, at a trifling yearly payment, which is the usual way of letting land in this quarter ; and on the death of the father, the son takes a new lease, with consent ofthe widow, on similar terms. Early in the morning we crossed the lake in a boat to visit three or four of the seven families who are settled on the opposite shore. It struck me as a novelty to see a man sitting in a boat anchored in a lake and fishing, not as an amusement but a regular occupation. The trout in the Fjelde are in general about the size of a herring, and are excel lent when fresh. The people salt or dry them for winter use, as an important object in their housekeeping. It is only on the borders of these lakes, and in the small dales and valleys in the Fjelde, that there is good pasturage for cattle. These are often very beautiful little tracts of grass land. But all the rest ofthe Fjelde, the bare un sheltered back of the country, is rock, partly covered with a thin scurf of moss and berry-bear- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 343 ing shrubs. Heath is scarce ; I have not seen half an acre of ground covered with heath. Every depression of ground that affords shelter is filled with a dark mass of forest ; on the skirts of which are bogs, of which the grass is cut and stacked on the spot, until frost and snow make the ground stable, and the ways practicable for bringing it home. The principal employment of the Fjelde bonder is making and transporting this winter provision for the cattle. A river runs into this lake from the east through a valley called Straadal, in which there is only one farm. We walked to it, as, on account of bogs and blocks of stone, there is no access on horseback. The farmer had but lately settled on the spot, and was living in a newly erected hut. It was a mere cabin in size, the poorest hut I have seen in Norway ; but had its wooden floor, glass window, and chimney, and was quite clean. His cattle were much more magnificently lodged. He was building a very large house for them, with a hay-loft over it, of logs of wood. The boundary between Sweden and Norway is within a hundred yards of this farm. It is marked by a broad ave nue cut through the forest, and pillars of stone built within sight of each other. The Norwegians maintain their boundary with great jealousy. It is cleared of brush-wood, kept in order regularly, and its sta,te reported to the Storthing. On returning to the lake we recrossed it, and set off, leading our horses, and with a guide, to go over the mountain called Shjgekker Hatte, z 4 344 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. which is reckoned one ofthe highest on this part of the plateau of the Fjelde. The Fjelde is like that which we had passed over, — a dark, gloomy, pine-covered country, encumbered with masses of rock and swamps, and with many huge masses of snow in the hollows. We saw no living thing in the waste. The birds even appear to forsake it. Shjaekker Hatte is 3693 feet above the sea. The base all round is covered with a pine forest, the higher part with birch. The summit is bare rock ; and many huge square masses, different from that on which they rest, are pitched, as if by accident, on the top ofthe ridges. These are of gneiss, and the rock of the mountain itself is a compact clay or greywacke. The frame-work of the tents of the Laplanders, — fhree sticks tied together at the top like our gipsy tents, — was standing in the woods on many places, for this hill is a favourite winter ground with them. In summer they seek the highest and more northerly tracts of the Fjelde with their reindeer, to avoid insects. The moun tain had many large masses of snow, which a tra veller might dignify perhaps with the name of glaciers, as from and under them considerable streams run, and these are not altogether safe bridges to cross. The descent to the west from this hill is much more rapid than the rise from the eastward. In some parts, the slope on this side is almost perpendicular from the top to the bottom. This is the character of the whole Fjelde tract. It slopes gently towards the Baltic and the north east, while its face towards the ocean side and the RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 345 north-west is steep and abrupt. After eight hours' hard marching, we descended into the Shjaekker valley, turned our horses loose, kindled a blazing fire, and bivouacked till daybreak. Notwithstand ing all the smoke we could make, the mosquitoes almost devoured us. As soon as there was light enough to pick our way through the morasses, we travelled down the valley. There is but one per manent inhabitant in the Shjaekker valley, which is at least twenty-five miles in extent; but at the lower end there are many seaters inhabited during the summer. We passed the night near the hut of this person, who reckons himself not more than four Norwegian miles from Snaasen Vand, and goes to Snaasen church as the nearest. I have seen this tract of the Fjelde therefore in various points. Its value, as considered with regard to the food and employment it affords to man, is certainly very small in proportion to the extent ; yet it is not wholly useless. A large proportion of the live stock of the lower country is kept by the pas turage in its dales for four months of the year ; and almost all that the live stock of the country produces of dairy articles, meat, and tallow, is drawn from the pasturage of this tract. This is no inconsiderable amount. The products of the dairy, — cheese, butter, and milk, in every variety of preparation, — enter largely into the daily food of the people. The poorest have this diet ; and from the immense space of the Fjelde, a supply of cheese and butter is within reach of all who have the means to purchase a cow. 346 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. This uninhabited valley is very beautiful. It is watered by a fine stream, and clothed with woods of pine and birch and aspen of unusual size ; and every break or open space between the woods shows a lively green meadow, frequently occupied as a seater. I measured pine-trees which at four feet from the ground were twenty-six and thirty inches in diameter ; and these noble trees had been felled for the side-walls of a cattle-shed or byre on a seater. The Norwegian sets no value on a tree which a Scotchman, not accustomed to such super fluity of timber on his naked hills, regards with much respect. Trees which with us would be worth a good deal of money are cut down for fire wood, or to lay across a pool, or are often peeled all round a few feet above the ground, that they may perish standing, and leave a clear space for grass. The finest birches are stripped of the bark and left to rot. The bark is called naver (it is possible the name of Strathnaver in Scotland may be connected with this word), and is used all over Norway beneath slates, tiles, earth, or whatever may be the exterior covering of a roof, to prevent the wood beneath from rotting. All posts which are in contact with the earth, whether farming fences, bridge rails, or gates, are always carefully wrapped round with flakes of birch bark, for a few inches above and below the ground. After eight hours' walking down the valley, in the lower part of which there are beautiful tracts of grass, occupied at this season by the cattle, sheep, and horses of the farms iu Vaerdal, we came to its RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 347 junction with Helgodal, We had to take our horses round so many bogs, rocks, and quagmires, some not quite a safe support for a man's weight, that I do not reckon our real advance at more than five or six and twenty miles, which I consider the extent of this Fjelde valley. In Norway the trees of the pine tribe are called furu and gran. Furu is our pine (Pinus silves- tris), and gran is our fir (Pinus abies) ; the one is the red wood and the other the white wood of our carpenters. There are whole districts which pro duce only furu, others only gran ; and this seems not exactly regulated by latitude or elevation. The zones at which different trees cease to grow appear to be a theory to which the exceptions are as numerous as the examples. In Romsdal Amt at Fanne Fiord, near Molde, in latitude 62° 47' north, and with a medium temperature of only 4° of Reaumur, pears, the bergamot, gravenstein, and imperial, and also plums, come to perfection, and the walnut tree often bears ripe fruit. Hazel and elm in the same amt form continuous woods, as at Egerdal. Yet the gran disappears altogether ; although in the same degree of latitude it grows at an elevation of 1000 feet above the sea in the interior of Norway, and even in Jatitude 69° in Lapmark. It has been found a vain attempt to raise it in Romsdal Amt, a locality in which the following trees and bushes grow readily : Canadian poplar, balsam poplar, horse-chesnut, larch, elder, yew, roses of various sorts, lavender, box, laburnum, white thorn, ivy. Larch brought from Scotland 348 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. appears to thrive. There must be something in the nature of the plants not connected with elevation or latitude, that determines the growth of the gran and furu. In the best established of these vege tation zones in this country, that of the birch, which undoubtedly grows higher up the mountain side than other trees, there are generally two or three sturdy pines, braving alike the storm and the theory. On the Dovre Fjelde, for instance, be tween Jerkin, which is 3085 feet above the sea level, and Fogstuen, which is 3187 feet, in latitude about 62° 25' north, the birch is growing up the sides of the hills in abundance sufficient to afford firewood to those two farms. It is not, indeed, the luxuriant birch with the pendent branches which adorns Guldebrandsdal. It forms probably a distinct variety, with thicker and shorter leaves than the common one. But although stunted and crooked, they are more luxuriant than those grow ing in the most sheltered spots in the county of Caithness, in latitude 58° north, and only a few feet above the level of the sea ; and outside of the birch wood near Jerkin, on its north side, grow single pine trees, and in one place a complete row of them. They are but short stunted trees, but the birches are but short stunted trees also. They are big enough to prove that the theory of the zones of elevation at which different species of trees will or will not grow must be taken with caution, as it does not satisfactorily cover all the facts ob servable in this country. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 349 CHAPTER IX. ORKNEY AND ZETLAND BELONGED TO NORWAY — PLEDGED FOR FIFTY THOUSAND FLORINS. — TRADITION. CLAIM TO REDEEM THESE PROVINCES. TORF.a;US. CHRISTIAN V. — BUONAPARTE. DR. CLARKE. SAGA. SEA KING SWEIN. HIS ADVENTURES. JARL ROGNVALD. CATHE DRAL.— CHURCHES IN ROMNEY MARSH. FREE INSTITUTIONS. KINGS. HARALD HAARFAGRE. HAKON. FORMER CLASSES OF SOCIETY SIGURD SIR. MANNERS DESCRIBED IN THE SAGA. — DRESS OF SIGURD SIR. ARE THE PRIEST. — SCALDS ALLITERATION. — AUTHORITIES OF SAGA. KUADS. NORWEGIAN LITERATURE. — ROAD FROM THE DRONTHIEM FIORD TO THE BOTHNIAN GULF. IM PORTANT BASIS FOR THE MILITARY DEFENCE OF NORWAY AND SWEDEN. KINg's VISIT BY THIS ROAD TO NORWAY, COMPARED WITH THAT OF GEORGE IV. TO SCOTLAND. HIS VISIT TO THE FIELD OF STIKKLESLAD. — HIS RECEPTION BY THE NORWEGIANS. TRIUMPH OF CONSTITUTIONAL PRIN CIPLES. THE ELECTION IN OUR DISTRICT FOR THE STOR THING. DISTILLATION OF SPIRITS FROM POTATOES. EFFECT OF THE FREE DISTILLATION ON POPULATION AND PROPERTY. STATE OF SEA-SIDE POPULATION. THE WINTER FISHING AT LAFODEN. USE OF NETS IN THE COD FISHERY. REGULATIONS. HERRING FISHERY BONDER OR AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. — FJELDE BONDER. — THEIR CONDITION. — ANCIENT FAMILIES. Norway is a country peculiarly interesting to the inhabitants of Orkney and Zetland. These islands were only disjoined from the crown of Nor way and annexed to Scotland in the year 1468. They were pledged by Christian I. King of Nor way and Denmark for the sum of 50,000 Rhenish florins, being part of the dower of 60,000 given 350 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. with his only daughter Margaret on her marriage with James III. of Scotland. The arrangement was probably intended at the time by the Danish monarch to be only temporary ; as the provinces pledged bore a considerable relative importance to the mother country. The whole kingdom of Norway, even in modern times, contained a popula tion only about eighteen times greater than that of the Orkney and Zetland islands. It may make the antiquary pause before he ad mits too readily the transmission of historical events without written documents, orally by tra dition for a long series of ages, that in these islands in about 350 years, among 50,000 people dwelhng in a locality but little frequented, and living from generation to generation with little admixture of or intercourse with strangers, and in a state of so ciety and under circumstances the most favourable for the transmission of oral tradition, not only is the Norwegian language become extinct, but no tradition exists of any one event, much less of any series of connected events, that happened in the Norwegian times ; nor does there exist any such strong and general tradition among the inhabitants that in former days the islands belonged to Nor way, as would justify a scrupulous historian in assuming the fact upon the faith of tradition alone. What is the real value, then, of tradition as evi dence of historical facts, if this be the case in three centuries and a half, with the memory not only of striking facts, but of the current language, among a population having on one side of them RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 351 the highlanders of Scotland boasting of poems transmitted orally from father to son for fourteen or fifteen centuries ; and on the other side the Ice landers showing indeed manuscripts of Saga of the twelfth and thirteen centuries, but which they avow were transmitted by oral tradition alone for several ages before being committed to writing ? What is the real historical value of tradition ? It may be safe to assume that names of places and of persons, customs, superstitions, and even a few words and turns of expression of a language may remain unchanged, because not superseded by any more convenient or to the same purport, and there is trouble in giving up and none in retaining these when once established ; and this kind of passive tradition may exist in a country for an indefinite period, and be worthy of all credence. What may be called active tradition, on the other hand, which depends upon generation after generation com mitting to memory long narrations in poetry or in prose of events in no way connected with their existing interests or affairs, cannot be depended upon, and can have no existence at all with regard to very distant events. The vis inertise of human nature is opposed to it. Such tradition is entitled to credence only in proportion to the support it may have from the other kind, the passive tradition of the country. This position is curiously illus trated in the ancient history of the Orkney and Zetland isles. The language and the active tra dition of events of the Norwegian times are ex tinct ; but these have been collected in the Orkney- )2 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. ga Saga before they were forgotten, and are )W singularly supported by the passive tradition ' the islands. No district of Great Britain pos- sses such a curious and minute record of its Fairs during the middle ages, as that which Thor- odus Torfaeus published at Copenhagen in '15 from the MSS, of the Icelandic Saga in the yal library of Denmark, under the title of Orcades, sen Rerum Orcadensium Historiae )ri tres," The object of this work, compiled, we e told by Torfaeus, by the express command of s Majesty Christian V,, was of no less importance an to vindicate the undoubted right of the anish monarch to redeem the mortgage of the vereignty of these islands, by the repayment of e 50,000 florins for which they had been pledged 1468, In equity, and as an abstract question of right, appears to admit of no doubt that a just claim of demption, or of an equivalent, is to this hour isted in the crown of Denmark, Prescription of jhts is in no country allowed to constitute a ound of retention of property against a just iginal claim of the sovereign ; much less be- een sovereign and sovereign, as trustees of their [perishable sovereignties, can any rights be sus- ined unless those founded on conquest, treaty, irchase, or other conditions fixed by the laws of tions and the usages between civilized king- ims. If it were a case between two honest men private life, the right would be admitted and mpromised. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 353 Obsolete and ridiculous as this claim * may now appear, if Christian V- had lived a century later, the reclamations of his honest and simple- minded historiographer, Thormodus Torfaeus, would have been heard beyond the walls of his royal master's library. In 1804, Bonaparte, in one of his proclamations to the army assembled at Boulogne for the invasion of England, descants upon this very claim of Denmark to this portion of the British dominions. Suppose the Emperor Napoleon had purchased this claim, or suppose Russia or the United States were now to purchase it from Denmark, our civilians would be puzzled to find any more equitable reason for resisting the redemption than the very cogent one that '* might makes right." Great Britain has spent money more foolishly than she would do in setting herself clear in equity with Denmark on this point. Torfsus, with amusing and amiable simplicity, and like a true antiquary, forgetting the lapse of centuries, and considering the past time as present, labours with great zeal in his preface to this work to impress the good people of Orkney, in the most barbarous and unintelligible Latin, with a due sense of their obligation to their lawful lord and sovereign Christian V., for orderiijg him, Thor modus Torfaeus, his Majesty's own historiographer, * I find that, in 154.9, an assessment, for paying off the sum for which the islands stood pledged, was levied in Norway by Christian III. The Scotch antiquary may possibly find some negotiations between the two countries, about that period, upon the subject. A A <4> RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. compile for their information this history of eir ancient affairs. It is rather singular that Dr. Clarke, in his ravels in Scandinavia, speaks of Thormodus Tor- ;us* and Snorro Sturlesont as contemporaries, or least as the two ancient historians of Norway. orfaeus should have been better known in the liversity of Cambridge. His name belongs to uropean literature. No author has examined id illustrated Scandinavian history with more ligence and success. If a member of a Danish liversity had classed together David Hume and le venerable Bede as ancient and contemporary ithors, what a chuckling would have been heard nong our reviewers. In I78O an Icelandic scholar, Jonas Jonseus, iblished at Copenhagen, in Icelandic and Latin, e Orkneyinga Saga, " Sive Historia Orcadum a ima Orcadum per Norwegos occupatione ad Litum Seculi Duodecemi." This is the text of e Icelandic MSS. of the Saga, of which the rcades of Torfaeus is a faithful compilation. )n«us appears to have been in the service of a * Thormod Torfesen was the son of Torfe Erlendsen, a man of nsideration in Iceland. He was born 1636, was educated at the liversity of Copenhagen, was employed by Frederick III. and Chris- n V. to translate into Danish the Icelandic Saga,' which then at- cted the notice of the learned. Torfesen compiled the Series igum Daniae, the Orcades, the Groenlandia Antiqua, and other rks highly esteemed by the continental antiquaries, from these Ice- idic sources ; and collected and translated a great many of the Saga. i died about 1715. (Torfesen's Biographia. Minerva Maanedsskrift, itober, 1786. Kiobenhavn.) |- Snorro Sturleson was born 1178. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 355 truly illustrious Danish nobleman of the family name of Suhm, who employed him to translate the Saga into Latin, and defrayed the expense of the publication. It gives us an exalted and just idea of the literary tastes and munificence of the Danish nobility, to find that fifty years ago they had an ticipated the spirit of our Bannatyne Clubs ; and that opulent individuals entertained scholars, and published at their own cost the rare and curious manuscripts of their libraries, even when these referred to remote provinces of a foreign country, and owing to the want of interest to any except to a few antiquarians, could afford no gratification to vanity, but simply to literary taste. The reader who will take the trouble to conquer the rather obscure Latin into which these Saga are translated, will be delighted at the blinks they give him of ancient manners, of the way of living of the sea kings, and of the domestic affairs of the very individuals who, as Northmen, Danes, and Vi kings, spread terror and devastation over all the sea coasts of Europe. The Saga bring us home to their firesides. We see them, not only in their expeditions, burning towns, and laying waste pro vinces ; but we see them out of armour, in their every-day clothes, on shore witlj their comrades and families. To one locally acquainted with the Orkney Islands, this reading is peculiaily interest ing. He finds the names of islands, and harbours, and farm houses, still the same as when these events narrated in the Saga of the eleventh or twelfth century took place, and has the pleasure to A A 2 56 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. ace those peculiarities of truth, which from their ant of local knowledge, neither Torfaeus nor anaeus knew of. They, knowing nothing of the •rkney Islands, give us the names of places as ley find them in the Icelandic manuscripts, and •e not aware that the places referred to retain early the same names to the present day, and lat all the local descriptions and peculiarities of [Stances and other circumstances correspond id coroborate, by internal evidence, the accuracy ^ this Saga. Torfaeus even bestows a good deal ^ industry in attempting to clear up what ap- jars to him some obscurity in the local names, it which, he shrewdly and rightly conjectures, ay present no such obscurity to the inhabitants :quainted with the localities and present appella- jns. This is a strong illustration of the dif- rence between the active and passive traditions of country. The active had long been extinct in the rkney Islands. These internal evidences of the truth of an an- ent story constitute the great charm of historical id antiquarian research. The human mind has I instinctive pleasure in recognising fact, uncon- icted with the importance or value of the fact cognised. It is this natural taste for truth liich gives respectability and enjoyment to mi- ite researches of the naturalist and antiquarian, 'lich, weighed by their direct importance and lue in human affairs, would be considered trivial d ridiculous ; but there is no subject so small it it may not possess the charm of truth. This RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 357 correspondence of the Orkneyinga Saga with local reality, gives much weight to the claims of the other Saga to authenticity. The readers of romance, as well as the anti quary, would be interested in the characters and in cidents recorded in the Saga. Swein, for instance, the proprietor of the little island Gareksay, now called Gairsay, situated opposite to and about four miles north of the Bay of Kirkwall, appears to have been in his day (he lived about 1120) one of the most daring and renowned of the northern sea kings. His various exploits, related in the Saga at some length, are very interesting. When he had finished the sowing of his bear-seed, an operation which, it may be inferred from the Saga, he performed with his own hands, he went out upon his regular summer cruize, sometimes at the head of six or eight ships ; and came back in autumn to reap his crop in Gairsay, and to divide the booty he had collected on his expedition. The coasts of England and Ireland, and the Isle of Man, were frequently plundered by him ; and the ancient Manx Chronicle confirms the facts and dates of his devastations in that island, as recorded in the Saga. During the winter, after a successful summer cruize, he entertained a band of eighty men in his little island of Gairsay. If each island chief kept on foot a proportionable body of thsse rovers, the numbers, when united under a darino- leader like Swein, would be very formidable. The island of Gairsay could never have maintained one- fourth of the number of Swein's companions and A A 3 'O RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. lests, if they had not maintained themselves by her means than husbandry. On one occasion, vein, who had many vicissitudes of fortune, was duced to a single rowing boat and two or three llowers, and was skulking among the islets, from e pursuit of the Jarl of Orkney, with whom he IS at variance. The Jarl happened one morning to ! returning from a visit to Sigurd in the island of ousay, and discovering Swein's boat, gave chace. vein rowed to an uninhabited little island called Igarholm ; and finding his enemy gaining on him, soon as his little boat was screened by the islet am the view of his pursuers, he ran her into le of those cavQS which the action of the waves oops out often to a great extent under ground. y the time the jarl had reached the isle, and tisfied himself that Swein had not gone past it, e rising of the tide had concealed the entrance ' the cave ; and at the further end of it Swein in s boat lay hid on a shelving beach, and heard e jarl and his attendants express their astonish- ent at his mysterious disappearance. For several •ars after, nothing was heard of Swein in the rkney Islands. One fine summer day, a vessel as seen coming from the westward. This was vein. He himself, with his armed followers, lay mcealed in the hold of the vessel ; and he left )on deck only the few men who might appear ;cessary to navigate such a merchant ship. He dered them to sail close to a headland in the and of Rousay, upon which he had observed iople walking about, and to hail them, and RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 359 ask the news, and what they were doing. The people replied, that they were attendants of the jari, who had gone to the other side of the head land to hunt seals ; and ordered the crew to bring their vessel to the shore, and give an account of the cargo to the jarl. As soon as the vessel was so close under the rock that it was out of sight of the people standing upon the slope of the promon tory, Swein altered its course, went round to where the jarl was seal-hunting, slew all his followers, took him on board a prisoner, and made sail for Scotland, Sigurd of Westness, whose guest the jarl was on this hunting expedition, found the dead bodies of the hunting party, and missing that of the jarl, declared that Swein must be alive, and have done the deed. The place, near to Westness in the island of Rousay, is still called Sweindroog. The jarl was never heard of again. He was carried to Athol (ad Joclis), mutilated, and thrust into a monastery. Swein was reconciled to the jarl's successor, returned to his little isle of Gairsay, and for a long series of years was one of the most suc cessful and renowned sea kings, or pirates, of his age. He was kihed in the trenches of the city of Dubhn, in the year 1159. He had sailed from Orkney upon the last expedition, which, on ac count of his age, he intended to make. He attacked and carried the city of Dublin ; and the ransom, or Dane-gelt, was to be paid next day. Next day the inhabitants, seeing*the small number of their invaders contained in six vessels, rose and overcame them. Ware, in his History of Ire- A A 4 360 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. land, states, from Irish records, the fact of an attack of the Danes on the city of Dublin, and of their defeat on the second day, with the loss of their prince, in the trenches of the city, on the same day and in the same year, 1159, as that which the more homespun Saga gives as the date of the defeat and death of this laird of the isle of Gairsay. He was no prince, but was quite reck less enough of human life and human rights to have been a prince in any age. Another instance of very interesting and almost poetical narrative in the Orkneyinga Saga, is the account of the Jarl Rognvald's expedition to the Holy Land, in 1155. The jarl, when on a visit in Norway, met with a Norwegian nobleman, who was one of the body-guard of the Emperor Ma nuel Comnenes at Constantinople, and who was then on leave of absence in Norway. It is a fact noticed by Gibbon, and it forms the ground-work of one of Sir Walter Scott's novels, that the body guard of the Greek Emperors was formed of Nor wegian and other northern adventurers. At the instigation of this traveller, the jarl was induced to visit Constantinople and the Holy Land. The description of his three vessels, of a sea-fight, and the capture of a tall vessel in the Mediterranean, and of the various adventures of this party of crusaders, are well told, and vivid descriptions of passing events. It was this Earl Rognvald who, in the year 1138, founded the cathedral of St. Magnus, in Kirkwall, a structure the most remarkable in the RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 361 north of Europe, considering the poverty of the country in which it stands. At the present day, neither the wealth, nor the skill to execute such a work, could be found in the district. The length of this fabric is 232 feet, breadth 56f feet. The arms of the transept 22^ feet in length, and 30f feet in breadth. The vault of the choir 71 feet high ; the steeple 140 feet. The central por tion, including the transepts, appears to be the old original fabric. Bishop Stewart enlarged the building by lengthening it towards the east, and Bishop Reid, in 1545, by adding to it towards the west. The junction of the later with the older work is apparent; and these enlargements, in some points of view, make the church appear dispropor- tionably long. The arches, cut stone-work, and ornaments of the oldest part, surpass those of the later parts. The Orkneyinga Saga informs us how the funds were provided for rearing this edifice in such a poor country in the year 1138. A great part of the lands in Orkney were held of the jarl by a feudal tenure, and on the death of a proprie tor his heir had to redeem the land from the jarl, to whom it reverted on the death of the vassal, at an arbitrary fine. The jarl proposed to make the lands hereditary, without payment of a fine or price by the heir, on condition of one mark being paid to him for each plough-gale of land. This was willingly agreed to by the vassals ; and money was not wanting thereafter, says the Saga, for carrying on the work. This information throws some light upon what has often puzzled the travel- 362 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, ler in some districts in England ; viz, the number of spacious churches, as in Romney Marsh in Kent, and in the fen district of Lincolnshire, situated in very small parishes, and where there never could have been a population to require so much accommodation. In Kent, fifteen or sixteen churches may be seen within a space which alto gether would only be a considerable parish in extent, and in some of the parishes there never have been above half a dozen or a dozen families. But if it was a common practice in those ages for the feudal lord to impart to his vassals full here ditary rights to their lands, in consideration of a payment which he laid out in pious uses, such as the building of churches, it is evident that the quality of the land, and value of the right ceded to the vassal, would have more to do than the number of inhabitants, in determining the size and number of these parish churches ; and it is pre cisely in the rich alluvial lands gained from the rivers and fens, in which the feudal lord had a title to the new land formed contiguous to his vassal's land, that the most of such parish churches as were evidently not erected with any reference to a population in the parish are found. In Romney Marsh in Kent, a tract of alluvial land studded with churches, many of which are spaci ous, there are no indications that the tract has ever been so densely inhabited as to require so many and such large places of worship. On the ground there are no traces of former habita tions, no marks of the plough, no vestiges in the RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 363 church-yards of numerous resting places of former generations. The land being gained gradually from the state of fen or marsh, could never have been cultivated so as to employ a large resident agricultural population. It must have been always, as at present, pasture land, thinly inhabited, and attached to the arable estates upon the clay ridge adjoining to and overlooking this marsh. The erection of so many churches in such a tract has therefore probably been connected with the grants of the land, as it was gained from time to time from the water. The Royal Northern Antiquarian (Old Manu script) Society of Copenhagen has published a series of the Saga, of more general interest and importance than the Orkneyinga Saga. This series comprehends the historical saga of events which belong to European history, and also to that of the Scandinavian monarchs of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It includes a period of about 170 years, beginning with the Saga of St. Olaf, the contemporary of Canute the Great of England, who assumed the crown of Norway in 1013, and continuing the series until the death of Magnus Erlingson in the sea-fight with Sverrer I. in 1 184. Besides the value of these docum^ts to Enghsh history, as confirming or adding to our stock of facts during its darkest period, they give us valu able and highly interesting views of the state of society and of the manners and mode of living in that age, and of the influence of the Thing or as sembly of the people. I have already observed, 364 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. that there seems no good grounds for the favourite and hackneyed course of all who have written on the origin of the British constitution and trial by jury, who unriddle a few dark phrases of Tacitus concerning the institutions of the ancient Ger manic tribes, and trace up to that obscure source the origin of all political institutions connected with freedom in modern Europe. In these Saga we find, at a period immediately preceding the first traces of free institutions in our history, the rude but very vigorous derrionstrations of similar insti tutions existing in great activity among those northern people who were masters of the country under Canute the Great, who for two generations before his time had occupied and inhabited a very large portion of it, and of whom a branch under William of Normandy became its ultimate and permanent conquerors. It may be more classical to^ search in the pages of Tacitus for aUusions to those customs of the tribes wandering in his day through the forests of Germany which may bear some faint resemblance to modern institutions, or to what we fancy our modern institutions may have been in their infancy ; but it seems more consistent with correct principles of historic research to look for the origin of our institutions at the nearest, not at the most remote, source ; not at what existed 1000 years before in the woods of Germany, among people whom we must believe upon sup position to have been the ancestors of the invaders from the north of the Elbe who conquered Eng. land, and must again believe upon supposition RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 365 that when this people were conquered successively by the Danes and Normans they imposed their own pecuhar institutions upon their conquerors, instead of receiving institutions from them ; but at what actually existed when the first notice of assemblies for legislative purposes can be traced in English history among the conquerors of the country, a cognate people, long established by previous conquests in a large portion of it, who used, if not the same, at least-a language common to both, and who had no occasion to borrow from the conquered, institutions which were flourishing at the time in their mother country in much greater vigour. It is in these Saga, not in Taci tus, that we have to look for the origin of the political institutions of England. The reference of all matters to the Things, or legislative assemblies of the people, is one of the most striking facts in the Saga. Halfden the Black, who died in 863, divided Norway into five districts, with fixed head places for holding Things in each. Laws suited to the local circumstances of each district were framed at these Things ; and each code took its name from that of the meeting-place of the district, Harold Harfaagre succeeded at ten years of age to this Halfden, and reigned from 863 to* 936, In his reign the small kings, or independent nobles, were reduced to the condition of subjects. It is the singular and peculiar feature of Norwegian history, that the struggle between the sovereign power of the state and the great nobility claiming inde- 366 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. pendent sovereignty, each in his own domain, a struggle which it has been the destiny of every modern nation to go through, was begun and finished in Norway in one reign, in the ninth cen tury. In every other European country this struggle was continued through four centuries of bloodshed, rapine, and misery. In Norway the great nobility never had feudal powers. The small king had to assemble the Thing, and obtain its au thority for making war. The equal division of property ,among children, a rule extending even to the crown itself, prevented the accumulation of power in individuals ; and the circumstance before noticed, of the total want of fortresses, castles, or strong-holds in the country, owing to the division of estates, and to the use of wood as the building material, effectually prevented a nobility from attaining the power of the noblemen of feudal countries, and setting the royal authority at de fiance. Of the nobility, or small kings, some colonized Iceland ; and Normandy was conquered by one of those whom Harold Harfaagre expelled from Norway. Christianity was introduced in this reign, and the historical Saga claim our confidence in the events which they relate from the time of Harfaagre. The great length of his reign, ex tending over a period of seventy-three years, and reaching as it were from the fabulous to the his torical age of modern Europe, was no doubt fa vourable to the correctness of the narratives of events. There was at least one witness alive, the monarch himself, to rectify the errors of those who RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 367 composed and recited in his court the Saga of his times. The length of this reign also must have consolidated the institutions favourable to the peo ple, which, as they weakened the power of the small kings, were favoured by that monarch. We find accordingly that on the death of Harold Har faagre, his son Eric, his successor, whom he had associated with himself in the royal authority, was deposed by the Thing on account of his cruelty, and a younger son of Harfaagre was appointed in his stead. This son, Hakon, brought up from childhood at the court of Athelstan King of En gland, was sent for to assume the crown of Norway. This circumstance leads us to conjecture that the language of England and Norway at that day was at least intelligible, if not the same, in both coun tries, and that the political institutions were similar. Hakon, Athelstan's foster son, reigned nineteen years ; and during his reign there was frequent reference to the Things, both for amending the laws, and for the introduction of Christianity. At a Thing held in the year 956, the husbandman Asbiorn of Medalhuus got up and declared, on the part of his neighbours and of himself, "that they had elected Hakon to be their king, upon the condition that freedom of religion and freedom of conscience should be warranted to every man ; and if the king persisted in attempting to suppress their ancient faith, they would elect another king. . . , And now, king, make thy choice," Hakon gave way; and as a proof of his sincerity wai? obliged to take part in the heathen ceremonies of the meet- 368 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. ing. Hakon was killed in 963 in a battle against the sons of Eric, who had acquired the kingdom of Northumberland from Athelstan. During the half century between his death and the accession of King Olaf the Saint, the Things appear always to have conferred or confirmed the royal dignity. Olaf, before he ventured to assume the name of king, consulted a Thing, or assembly of the no bility or small kings, who after Harfaagre's death again had some power, upon the way of proposing his claim as heir of Harfaagre to the general Things of the people ; and proceeded with such caution as proves that the consent of the small kings to receive him as the supreme or chief king, was not sufficient without the reference to the general Things of the people. Of such importance was this institution in that age among all the Scandinavian people, that when King Olaf of Swe den, who was a personal and implacable enemy of this King Olaf of Norway, refused to conclude a treaty of peace between his kingdom and Norway, and to bestow his daughter in marriage on the Norwegian king, the ambassadors of the latter ap plied to the Thing of the people, and laid their proposals before that assembly at Upsal in the year IOI7, The Thing found the proposals made by Norway reasonable, and desirable for both countries, and obliged their king to accept them. The attempt of Olaf to rule Norway without the intervention of the Things was the immediate cause of his ruin. By his atrocious cruelties to wards those who refused to embrace Christianity RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 369 h9 had alienated the affections of his subjects, and when he was attacked by Canute the Great the people refused the supplies. He could levy neither men nor ships in his kingdom, and was obliged to take refuge in Russia. He attempted afterwards to recover his dominions. He landed with a few followers in Sweden, where, with the permission of his brother-in-law King Onund, he raised about four thousand adventurers, and marched from the Gulf of Finland across the Peninsula to the Fiord or Gulf of Dronthiem. At the debouche of the valley of Va;rdal he was met by an army of twelve thousand bonder, raised by the Thing and commanded by Olver of Egge, and was, as before mentioned, defeated and slain in the year 1030, near tothepresent church of Stikklesladt. It may be gathered from the Saga that society consisted of four distinct orders at that period. The nobility, who were descendants of royal families; and, without regard to priority of birth, those who were descended both on the mother's side and father's side from Harfaagre were eligible to the supreme monarchy, but appear to have had no civil power or privilege as nobles, but merely this odelsbaarn ret to the crown. The odels- baarnmen, or bondermen* or husbandmen, were * The word bonde, and the English words husbandman, husband, are not derived from the word band, or bond, or bind, synonymous to vinculum and its derivatives ; but from the Scandinavian word bond, boend, bor, synonymous to inhabiting, dwelling in, dwell. Bonder and husbonder are the indwellers and householders. Min Husbond is used still in some parts of Norway and Denmark by the farm servant to his master. Bonde is the inhabitant, not the bondsman in the feudal sense. B B 370 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. the proprietors of land held not from the king nor from any feudal superior. These were the people who had a voice at the Things. A third order were the unfree men, holding land for services as vassals or as labourers in cottages, but who had no voice in the Things in respect of their land. A fourth order were the traelle* or domestic slaves (hence probably our English words thrall and thraldom), who were private property, and in a lower state than the unfree men. The Saga tells us that the small king Sigurd Sir (Sir appears to have been his title, and the same word which has been retained in English) was an excellent manager of his estate. He enabled his traelle to purchase their freedom from him by lending them what was necessary for the catching of herrings; and he settled them upon his seaters or uncleared waste lands, for which they after a time paid him yearly rents with which he purchased new traelle. This is precisely the management of the Sir Sigurds of the present day in the West Highlands and Ork ney and Zetland Isles, t * This condition in society, the class of traels or slaves, was abo lished by Magnus VII., who reigned 1319 to 1.344'. f It is told, I don't know upon what authority, that one Brokelin, a native of Ghent, first invented the art -of curing herrings in the year 1307, and the Emperor Charles V., when he was in the Netherlands, went to visit his grave. This must be a mistake, as about the jfear 1000, the fosterfather of St. Olav, Sigurd Sir, introduced this branch of industry among his traels or slaves, according to the Saga of St:01av. The art of preserving fish with salt was practised by the Romans. Halec, which the commentators explain to be salt fish, was one of the articles of food of the husbandry slaves which Cato the Elder men tions in his work on agriculture ; but La Cepede doubts if herring or cod were known to the Romans. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 371 The series of Historical Prose Saga, of which the Royal Antiquarian or Old Manuscript So ciety of Copenhagen has published a translation from the old Icelandic into their own language, begins with the Saga of this King Olaf the Saint. It is one of the most curious and minute pictures of a past age that the literature of Europe is pos sessed of. It has great merit as a literary compo sition. The story-telling strain of the narrative is so simple and natural, that you might fancy an old greyheaded man in the chimney corner on a winter's night was telling you the tale. The equal importance given to minute and important circumstances, the variety of persons speaking and acting before you, the lively touches of character, the shrewd observations on motives and facts, with the most undoubting faith in omens, dreams, and witchcraft, make it a most lively and interesting work, independently altogether of its historic value. It is, however, to be regretted by the English reader of early history that the learned Society l^have been so fascinated with its literary merits, that all their attention has been bestowed upon preserving in the translation the true col loquial style and beautiful simplicity of the original. They forget that this Scandinavian* Odyssey pos sesses an historical interest, even greater than its poetic. They have not indulged us with any re marks, notes, or illustrations, on the coincidence of the institutions, laws, customs, manners, now existing in Scandinavia and in the countries for merly subdued by Scandinavians, with those of B B 2 372 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. their ancestors handed down in these Saga. This is the more to be regretted, because there are few scholars in England, — are there indeed any ? — who, to an intimate acquaintance with the old and modern Icelandic, the Norse, the Swedish, and all the dialects of the Scandinavian languages, could also bring to the task the vast stock of erudition and acquirements of such learned antiquarians as Professor Rafn, and other members of that Society. The English are peculiarly fastidious in his torical evidence. The political institutions of the country and the administration of its common law, have reference much more to historical evidence than to abstract principles. Facts of history which the Continental reader seeks to establish for the gratificatio'n of the natural taste for truth in his torical research, are for the English reader matters entering essentially into the business of the present time, and are investigated accordingly, with no small portion of the acuteness and care which men bestow upon their existing interests. It is on this consideration to be regretted that the Society, in publishing the Saga of St. Olaf, has not given in the preface any sufficient account of the manu script from which it is taken. Its author or sup posed author, its date or probable date, are mat ters upon which even the conjecture ofthe learned members of the Society would be highly valued. All we learn of it is that it is No. • ¦ of the Arnei Magnaei Collection in the Royal Library of Copenhagen ; and the translation from the Ice landic carefully revised and collated by the dis- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 373 tinguished Icelandic scholars Professor Rafn and others. Arne Magnussen was an Icelander by birth, who returned from the University of Copenhagen to his native country in the year 1702, where he held some office until 1713, when he returned to Co penhagen, and was appointed professor of Danish antiquities and librarian of the University. Dur ing his stay in Iceland, he made a large collection of Icelandic manuscripts, which at his death, in 1730, he bequeathed to the University. This is the collection quoted by northern antiquarians un der its Latin appellation of Arnas Magnaeus, and which, although it has suffered by fires at dif ferent periods, is still the richest in manuscripts relative to the history of northern nations. It is not enough for the Enghsh reader, more interested in the facts than the beauties of the nar rative, to know that the manuscript is from this collection, — he would be relieved from the doubt whether, even if the facts be correct and derived from contemporary sources, the filling in between the facts, the whole of the manners and customs incidentally introduced, and which form the most valuable part of the Saga, may not be those of a later period, and of the age in which the writer himself lived. We may be reading facts of the tenth or eleventh century, but manners, habits, and ways of living of the fifteenth ; just as on the stage and in pictures, we see Brutus, Anthony, and Cffisar represented in embroidered waistcoats' powdered periwigs, and cocked hats. In this B B 3 374 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, very Saga of St, Olaf, we read of his stepfather Sigurd Sir, dressed in his white felt hat, his cor dovan boots, and kirtle of blue cloth, and with his gold-headed cane. Are these, and especially the Spanish leather or cordovan boots and gold-headed cane, really part of the costume of the year 1013, or of 500 years later ? Torfaeus and Jonaeus, in their prefaces, consider the manuscripts of the Orkneyinga Saga, and of the Saga of St. Magnus, to have been written in the thirteenth century. The transactions related are principally of the middle and end of the twelfth century ; so that the writers, if not contemporary with, are not removed far from the facts, and may be considered contem porary with the manners described. The writer of this Saga of St. Olaf has done more for himself than his editors have done for him. He has given a preface, telling the sources from which he composed this Saga ; but his edi tors have not told us at what period he lived, or what reliance may be placed on those sources from which he writes. His preface is very curious, and some account of it will be interesting to the many English readers who are unacquainted even with the existence of the Saga literature. He tells us it was more than 240 years after the colonisation of Iceland, in the reign of Haarfagre, before Sagas were committed to writing. He considers that prose Sagas could not have been transmitted down through so long a period, if they had not been connected with the kuads or poems of the Scalds, RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 375 composed on each event, and recited or sung by them at festivals in presence ofthe whole court. From this passage we may infer that the Saga were a kind of drama consisting of recitation and song relating to real events, and delivered by the Scalds. The Scalds, a kind of wandering scholars, natives generally of Iceland, appear to have been a class of more importance than mere amuse ment of the court could have made them. They were probably, as before remarked, the recorders of events affecting rights of succession to udal property ; and, in fact, many of the Saga are merely family annals, giving the actions and deaths of the individuals in a particular line or family, as the main events to be recorded. They were also employed as the messengers or ambassadors who carried the tokens which monarchs or nobles ex changed with each other. These tokens were not gifts merely, but had a meaning known to the personages, or at the least accredited the mes senger to the person receiving a token. We can not, in our times, enter into the value and import ance of such devices for communication before writing and reading were known in courts. The language of the Scalds appears to have been under stood at the courts of all the branches of the Scan dinavian people. The same Scald appears to have visited, on business or pleasure, the courts of Rouen, of England, of Denmark, ofSweden, and of Norway, and there is no mention of any difficulty arising from difference of language in any of the transac tions of individuals. There were frequently adven- B B 4 3/6 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. turers passing from the service of one monarch to another; and new Scalds appear frequently to have come over from Iceland, and to have at once recited Saga. Haco, bred from childhood in the court of Athelstan in England, on arriving in Norway delivers a speech to the Thing. Whether the Saxon, originally like the Scandinavian of Asiatic derivation, may have in that age been little different, or whether there was an ac quired language, the Icelandic, which, like French in modern times, was current in all courts, seems not well ascertained. These Saga, observes the author of this preface, could not very grossly alter or exaggerate events, " because the principal actors and witnesses ofthe exploits recorded were present at the recital of the Saga, and any exaggeration or violation of the known facts would have been satire, not praise." He gives a curious reason for preferring the au thority of poetic to that of prose narrative. The accuracy of the prose depends upon the accuracy of the memory of the narrator and of his audi ence ; the accuracy of the poetic narrative is secured by the measure of the verse, as the pro per original word used by the first composer or Scald, and no other word, can be used. The Saga which are in verse he therefore considers both as more easily retained with accuracy, and less liable to be altered ; and he therefore in his Saga fol lows, he says, the kuads ofthe Scalds. It may, perhaps, from this passage be possible to account for the alliteration, and other devices RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 377 to US unintelligible, used in Icelandic poetry by the Scalds; devices which appear to us to have had no harmony, and no merit but that of the diffi culty of finding words beginning and ending with particular letters. May not this difficulty, which we think the offspring of a false and childish taste, have had the great, and in our age unappreciable, merit of securing the accurate relation of the facts word for word, without the possibility of alteration, to all posterity ? May not the verses of a later age, arranged as hatchets, helmets, flowers, have taken their importance in the middle ages from a similar principle, — from affording a kind of aid, like that of artificial memory in modern times, to the reciter, and also a security against error or inter polation of any other than the original words ? He proceeds to tells us that the first who wrote his torical narratives in Iceland was Are Thorgilson the priest ; that Are began his book with the co lonisation of Iceland in the time of Harold Haar fagre, and divided his work into two parts, — the first extending to the introduction of Christianity into Iceland, the second from that period to his own times ; and he added many narrations of events belonging to the history of Norwegian, Danish, and English monarchs, as well as of the events belonging to Icelandic history. Now this priest Are, continues the author of the preface to St. Olaf's Saga, wrote, according to his own account, in his History of the Norwegian Kings, from the oral relation of one Odd Kollsen, and this Odd again received his information from one 378 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. Thorgeir Afrodskoll, an intelligent man, who was so old that he was a householder at Dronthiem at the time Hakon Jarl the Great was killed. Are also lived fourteen years in the house of Hall Thoravenson, an intelligent man, who was baptized at the age of three years, the year before the gene ral introduction of Christianity into Iceland, and who, in the course of many voyages to Norway as a merchant, was well acquainted with the whole of that kingdom, and had been employed in vari ous affairs by King Olaf himself. It must be admitted that this author's inform ation*, derived not only from the original kuads of the Scalds, but from the written accounts of Are the Priest, who derived his acconnts from certain contemporaries of the transactions, whom he names, whose ages, places of residence, and means of obtaining their information he carefully states, stands upon authority very different from that of traditions which can be traced to no source that is entitled to greater credit than that of the last narrator. The anxious accuracy of the writer to show his authorities, and also those which his predecessor Are the Priest followed, is in a good spirit, and proves that his facts were not adopted * Harold Haarfagre was born anno 853, beian to reign 863, died 936. St. Olav's father was Harold Graendske ; ais grandfather Gud- rod ; his great grandfather, Biorn Stserke ; his great great grandfather was Harold Haarfagre ; and St. Olav was born anno 995, only 59 years after the death of his great progenitor Haarfagre. A contemporary of St. Olav was therefore a credible source of information for all the events of Haarfagre's reign, such as the conquest of Normandy by Rolf Gangr, the colonization of Iceland, &c. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 379 without discrimination. Is there any of our own ancient chroniclers who quotes his authorities and means of information so anxiously as these Ice landic chroniclers have done ? It is to be regretted that the learned Society has not given, along with this Saga, its conjectures with regard to the period at which the author lived. It is evident that Snorro Sturleson had used this more ancient Saga, both in his preface to the Heimskringla and in his St. Olaf's Saga ; but it would have been satisfactory to the curious to have known if all the facts coincide, or if not, whether Snorro had founded his account on any other manuscripts now lost ; whether the work or works of Are the Priest are extant, or were so in Snorro's time ; and above all, what may be the distinct value as authorities of these kuads of the Scalds, which this author, for the reasons given in his preface, prefers to the prose narrations, and which are the avowed foundation of all the his torical Saga. Are these kuads mere ballads or stanzas upon unconnected events and battles ? Is all between these heads or outlines of a history filled in by the writer, according to his own ideas of what may have been said or done at the time ? 240 years is a period which seems sufficient to extinguish all similar tradition in Orkney and Zetland as matter of historical faith for even important facts. How can small facts of no im portance, but illustrative of the state of society, be depended upon? Are the manners and customs which he paints with such lively touches those of 380 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. the age he writes of, or those of the time he lives in? But it is most probable that I have only my own ignorance to regret, and that these important points have been fully discussed by some of the learned men in Denmark who have investigated the Saga of the North. Some of those, however, who have studied the ancient Icelandic, and have given the world translations of Saga and historical chronicles into modern languages, have evidently been led by a false taste for effect to deviate totally from the truth of expression of the original author, and have given translations so obviously and ridi culously absurd, that the foreigner may justly doubt whether the same spirit has not more or less infected the whole of the Saga literature, and historical accuracy been much less attended to than poetical merit. In the translation, for in stance, of a kuad or song of Eivind Skalda-Spilder in Olav Tryggesen's Saga, what shall the stranger say to such a phrase as this — " Then Hugaf of Son- derleed and his Hottentots," &c. ? Or in the Gil- lunge Saga, to find Ingrid upbraiding King Inge, and calling him " King Lilleput f" Or to find in St. Olaf's Saga, in the account of Thore Hund's voyage to Byarmeland, that although they (the vessels) were seldom together, they always had each other in their spy-glasses ? The translation of Snorro Sturleson into the modern Norse or Danish, from. the Icelandic, by N. J. S. Grundtvig, priest, published in Copenhagen 1822, contains the above absurdities ; and where the translation of a work RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 381 of the twelfth century is in the present times of so loose and inaccurate a spirit, it may justly be doubted whether a spirit of close and accurate in vestigation of the historical value of the Saga has been generally diffused among Icelandic scholars. The exploits of the wandering heroes of Nor way, who set out with a few ships and conquered kingdoms in the finest parts of Europe for their posterity, seize on the imagination of the reader of modern history, and make him desirous to see the mother country of such men, — to see their descend ants, — to see the places where they lived, the har bours they sailed from ; and, should no works of man remain from their days, the rocks at least and hills and rivers which they had looked upon. I have been led into this long account of the Saga partly from having had no other reading for some months within reach, partly from being here in the midst of the old historic ground of Norway. It was at Dronthiem that all the great events of the early ages were acted. Haarfagre and his successors lived in the district north of the Dovre Fjelde, which was then considered the most im portant part of the kingdom. It was through this valley and Indal that Saint Olaf penetrated. Stik klesladt is near ; and Olver Egge, the brave udal man, who collected and led his neighbours to give battle on that field to the tyrant, and who ought to be considered by the Norwegians as the true tutelary saint of Norway, lived on the farm of Egge, near Steenkjaer. The estate is now, after 800 years, still probably of the same size as it was 382 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. when Olver possessed it, notwithstanding the sup posed effects of the law of partition. It is stQl one of the most considerable of the udal estates in the district, keeping forty head of cattle, with horses, crops, and pasturage in proportion ; and from its situation on a point of land extending into the Fiord, it has apparently never comprehended more land as one estate than now, although it may du ring such a long period have been often divided and parcelled out among children, and again re united by inheritance and odelsbaarn ret into one branch of the family. The Saga, although composed by natives of Iceland, are properly Norwegian literature. The events, persons, manners, language, belong to Norway ; and they are productions which, like the works of Homer, of Shakspeare, and of Scott, are strongly stamped with nationality of character and incident. From the end of the twelfth century, when Snorro Sturleson flourished — and he was a native of Iceland — down to the present day, Norwegian literature is almost a blank. Holberg, a native of Norway, produced about the beginning of last cen tury a great many clever dramatic pieces. His Erasmus Montanus, Henry and Pernille, and many others of his comedies, would probably act well on our stage. His World below Ground has long been a favourite book with English schoolboys. His Peder Paars is a comic poem, — the adven tures of a shopkeeper on his voyage to Calenburgh to see his feste moe or betrothed sweetheart ; and RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 383 is as witty as an ingenious parody of Homer or Virgil with all the machinery of gods and god desses humorously applied can be. In the lower departments of literature, such as the antiquarian and statistical, there have been writers of merit. It is evident, however, that no great literary effort has ever been made in Norway. It is possible that the state of society is not favourable to great mental exertion. There is nothing to be gained by it ; and intellectual labour seems to follow the same law as bodily labour — where people are very much at. their ease, not urged by want nor by am bition, they will make no violent exertion. They will neither build pyramids nor write Iliads. Midgrunden Gaard, September The road from the Dronthiem Fiord across the Fjelde to the Both nian Gulf was finished this summer. It was opened in a manner worthy of its importance by the King, who took this route in visiting his kingdom of Norway. The work is executed on the Norwegian side of the Fjelde very perfectly, and may be compared to our parliamentary roads in the High lands. This road is perhaps the most important of any for the military defence of Norway, whether con sidered as a country by itself, or as,^united in com mon defensive measures with Sweden. It is the key to the whole country north of the Dovre Fjeld. It is from the east alone, from Russia, that Sweden and Norway can ever have to oppose an army by land. In the event of an enemy cross ing the Bothnian Gulf, it is from some military 384 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. position connected with this road, covering the cultivated country in its rear upon the Dronthiem Fiord, from which it would draw its supplies, that both countries would have to be defended. The invader could not advance along the coast towards the capital of Sweden, with a Norwegian corps upon his flank and rear, and drawing its supplies by this road from a country abounding in men, horses, food, and the means of conveyance by sea or land. But to admit of a Norwegian corps being move able, some strong place on this line, in advance perhaps of the pass of Indal, would appear neces sary ; otherwise it could scarcely advance above a day or two beyond Suul, without endangering its own communications with the country whence its supplies must come. It could only cover that country, but could not act on the offensive. By this same line of road King Olaf came from Russia into Norway with that force which the bonder defeated at Stikklesladt ; and since that period the Fjelde has been crossed on this line, or on some one parallel to it ; and the north of Norway, that is, the country immediately north of Dronthiem, has been entered by an army at five different times. It appears extraordinary that, with such obvious reasons for establishing some strong point, or at least safe depot, on what must be the basis line of any military operation, offensive or defensive, in which Norway can possibly ever have to act, the attention of the country seems entirely directed to the fortifying of a rock opposite to Dronthiem, which does not protect the town, and will cost RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 385 more than the value of the dozen or two of ships it might possibly cover in the bay, and to the es tablishing a naval dep6t in Christiania Fiord. It is not from the sea that Norway has to dread an enemy. It is probable that this wise old monarch did not come over the Fjelde merely to dine with the citi zens of Dronthiem, but to take a military view of his territories. The whole population was up and out on foot or on horseback to meet the King. The enthu siasm was universal ; and Carl Johan's visit to Norway may well be compared to the visit of George IV- to Scotland. It was in better taste, both on the part ofthe monarch and of the people. The King came over the frontiers without military escort or guard, and with the most simple attend ance and retinue. In Scotland there was a little too much pretence and attempt at show. All were to appear what they really were not,— highlanders, or archers, or private well-dressed gentlemen ; and George IV., who appears to have had a little sly wit, told the good citizens of Edinburgh that he thought he had come into a nation of gentlemen, and the good folks swallowed the delicate irony of the remark without feeling its point. .The King saw only the gentlemen of the nation, and saw them only in masquerade. In Carl Johan's visit to Nor way every thing was on a more natural, and there fore more honourable, footing for the national character. There was no unreal representation ; no false exhibition ; no lawyers dressed like High- c c 386 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. landers, or tradesmen in bag-wigs and swords. The bonder came out on their best horses and in their Sunday clothes to escort the King from station to station ; and there was not besides even a single dragoon. Their wives and children lined the roads, and erected numerous triumphal arches of fir branches of great simplicity and good taste ; and of more effect, from being the thought and work of the moment. The sovereign, on his part, walked out among them without military attend ance, or suite but a few civil functionaries ; shook hands with them ; begged them in broken Norse " to make room for their old father," when they pressed in upon him too closely ; and really ap peared, and was, a father walking among an affec tionate kind-hearted people. How different all this from the puppet-show at Holyrood House ! The reality of every thing, the total absence of pretence and attempt at effect, was honourable to the character of the nation and of its sovereign. What must have been the feelings of this mon arch at Stikklesladt ! He came a mile or two out of the road to visit the field of battle. He stood on the very spot on which, on the same hour of the same day of the same month — three o'clock in the afternoon of 31st August — eight hundred and five years before. King Olaf was slain by his subjects. He stood on the little eminence, sur rounded by the descendants of the very peasants who fought and vanquished that prince : their priest, aged eighty-two, who has consequently lived through more than one-tenth of this immense RESIDENCE IN NORM'AY. 387 interval of time, gave the King his blessing on this very spot. In human existence there have been few such moments. The King was sensible of it, and with peculiar good taste went first to the man sion ofthe old priest, and exchanged his travelling dress for a suit of uniform, — probably an old and favourite one, — and then repaired to the spot where a monarch fell, who, in the earlier part of his career, was not unlike himself in talent and character. The King appeared to have more knowledge of historical localities than many of his subjects. At Dronthiem, on the day before his departure, he went to visit the fortifications of the little island Munkholm ; and before reaching the custom-house where the barge was in waiting, he stopped the coach, got out, and walked with his hat off to the place of embarkation. There are probably not a dozen persons in Dronthiem who understood the reason. It was sacred ground for a king. The Ore- thing at which the people of this part of Norway assembled, and at which above twenty kings have been proposed, accepted by the Thing, and pro claimed, was, according to the opinion of anti quarians, held on this spot. This visit of Carl Johan to I^orway furnishes to reflecting persons a strong proof of the supe riority of the constitutional over the legitimate principle, as a stable basis for regal government. The legitimate monarchs of Europe were dissem bled at Kalisch, with armies to escort them through their own dominions. The French monarch, wish- c c 2 388 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY'. ing to reign on legitimate principles, cannot take an airing in his carriage but between two squadrons of dragoons. This monarch was at that very time, as if the contrast had been intended by Providence for the instruction of mankind, walking in the towns, and in the country, in the midst of his people, without guards, without military attend ance but what the people furnished, and enjoying in his old age, without the parade of a court train, the spontaneous effusions of their loyalty. Yet Carl Johan never sacrificed a royal preroga tive in order to gain popularity. The mistake of his reign, perhaps, as to this country, has been that for a series of years he viewed it, like his Swedish ministers, as one which ought to be go verned on the same principles with Sweden. A stranger to the language, and possibly, like almost all men of his time of life who have been bred in the European ideas of fifty years back, to the principle of constitutional government, and sur rounded by a nobility who considered their own and a few others of the higher classes of the com munity as constituting alone a nation, and with no choice of ministers but from among these classes, it is only wonderful with what tact and judgment he always seized the right view, amid their errors and wild attempts to alter the Norwegian constitution, when such questions were brought fairly before him. It was this force of mind and prudence, always exerted when he acted on his own judg ment, and which contrasted so strongly with their rash and often ill-digested proposals, which deve- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 389 loped so strongly in this nation that ground-prin ciple of all constitutional monarchies, — that the king can do no wrong, that his ministers are responsible for all the acts of the government. It is so perfectly developed in this country, that the confidence of the nation in the good sense and judgment of their sovereign, and their attachment and loyalty were never for a moment shaken, even while their Storthing was unanimously rejecting proposals from the cabinet for the most alarming alterations in their constitution. The wrong was ascribed to the minister, the good to the King. His reign is the moral triumph of the constitutional over the legitimate principle. August 25. — On Monday the 20th of August, the electors of our parish met in the parish-church to choose their Valgsmaend, or election-men ; and on the 30th of August, these Valgsmaend met at Sleenkjger as a centrical point for all the Valgsmsend of the different parishes of the amt or county, in number thirty-one, to choose the representatives to the Storthing. The minister and the foged each keep a list of electors ; as age as well as property enter into the qualification. It is far beyond my competency to give an opinion whether this middle wbeel of election- men is or is not good in a representative system. One hundred electors or under, at the election meeting, choose one, from one hundred to two hundred, two, and so on. The number of elec tion-men depends therefore on the number of elec tors who choose to meet ; but in case of sickness, c c 3 ' 390 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. written votes are taken. We had 270 electors, and therefore send three election-men. A very great number of qualified voters did not meet, as the hay crop was not all carried in. From what I see in the newspapers, one-fourth at least of the qualified voters over all Norway did not attend. There is a danger, therefore, in the working of this middle wheel, that it may deaden the interest in public affairs, from the want of direct communi cation between the representative and constituent. To travel ten or twenty miles from a bare sense of public duty, perhaps at a busy season, and without the assurance even of adding one election-man to the number, for 101 voters would send as many as 199, is too much perhaps to expect from public spirit. Yet it is an effectual preventive of bribery and undue influence in any shape. The election- men meet in ten days. It can only then be known how many representatives they can elect ; for that depends upon their own numbers. September The distillation of spirits from po tatoes is a process so simple, and the manufacture is so general and so important in Norway, where grain cannot be spared for that purpose, that I was anxious to obtain more exact information about it than I got at Dronthiem. In regular distilleries the saving of labour and of fuel, and the greater scale of operation, require arrangements, vessels, and machinery which are not necessary in the housekeeping of the common bonde, who only distils his own few barrels, and by far the greater part of the spirits used in the country is thus RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 391 made. The principle is the same, and the opera tions in a regular distillery are no doubt more economical ; but the most simple mode of opera ting on so bulky a material is the most interesting, because the potatoes are in every cottage ; but it is only in this country that in every household they are converted into a valuable product without much machinery or trouble. It is part of the women's work, like cheese-making or brewing ; and is carried on once a week or fortnight on every gaard for the sake of the wash and refuse to the cattle, as well as ofthe spirits. There is no choice of the potatoes. Those pro duced in dry soils are supposed to yield most spirit; but nothing is ascertained, except that there are considerable differences in the quantity which potatoes produce. They are first taken to the pump, well washed and scrubbed with the besom, and when quite clean and free from earth are put into a barrel to be steamed. This barrel may be of any size, and should have iron hoops, and an opening in the head for putting in the potatoes, with a little door on the side at its bottom for taking them out. The bottom is bored fuh of holes to let out the water, and the barrel is some times set upon a stand with rollers for the con venience of moving it about. When the potatoes are put in, and the door below fastened, the steam is brought into the barrel by a metal pipe from a kettle or still of boiling water. The pipe comes from the lid or cover of the vessel in which the water is boiling into the side of the barrel, close to c c 4 392 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. its bottom, and its mouth has a little grating to prevent its being choked by the potatoes falling into it. The steam, when the water comes to boil, penetrates the potatoes ; and in this process a great deal of water runs out through the holes in the bottom of the barrel. A kettle which will hold one barrel-full of water is sufficiently large to steam six barrels of potatoes ; but as boiling water is required in the process afterwards, it is a saving of labour and fuel to have a vessel holding five barrels of water. The steaming takes an hour and a half, and they know when it is enough by taking out one of the largest potatoes and eating it. By boiling in steam instead of water, the potatoes have a better flavour ; and there is a great saving of labour and fuel. When our illicit distillers in Scotland attempted to make whiskey of potatoes, they boiled them ; but could never get rid of the potatoe taste in the spirits, which boiling alone does not take away. In the most simple process, the potatoes are put into a basket with a tight lid, or into a barrel with holes in the bottom and fitted close upon the top of the pot or kettle of boiling water, so that all the steam must go through. The most profitable way of distihing potatoes is with a mixture of crushed wheat and malt, or instead of wheat rye, or any other grain. The best proportions are these : — To six heaped barrels of potatoes, weighing seventy-eight stones of six teen pounds each, nine and a half stones of wheat or other corn, and five of malt from bear or big. If more of any of the parts be taken, the wort or RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 393 liquor to be distilled is too heavy, and is apt to burn or singe in the still. By this proportion the smallest distilling, as a barrel or half a barrel at a time, is regulated. The crushed grain and malt are first mixed in about 120 quarts of water heated to 50° of Reaumur or 144° of Fahrenheit, and no higher. The potatoes being perfectly steamed, are crushed between two rollers, and as they leave the rollers are shovelled into the vat in which the fermentation is to take place. For small quantities, rollers are not necessary. A pestle, or a man with wooden shoes crushes them under his feet in the vat, and the more they are reduced to a paste the better. Boiling water, to the extent of about 450 quarts, is then poured into the vat, and is cooled down with cold water to 20° Reaumur, or 77° Fahrenheit, at which the mash of wheat and malt is added to it; the vat is then immediately covered up as tightly as possible, and left to ferment. A vat for the above quantity must be large enough to hold fourteen or fifteen barrels, besides room for the liquor to ferment without running over, as the potatoes ferment with great violence with or without the addition of yeast. A still for this quantity should be large enough to hold about six barrels.^ There is no occasion to wait until the liquor is quite clear before taking it from the fermenting vat to the still, as much of the spirit would be lost by evaporation : the rule is, to divide the scum of seeds and froth upon its surface ; and if the scum does not run together of itself, nor the opening 394 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. close with air bubbles from below, the ferment ation is over, and there is loss of spirit by delay. The distihing process is the same as from other liquors ; and it is sometimes distilled twice, and flavoured with anise. The exact produce from a given quantity of potatoes is not easily ascertained, because the quantity of the spirit depends on its strength, which is not measured by our scale or instruments. The quantity of potatoes and grain above mentioned have been estimated to give 160 to 190 quarts of our measure of a spirit of six de grees of strength ; but I do not understand the unit from which this measure of the strength pro ceeds, or its proportion to our proof. Judging by that common instrument, the mouth, I find a strong fiery spirit, with no disagreeable taste or smell, produced by my neighbour at the rate of fifteen pots, which would be somewhat above eigh teen quarts English, from the barrel of potatoes ; and where potatoes and grain are good, I under stand this is the ordinary produce. The value given to a potato crop by distillation is not easily ascertained. Besides the quantity and value of the spirits, there is that of the wash or refuse for the cattle, which is considered better for them than the potatoes would have been in any other shape : the value of the corn and malt is also to be reckon ed. The best judgment of it may be gathered from the price which distihers give for potatoes under ordinary circumstances. This is a dollar per barrel, which is about three per cent, less than half an Imperial quarter ; a high price to be paid RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 395 at the farmer's door, and which gives a real value to the land from a product which had formerly been merely cultivated for family use, and without the advantage of the manure produced by feeding the farm stock on the waste. Norway in the year 1825 had a population of 967,959 persons. By the census of 1835 the num bers are 1,098,291, being an increase in these ten years of 130,332. In the towns there were in 1825 a population of 112,778, and in 1835 of 125,139, being an increase of 12,361. In the coun try in 1825 the population was 855,181, and in 1835 973,152, being an increase of 117,971. The town population is contained in thirty- eight places, only nine of which exceed 3000 in habitants, and only two reach 20,000 ; and in all, excepting perhaps Bergen, a considerable propor tion of the inhabitants are engaged in agriculture, raising a part at least of what they consume. The great increase therefore has decidedly been in the agricultural population. No manufacture has risen during these ten years to be exchanged for food with other countries. The wood trade, which is the staple one, and formerly gave employment to a great population, has been in a very depressed state. The increase has evidently been from the greater quantity of food raised from the soil of the country by taking in new lands or improving the old. The admitted advance of the people within these ten years in the enjoyment of the necessaries and luxuries of life, taken together with this ascer tained increase of their numbers, shows a very re- 396 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. markable progress of the country under its own legislation. The gradual reduction of the taxes, and especially of that worst of all, the embodying almost all the able agricultural population to be exercised as militia during a great portion of the short season which the climate admits of being ap plied to the clearing and preparing new land, may be one of the great steps by which this progress has been made. The greatest, however, has un doubtedly been the free use of his agricultural produce enjoyed by the farmer in malting, distil ling, and in every way he pleases. The distilling of all the potatoes that can be spared from family use, has spread universally the improvement that comes nearest to extensive turnip husbandry of which the climate admits. There is the evil, no doubt, of drunkenness being more within the power of the lower classes. It is but a poor morality, however, which a government has to enforce by keeping the keys of the ceUar ; nor can I admit that the common people are more addicted to drunkenness in Norway than in Scotland. They use more spirits undoubtedly, but they spread it over a greater portion of time. If their two glasses of raw spirits daily, which is perhaps the average consumption of each of the labouring class, were taken all at once, or in two evenings of the week, they would lose two or perhaps four days of that week, from the effects of excess ; but divided as they generally are in fourteen portions at intervals of twelve hours, it is the physician rather than the moralist who can speak to the effects. The RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 397 ordinary observer can only remark that in spite of this poison they are a very athletic, healthy- looking set of men, carrying the bloom of youth ful complexions to a much later period of life than other nations; they have particularly well-made hmbs, in which respect the English peasant is often deficient, and their children are uncommonly and strikingly fine-looking little creatures. The ordi nary observer in this country will be very apt, in balancing the good against the evil, to class the legislating for morality by distillery laws, or by any other means than the diffusion of religious and moral instruction, with the penal laws against fornication or Sabbath-breaking. It is painting and gilding a plank which we know has the dry rot in its heart ; and yet trying to persuade our selves, and even Providence, that all is sound be cause it is made to look so. There is a little confusion in the religion and morality of many excellent and highly gifted men when they at- temp to support them by Acts of Parliament in stead ofthe only sound foundation, the instruction of the people. It is the mere outward semblance of morality and religion they obtain when they succeed best, and that is surely not the object at which they aim. The increase of population in* Norway, con nected as it evidently is with a proportional in crease of property by improved husbandry, and a value being given to its products by new employr ments, is a striking proof that population and property, if the latter be distributed through the 398 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. social body on the natural principle, will mutually act upon and check each other. The increase of numbers, previously to the establishment of an independent legislature, was extremely slow, be cause the increase of their property Was slow ; it is now much more rapid, because the state of propei'ty admits of it. The diminution of taxes, and the distillation of the products of husbandry which were formerly of little value, while the spirits had to be purchased from other countries, are visible additions to the mass of property gained within these ten years, and producing an addi tion of population. It is not an increase called into existence by any temporary advance of wages in cotton-spinning, or other manufactures ; but the property which is to subsist the population being increased, the population has followed. The progress of those tastes and habits which belong to property, tending to keep population within the bounds of what can be comfortably subsisted, and without which the increase of sub sistence would tend to evil rather than good, has evidently kept its due pace. The consumption of foreign luxuries, such as coffee, tea, sugar, the gradual taste for finer cloth, for better stone-ware, and such household articles, and the increasing demand for mental amusement, prove that the habits which check undue increase of population are keeping pace with that ease of subsistence which would otherwise produce it. Twenty years ago there was not a newspaper published in Nor way, excepting for advertisements of sales or of RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 399 the official notices from government. Now there is not a town which has not several periodical pa pers ; and news, especially of the domestic occur rences and affairs, is one ofthe wants ofthe people. October. — The population of Norway, with re ference to their means of living and employments, may be divided into three distinct classes. The seafaring peasantry occupy the islands, the entire provinces of Nordland and Finmark, and the coast side of all the Fiords, even a hundred miles up from the main ocean. These Strand-sitters, as they are called, have small farms, held generally in life-rent for their own and their widows' lives, and sufficient to keep a couple of cows, some sheep, and to yield potatoes and a little corn in favour able situations. Their subsistence, however, de pends upon their fishing. The great scene of Norwegian fishery is in the Lofoten islands. In the beginning of February the fish set in from the ocean, and occupy the banks in West Fiord, which is that tract of sea comprehended between the chain of islands and the mainland. These banks are from three to ten miles out in the Fiord, and at a depth of from sixty to eighty fathoms. Shelter from the fury of the main ocean, possibly also some special circum stances in the temperature, or in the food afforded on these banks, bring the cod in such crowds to gether to deposit their spawn, that it is said a deep-sea lead is often interrupted in its descent to the bottom through these fish hills, as they are called. From North Cape to Bergen, all the fisher- 400 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. men who have the means assemble in the month of January at the different stations. The fish are caught in nets and on long lines. Nets are be coming more in use every season. An outfit for this fishing consists of two boats, each manned by five men. This company have six or eight nets, each twenty fathoms in length when mounted or put to the back and side ropes, and thirty meshes deep. The mesh ofthe cod net is about six inches when stretched from knot to knot, and is made of three-ply hemp-thread barked. The nets have sinkers to carry them to the bottom, and light wood (cork being too expensive) as floaters on the back rope, to keep them in a perpendicular posi tion; and the back ropes and ground ropes of each are fastened to the next, and the whole drift set as our herring nets, only with longer buoy-ropes, as the nets are set in from sixty to eighty fathoms. If the outfit is with long lines, the line consists of 1200 hooks at five feet distance, consequently a thousand fathoms in length, with buoys and anchors ; and the hooks, which are of tinned iron, are on hook-lines of about a fathom in length. The nets and lines are set at night, and taken up in the morn ing. Each company has its own set, or ground, determined by marks on the shore. Line fishers have the inside, and net fishers the outside. Lines and nets must be set from land to seaward, not along the coast. Each station must have only so many fishing companies, that a line fishing com pany may have twenty-five fathoms, and a net fish ing company twenty fathoms clear of neighbours. There is a commander elected at each station by RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 401 the fishermen themselves ; and the police and regu lation, such as going out together to raise their lines and nets by signal, the prevention of night fishing, stealing, or encroachment on another company's ground, are entrusted to him ; and, in concert with the commanders of the two nearest stations, he de termines when the fishing shall begin and end. Go vernment, besides these judicious regulations, which leave matters to the judgment of the fishermen themselves, has other absurd ones ; such as fixing a particular day before which the cured fish cannot be removed, and another after which they cannot remain. As the curing depends entirely on the weather, if would be altogether as wise to fix a day on which corn shall be cut down, ripe or not. It often happens that the fish are dry and cured before the 12th of June, being the day fixed, but just before it arrives wet weather begins, and they are destroyed ; at other times the fish are not in a state to be removed when by law they must be so. The object is to prevent the stealing of those un der cure, which might take place if every man removed his fish when he'pleased ; but the remedy is as fatal to property as the disease. Every twenty or thirty of the fishing companies have a yacht, or large tender, to bfing out their provisions, nets, and lines, and to take the produce to market. The fish are cured as round or stock fish until April, after which they are split, salted, and carried to Dronthiem or other places to be dried on the rocks, like our Scotch dried cod. The stock-fish are merely gutted and hung up, two D D 402 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. together, across poles, which are provided by the owner of each station ; and they are dried without salt in the wind. In a medium year, 1827, there were 2916 boats fishing in eighty-three different stations, accom panied by 124 yachts or tenders, the number of men in all being 15,324. The produce was 16,456,620 fish, which would be about 8800 tons dried ; there were also 21,530 barrels of cod oil, and 6000 of cod roe. This important winter fishing ends in the middle of April, after which the seafaring peasantry in Finmark and Nordland fish for the Russians ; the others return to their homes, and catch sethe (Gadus virens) or herrings. , The herring fishery is not clogged with the absurd regulations of our Board, with regard to the size of the mesh of the net. In order to preserve the breed, and prevent the young fish from being taken, our wise regula tions oblige our fishermen to use nets with the mesh of an inch square. The consequence is that only full, fish, just about to spawn, can be taken ; and in that state they are no where esteemed, and not marketable, if others containing neither roe nor melt, and not shotten but fat, can be procured. It is time that our government put an end to the absurd whims of the late George Rose and his fishery board, which have cost the country some millions of money. To preserve the race of her rings, if that were even a rational object for re gulation, the way is not to kiU the unspawned fish; but, on the contrary, to spare them, and kill the young: not to kill the goose about to lay her RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 403 golden eggs, but her goslings. The Norwegians very wisely use nets of all sizes of mesh ; and take herrings of any size, at any time by day or night, as they can get them, leaving it to the fish curer to assort the sizes and kinds of fish to suit his cus tomers, and leaving it to nature to replace the fish kiUed. By this wise and simple procedure, they have beat the Scotch herring curers out of the markets of the Baltic, as they deliver fish better assorted, and of better quality. Besides these important general fisheries, there is in every creek of the Fiords, even at a hundred miles up from the ocean, as atSteenkjger in the Dron thiem Fiord, abundance of cod, whiting, haddock, flounder, sea bream and herrings, caught for daily use and for sale by the seafaring peasantry. The bonder, or agricultural peasantry, each the proprietor of his own farm, occupy the country from the shore side to the hill foot, and up every valley or glen, as far as corn will grow. This class is the kernel of the nation. They are in general fine athletic men, as their properties are not so large as to exempt them from work ; but large enough to afford them and their households abun dance, and even superfluity, of the best food. They farm, not to raise produce for sale so much as to grow every thing they eat, drink, and wear in their families. They build their own houses, make their own chairs, tables, ploughs, carts, har ness, iron-work, basket-work, and wood- work; in short, except the window glass, cast-iron ware, and pottery, every thing about their houses and D D 2 404 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. furniture is of their own fabrication. There is not, probably, in Europe so great a population in so happy a condition as this Norwegian yeomanry. A body of small proprietors, each with his thirty or forty acres, scarcely exists elsewhere in Europe ; or, if it can be found, it is under the shadow of some more imposing body of wealthy proprietors or commercial men. Here they are the highest in the nation. The population of the few towns is only reckoned about one-eleventh of the whole, and of that only a very small proportion can be called rich : too few to have any influence on the habits or way of thinking of the nation. The settlers in the newer states of America, and in our colonies, possess properties probably of about the same extent ; but they have roads to make, lands to clear, houses to build, and the work that has been doing here for a thousand years to do, before they can be in the same condition. These Nor wegian proprietors are in a happier condition than those in the older states of America, because they are not so much .influenced by the spirit of gain. They farm their little estates, and consume the produce, without seeking to barter or sell, except what is necessary for paying their taxes and the few articles of luxury they consume. There is no money-making spirit among them, and none of extravagance. They enjoy the comforts of ex cellent houses, as good and large as those of the wealthiest individuals, good furniture, bedding, linen, clothing, fuel, victuals and drink, all in abundance, and of their own providing; good ' RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 405' horses, and a houseful of people who have more food than work. Food, furniture, and clothing being all home-made, the difference in these mat ters between the family and the servants is very small ; but there is a perfect distinction kept up. The servants invariably eat, sleep, and sit apart from the family, and have generally a distinct build ing adjoining to the family house. There is a third class, the connecting link between this class of small proprietors and the wandering Laplanders, whose lot is not so fortunate. They possess land also, and have houses, which, although small, are comfortable, with floors of wood and glass windows ; but their situation is on the verge ofthe Fjelde, or in the glens which run into it, far above the level of the land which produces com, and outside of the districts occupied by the other small proprietors. Their employments are consequently different. These Fjelde bonder live by the produce of cattle, by felling timber in those situations in which they have the advantage of a mountain stream near the forest for floating the trees to a saw mill ; and, as a secondary object, by the sale of game, carried in a frozen state in winter to the low-country markets. Snow remains late in spring on their territory, an|i night frosts set in early in August ; so that on the higher tracts on the borders of dense forests and of marshes, where these Scandinavian backwoodsmen have their land, the corn is generally frozen be fore the ear is filled. The bark of the pine, mixed D D 3 406 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. and ground up with their ill-ripened oats, is their common bread ; and the trout of the Fjelde lakes, dried and salted for winter use, forms no inconsider able part of their provision. They live a harder and more laborious life, have a stronger frame of body, and more active character, than the inhabit ants of the agricultural country. Winter is no time of rest and enjoyment for them. While the snow prevents the agricultural bonder from doing any outdoor work, they must drive home in sledges the hay cut and stacked during the sum mer in distant bogs and grass valleys in the Fjelde, inaccessible for horses until the snow has levelled all obstructions. It is only at this season too, that the trunks of trees felled in the depths of the forests can be dragged over the fallen timber and blocks of stone which cover the earth, to the side of the stream which is to float them on a thaw to the lower country. This class of the peasantry includes not merely the outside settlers on the verge of the Fjelde, and in the heads of the valleys of which the lower levels are cultivated, but also the inhabitants of extensive districts and amts, whose condition is more or less influenced by these circumstances. They are the most rough but most interesting of the inhabitants of Norway. They retain the dress, manners, character, and athletic forms which we imagine as belonging to men in ancient times. Each district and vaUey has some peculiarity of costume, pi'onunciation, and even character ; and intermarriages of the isolated group of inhabitants with those in the RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 407 . next valley, or in the lower grounds, are rare. There are said to be families in these remote glens which can trace their descent from the days of Harold Haarfagre.* It is not exactly necessary to believe that this peasant nobility have any real re cords of a lineage surpassing that of the most ancient nobility in Britain or France, and with the preservation of which neither privilege nor consideration in society was ever connected in Norway ; but one may believe that lands in these remote glens seldom change possessors by pur chase and sale, and may have descended very generally to the posterity of those who possessed the same acres in the earliest times, especially as internal wars and confiscations in the middle ages never extended to the possessions of the great mass of these humble udallers. One may believe that as the descendants of Rolf Ganger, the great progenitor of William the Conqueror, may be traced to many of the thrones of Europe, those of * Grjsesling is the name of a bonder family living on their estate, called Sandbu, in the parish of Vaage in Guldbrandsdal, who have parchments, says the antiquary Gerard Schoning, proving that in the year 1336 the family was possessing and living on this estate : also in Loom parish, Hrolf Blakar of Blakar preserves a headpiece or helmet complete with an opening only for the eyes, and parts of a coat of mail, a long sword, and other articles of his ancestors ; and a writing of King Hakon Magnussen the younger, who lodged a night in Blakar Gaard in the fourteenth year of his reign, anno 1364. These would be very ancient families in Britain. Are there many holding documents and family estates for so long a period ? Of the authenticity of the documents of these bonder there can be no question. Schoning had them before him, and he was an antiquary of great learning and character. See Gerhard Schoning's Reise, Aaret, 1775; Budstikken, 1821. Nos. 91 and 92. D D 4 408 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. RolPs kinsman who settled in Iceland, while his more ambitious relative steered to the south, may now exist as peaceful Icelandic peasants* in the original domicile of their forefathers ; more happy, Deppin supposes, during the thousand years which have elapsed since their ancestors parted on the shores of Norway, than their distant relatives on their thrones.t It is at least pleasing to the ima gination to see among this class of ancient pro prietors the forms of countenance and figures to which we are accustomed, without perhaps having any distinct meaning, to attach the word noble. * Rolf Ganger is supposed to have resided in the island, on the coast of Sundmar, called Vigerae, before his expedition to Normandy. Where wood is the building material, remains of ancient dwellings can scarcely exist; but a dry dock or excavation for holding ships remains, and is said to be that which Rolf used in fitting out his expedition. These docks or excavations for receiving vessels are called nousts in the ancient Norwegian language, a word still retained in Orkney and Zetland. Some antiquarians are fond of deriving this word noust from the Greek naosterion. f Roguvald,Earl of North and South Mcere, had two surviving sons : Rolf Ganger, who conquered Normandy, and was ancestor of our Nor man line of kings ; and Thore the Silent, who on his father's death was created Earl of Moere, and married King Harold Haarfagre's daughter Aulof. Jorund, a son of this marriage, and consequently nephew of Rolf Ganger, the great progenitor of so many crowned heads, went to Iceland, took a piece of land in the northern division of the island, between the lake Udarvatn and the river Mogilsbek, and lived in a farm which he called Grund. His son Mar settled in a fai-m called , Marstad. A bastard son of Earl Rognvald, HroUaug, also settled on a farm now called Felzhverfi. The royal families of Europe have more cousins than they are aware of. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 409 CHAPTER X. LAPLAND GIRL SLIGHTED BY THE NORWEGIANS — CON DITION. VISITS I'ROM LAPLANDERS. OPHTHALMIA. — REINDEER. — SLEDGES. SPEED. POWERS OF DRAUGHT. REINDEER CANNOT ENDURE WET CANNOT LIVE IN SCOT LAND. BUY A FAT REINDEER FOR KILLING. LAPLAND BUTCHER. WEIGHT OF FOUR QUARTERS. COLD. BIRDS. WOLVES. TRAVELLING DRESS IN WINTER. JOURNEY TO DRONTHIEM. VOLLAN. OVNE. JERKIN. WINTER SCENERY IN THE GLENS. SLEDGE DRIVING. WINTER ON THE FJELDE. — SUBSTITUTES FOR HAY IN FEEDING CATTLE. ACQUIRED TASTES OF CATTLE. REMAINS OF OLD BUILDINGS ON DOVRE FJELD. PICTS' HOUSES IN SCOTLAND. GULDEBRANDSDAL IN WINTER. HAMMER. SUNSHINE AS HURTFUL AS FROST TO THE CROPS IN NORWAY. COM PLETE LITTLE ESTATES. HOW AN ENGLISH FAMILY COULD LIVE HERE AMERICAN TOWNS. NORWEGIAN HORSES. November A Lapland beauty, and really a pretty girl, came into our kitchen to-day on her way from the Fjelde. She was dressed very smartly, in a cap of blue and red cloth edged with a gold cord, a red woollen wrapper round her neck, a reindeer skin like a waggoner's frock reaching down to her knees, and a worsted sash as a girdle. She wore stockings or pantaloons of^skin ; shoes of the same, with the under leather or sole coming round the foot, and neatly sewed to the upper ; and she had a green worsted plaid, which she wore over one shoulder like a Highlander. She was quite a theatrical figure, and very brisk and smart in her movements. She was not one of the Fjeld or 410 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. wandering Fins, but of those who possess rein deer in the Fjelde which they attend in summer, as the Norwegian women do their cattle in the seaters. In winter they have fixed habitations in the low country, and leave their reindeer to the care of one person with hired keepers ; thus two or three families keep their stocks together. It is a considerable step towards a more civilized state. Those who follow this life have either consider able property in reindeer, whence they obtain cheese, milk, venison, and skins to dispose of in the low country during the winter ; or they beg there from house to house, having nothing in the Fjelde. This young woman came to sell me fur shoes and mittens, or rather to ask if I would order some for winter. I found she could use her needle, and do all kinds of female work fully as well as the servant girls here ; and her dress altogether was of more value than theirs. They knew also that her friends were considered wealthy among the Laplanders, and had often seen her on her way to or from the Fjelde ; yet I observed they did not ask her to sit down. A Fin, as they call the Laplander in Norway, is looked upon with a sort of contempt, as an animal of a lower species ; and to eat, sit, or associate with one of them, would be disdained by the lowest. When I bade them prepare some coffee for my visitor, and made her sit down to it, they stared and tittered as an English girl would do if you told her to prepare tarts or a cake for your lapdog. The Norwegians, however, are never harsh or unkind to these Fins, RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 411 in which I find there is a little superstition as well as charity. It is considered unlucky not to give them something to eat under your roof. The idea of witchcraft is not entirely worn out ; and the bonder have many tales of the supernatural powers of the old Fjelde women. I was coijsi- dered very prudent in treating the Fin girl so kindly, as her relations might make things go well with me all winter. During the autumn there was a great coming and going of these half-civilized Laplanders through the valley. They were preparing for the winter, bringing the women, children, and infirm rela tions, with what they had to sell, into the low coun try. When they found that I made them welcome, I was seldom a day without visitors. The oph thalmia seems very prevalent, almost every family having a blind person, especially among its elderly people, and many even of the children had lost the sight of an eye. I thought at first it might have been the effect of small-pox ; but they had no scars of that disease, and I afterwards found several whose sight was in a decaying state. It is pro bably an hereditary malady in the race. The goitres and the cretinism of Switzerland are not known among them, nor among thf Norwegians. About the 20th of November, the snow lay deep. Winter had fully set in. Carioles and every thing on wheels were laid up. Sledges, and bells, aind fur caps, and snow boots, were brought out. Every household for a month before had been salting, pickling, and making black-puddings, and saus- 412 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, ages for winter provision. A party of nine Lap landers paid me a visit on their way from the Fjelde. There were a father and mother, five children, and two pretty young women, all neighbours in their fixed abodes in the low country, who were going into their winter quarters. They had five rein deer for winter provision, which dragged their bag gage, consisting of packs of deer-skins laid upon long slips of wood or snow-skates. The reindeer is harnessed by a single thong fastened to a collar, and passing between his legs. His ordinary load in a sledge, is nine vogs, or about three hundred weight ; but for a short distance he will drag much more. As to the animal's speed and endurance, the Amtman Blom, who has published very interesting observations made during his residence as foged in Finmark and his journey in Lapland, takes the liberty of laughing a little at Captain Capel de Broke's account of travelling thirty Norwegian miles (above 210 English) in a day. The Amtman says, if the reader divides the number by three, makes a large deduction if the snow happens to be soft, when the reindeer makes very little progress, and a very large deduction if the journey is to be of more than one day, he wiU come nearer to the truth. The animal neither has, nor from its con formation can have, any considerable powers of endurance. The Amtman also laughs at the ac count of its alleged instinct of leaving the Fjelde once in the summer, and seeking the shore to take a single draught of sea water, and then returning. The reindeer are taken to the coast, or to the RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 413 Fjelde, according to the judgment or fancy of the owner, without regard to season ; and thousands never taste salt water. It is a different animal alto- together which has this instinct for a single summer draught of sea water, and goes in flocks from the £!ustom-house stairs to Margate, per steamer, to gratify it. Several attempts have been made to introduce reindeer into theHighlands of Scotland, but without success. This is not owing to the want of food, for the animal eats grass and hay as well as moss. It lives on moss, because there is nothing else to live on in the Fjelde. Nor is it owing to its habits; for when domesticated it is considerably less wild, and wanders less than our black-faced sheep. It is much more tame, free from alarm or shyness at being touched or handled, than a West Highland cow. Reindeer have been brought to Scotland in good health, after being nine weeks on board the vessel. No animal very shy or wild could have borne the confinement. The cause of the failure, I suspect, is the nature of the hair and skin of the animal. The former does not throw off wet well, and even parts from the skin after any continuance of moisture. With our damp climate and wet ground, the animal would be drenched through the hair to the skin for weeks together, and would die of cold or rot, as our sheep often do in wet seasons. In Norway the heavy rains occur in spring or au tumn, at which seasons what is rain below is dry snow higher up in the Fjelde. Our highest hills do not afford in summer this kind of refuge from 414 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. rain and damp to an animal whose coat keeps out any degree of cold, but wiU not stand continued moisture. In Iceland, the reindeer were intro duced by the Danish government about the middle of the last century ; but they are understood to have proved a nuisance instead of a benefit. They have not the wolf to check the tendency of their population to exceed the means of subsistence, and they have multiplied so as to devour the summer pastures on which the inhabitants depend for their cattle ; and having been allowed to run wild, they are of no use. As I wanted a winter stock of fresh venison, I bargained for the fattest of the ox-deer. There were two females ; and the others were castrated deer, very fat, with a breadth over the back and hips that would have graced a sheep of the Bake- well breed. They had all a quiet domesticated look ; and as compared to other deer, the muzzle appears not at all pointed, but broad, and resem bling about the nostrils and lips that of a coarse small cow. After much consultation among the women, who appeared much better merchants than the men, our bargain was settled at six dollars and a half for the fattest of the deer, a pair of winter mittens of reindeer-skin for an ort, two or three pairs of shoes of the same for half a dollar each ; and, over and above the money, a pot of brandy. One of the young women who had been several times before in the house presented me with a little whelp ofthe fine furred breed, which she had brought in her bosom, or rather above the girdle RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 415 of her skin pelisse, between which and their own skins the Laplanders stow every thing. She had heard me express a wish for a dog of that kind, and had brought it ; and in return for her atten tion received a suitable present of coffee and sugar. Our complicated account being settled, and the money paid, the girl, after speaking with her friends, came back in some distress, and laid the cash down again on the table. She had forgot, she said, to make the bargain that their own peo ple should kill the deer. They would do it im mediately, and ask nothing ; but it would be ill luck to allow one to be killed by any other persons. On consulting my housekeeper, a native of Fin mark and acquainted with their usages, I found that it was a general prejudice among the Lap landers, and that they would kill and cut up the animal more nicely than our houseman. As the deer was old and unaccustomed to eat hay, I could not have kept it in a thriving state, and it could scarcely have been fatter ; I agreed there fore to their request, I was curious to see how they would perform the operation. The man led the deer to a spot of clean snow, and stuck his little knife into the point of junction between the head and neck. The animal fellj and was dead immediately. He then stabbed it behind the fore shoulder to the heart, not withdrawing the knife for some time, and moving the limbs that it might bleed inwardly. The few drops of blood that fol lowed when the knife was withdrawn were, I thought, with a kind of superstitious care, taken 416 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. up into a handful of snow, kneaded into a ball so that no blood could be seen, and then laid aside. He then flayed and opened the carcass on the ground with great dexterity and cleanliness, al ways laying a handful of snow on the place where he had to touch the meat. He next removed the whole of the entrails, and scooped out the blood when there was nothing else left into a vessel, when the women mixed it with salt and stirred it about to prepare it for black puddings. The whole operation was carried on in so cleanly a manner, with so little touching or handling of the meat, and always with a handful of snow between it and the hand, that the most dainty could have found nothing to object to. A Scotch butcher tearing a carcass to pieces with axe, cleaver, saw, hands and knees, and none of them extremely clean, would have been put to shame by these anato mists. The man and his eldest boy, with little knives having three inches of blade stuck in a wooden handle, disjointed the back-bone and other strong parts of the body with the greatest ease, like a good carver cutting up a fowl, and so neatly that they scarcely left a speck of blood on the snow where they had been working. I was so well pleased with this performance that I gave them a dinner of soup, potatoes, and her rings, with plenty of coffee and brandy. They were much gratified at being treated like other people and set down to a table regularly, instead of getting the victuals in their hands to eat in a corner or take with them, which is the usual way. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 417 I doubt if I could any way have pleased them so much as by this little attention, for even these poor people have their pride. At parting, they gave me a reindeer cheese ; and at Christmas sent me a very handsome and a very useful reindeer- skin pelisse made in the shape of their own, like a waggoner's frock, also driving reins for my sledge very curiously plaited of reindeer sinews. They would have taken nothing for these articles if I had not insisted on it. There is a good dis position in these harmless innocent little folk, if it were cultivated. But it is not : the Norwegians to the south of Dronthiem know as little about them as we do in England, and are almost as remote from them in time, if not in distance. Where they do come in contact with the Norwegian bonder, although received always kindly, partly perhaps from superstition, they are treated as an inferior caste. They are so indeed in strength, in size, and as yet in mental as well as bodily endow ments ; yet they have many good points, and scarcely any evil in them. From North Cape to Roraas it is universally said of this despised caste, "that a Fin never says what is not true, and never takes what is not his own." This is a high cha racter for an outcast tribe. ^ My reindeer weighed 122 lbs. the four quarters, and had 10 lbs. of tallow. This is, I suppose, as much as the tame animal in general will feed to. The wild species, which comes considerably farther south, being found on Dovre Fjeld and in Ber- gens Amt as well as to the north, is considerably E E 418 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. larger. This seems not the usual effect of do mestication. The horse, the rabbit, the goose, the duck, the tilrkey, attain to greater size tame than wild. Besides the wild and tame reindeer, the red deer and roebuck are pretty numerous in some districts. The elk, the largest of European wild animals, ex ists in two or three places, but is now very rare. December, 1835. — The cold begins to drive birds from the Fjelde to the shelter ofthe valleys. Bonder bring in more capercailzie, ptarmigan, and jerper than I require ; and besides these common birds, there are flocks of the beautiflil Bohemian chatterer (Ampelis garrulus) in the valley. The wolf is also a regular nightly visitor iabout the house. We trace his footprints in the snow every morning close to the doors of the cattle houses. The wolves of this country are not such dan gerous animals as those of the south of Europe or of Poland, although perhaps more numerous. They have probably more food in the Fjelde from the wild deer and smaller animals, and are there fore less ferocious. They very rarely attack a man, and are not dreaded even by women and children. Yet it is considered dangerous to meet a herd upon a plain or frozen lake, especially on moonlight nights ; but the animal is so timid in general that it is difficult to get within shot of him. By a bait of a dead dog or sheep, a patient sports man may chance by night to shoot one ; but they are so wary that he may watch long enough to no RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 419 purpose. Yet the wolf, when least expected, will dash into the road, and take away your dog close to your sledge. He seems particularly fond of this flesh, and is altogether bold in seizing it. A mer chant of Levanger had one taken from between his legs in his sledge this winter, on the road to Verdalsaeren, but was not injured himself. I heard also, but not so certainly, that one seized a dog which a lad on horseback for security kept before him on the saddle. The loss of sheep, calves, cows, and foals, in some parishes during the season when they are at pasture, is immense. It has amounted to upwards of twelve head of animals on each farm in the course of four years. When the wolf gets into a herd he bites and tears all he can overtake. The bear follows a different course. Having seized one and killed it, he is content with this single prey. Although the wolves are so de structive and so numerous, and their skins too of considerable value, very few are killed. They are like the crows, never to be found when sought with a gun, — at other times seen in great numbers. Snares are of no avail, and traps of little ; for this animal is as wary as his cousin the fox. Poison by nux vomica, and also by the long moss which grows on the branches of the pir^e, is the most usual way of destroying them ; but few trouble themselves much about it ; and in winter, when a poisoned bait can be laid out to advantage, the wolf leaves his summer haunts on the Fjelde, where he does most mischief to the cattle at the E E 2 420 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. seaters, and comes down to the shore of the fiords and lakes, January, 1836, — On the 1st of January there was a higher degree of cold than has been experi enced in this country for some years. At Roraas, a small mining town on the Fjelde, about 3000 feet above the sea level, mercury exposed to the air was frozen in the course of two hours into a solid mass. In the lower levels there was perhaps no very exact observation made on the thermome ter, I heard of 25 degrees of Reaumur, as ob served in our neighbourhood. These timber-houses are so tight, and so equally warmed by the stoves, that this intense cold is not much felt in-doors. I have suffered much more discomfort from cold, in ordinary winters, in a gimcrack English house a brick and a half thick. This cold is precious for the country, consolidating the snow, and making the transport of goods for a long time easy and sure. Good or bad winter-driving is of such im portance to every one, that it is remarked upon in all society, as the weather with us. Next to a good crop, it is the greatest blessing to the country man, who makes it a standing toast, and a regular topic of conversation, I resolved to take advantage of it, and travel in the fine exhilarating cold. January and February, for weeks together, afford generally delightful winter weather, — bright, calm, cloudless; not thaw ing even at midday, but not freezing intensely ; and the air so pure and buoyant, that there is a pleasure in simply moving or breathing. As to RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 421 cold, the traveller in Norway sets it at defiance. He has over his ordinary pantaloons and boots a pair of huge boots lined with sheep-skin, which come up over his thighs, like those of a fisherman ; but they are made of more pliable leather. These are absolutely necessary, because in a single sledge the feet are outside passengers, ready to keep it upright when it takes a yaw to one side, and are thus often in the snow. If the traveller feels particularly chilly, and thinks double boots not enough, he may get a pair of reindeer-skin shoes to go over both his boots. Over his clothes he has a pelisse of wolf, dog, or reindeer skin, which last is preferable, being cheaper, warmer, and much lighter ; but it has the disadvantage of not endur ing wet so well. If the traveller puts on his lea ther greatcoat under it, he is armed against wet or dry. These are made of kid or goat skin, pre pared so as to be as pliable and light as broad cloth, and are quite proof against water and cold. They are made in the fashionable shape of the day, and deserve a place on the coach-box in our night travelling. The sledge has always an apron of bear-skin in front ; and when the traveller has got himself thus packed up, and has put on his mittens of wolf or deer-skin, l^is fur cap with laps to cover his ears and tie under his chin, a comforter round his neck, and another as a girdle to keep his pelisse close, he may show his face to the wind, and let mercury freeze if it will. The only inconvenience is, that he is very unwieldy, and almost needs, like Falstaff, to have levers to raise EE 3 422 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. him when upset, which he may calculate on being a dozen times in a day's driving. The traveller who chooses to be in a hurry may easily get over seventy or eighty English miles in a winter day. As there is no weight on the horses, and with good driving little more resistance than upon an ordinary pair of skates, the animals go easily at their best pace ; and the traveller feels no fatigue as in a wheeled carriage. I was in no hurry, and therefore travelled with my own pony as far as Dronthiem, having hired a neighbour's horse and sledge to take my bag gage thither, and will send back my pony by him. I like to loiter on the road, talk to the bonder who keep the station-houses, and take my thirty or thirty-five miles a day with daylight. Vollan, February 8. 1816. — After staying a few days at Dronthiem, which the traveller will find a dull town, I set off this morning at nine, and got to this single post-house, five Norwegian or thirty- five English miles, by three o'clock. The cartage or sledging to and from Roraas makes this piece of road very unpleasant. The ruts which sledges work in the snow do not run lengthwise, but right across ; so that your vehicle labours like a boat rowing against a heavy head-sea. It is not altogether uninteresting to travel in this country, even when covered with snow. The scenes are at least novel to the English traveller, and perhaps more striking from being composed of few objects. The country is white, but the forest and the cliff stand black upon its face, A RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 423 smoke of snow rises in spots among the Fjelde where a whirling wind strikes. It makes a variety of scenery also to be out of high roads with fences and houses. The winter road is the bed of the river, or the lake that fills the bottom of the nar row valley. Orne, February 9- — I travelled six Norwegian miles to-day. Corn is cultivated here, but not much higher up the country. The river Driva, which comes from the neighbourhood of Sneehaette, separates at this point ; and its branches water two fertile and extensive vales, which have their apex here, and are separated by a mountain ridge. I found the inn here as clean and comfortable as any country inn in England. Jerkin, February 10. — This day's journey of seven Norwegian miles up the glens of the Fjelde has been very interesting. The road is upon the bed of the torrent, and one looks up with astonish ment at the windings and ascents of the common high road among the precipices far above. You are travelling in a mere fissure, not many feet wide, filled from side to side with a frozen torrent ; and the mountain walls which enclose you rise so steep and high, that you are in some places in volved in a sort of twilight. I was surprised to find that although the cold had been so severe as to freeze mercury nearly at the same elevation about a month before, and there had not been a single hour of thaw since, the water of the moun tain streams was not altogether frozen, even where they were shallow. There were many holes open E E 4 424 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. in the bed of the river between Drivstuen and Kongsvold^'; and it required nice driving to steer through the chaos of rocks to be turned, open holes to be avoided, bridges of ice between open places to be passed, on which a jerk of your sledge to one side would hurl you into a gulf; and al though the ice is undoubtedly strong enough, you cannot help thinking it just possible, in passing some of those spots, where you know from the steepness of the precipices around there must be a deep and silent pool, that the ice may not bear you and your horse and sledge. So attentive are people here to their road business, that to the no small comfort of the doubtful traveUer, even in this torrent bed, there were little green twigs of fir stuck in the snow, or laid on the ice, to show where to cross to the other side, or what line to drive through the masses of rock and holes of water. On the lakes one may drive for miles to gether, under guidance of these twigs, in a drift of snow or in darkness. At dangerous spots there is always something left, a bush or stone, or some object, to caution the next traveller. A little way beyond Kongsvold, the glen opens into the plateau of the Dovre Fjelde. The road over it, at this season, is well marked with poles, as near to each other as the lamp-posts in a town ; and this is no more than necessary. A smothering snow-drift came on, and it was scarcely possible to see from pole to pole. I asked the boy from Kongsvold, who drove the baggage sledge, if he was sure we were upon the road. He said, they always left RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 425 that to the horses on this stage, when the path could not be discerned. They would not go wrong if they were not put out of their pace, but left to take their way themselves. The journeying on this elevated plain, enveloped in a cloud of snow as dense almost as that on which you are driv ing, makes an impression that is sublime. You seem travelling in the sky. What you see or touch of the earth is scarcely more substantial than the snow that is whirling round and above you. It seems all one element, and you alone in the midst of it. We got on very well to this place, although we had a terrible pelting from the time we got over the brow of the Fjelde. February 11. — This is the most comfortable inn, I believe, in Norway. The four — Drivstuen, Kongsvold, Jerkin, and Fogstuen — were established as hospices or lodges for the succour of travellers across the Fjelde, early in the twelfth century. There is no grain cultivated at this elevation, but there are valuable grass farms ; the proprietors apparently as well off as the most substantial of the bonder, who rear crops of corn. It was a,ttempted some years ago to raise Himmalaya bear here. A small quantity had been received by the Norwegian Agricultural Society from Abo, to which it had come by way of Irkutz. It did not succeed on the Dovre Fjelde ; but it is a valuable species. I had about half an acre of it, which, although sown too late, proved excellent. It grows like our common bear, not like barley, that is, six-sided ; and is without husk 426 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. about the pickle, and yields a particularly white meal. It would probably be a good change of seed for those districts in Scotland which do not produce barley. I saw this forenoon a piece of rural management which will scarcely be believed. The stock of this farm is thirty cows and sixteen horses. The latter, of course, get no corn. A man came out of the stable with as much horse-dung as could be heaped on his spade, and laid it down on the snow. He brought one spadeful after another, till the stable was cleaned out ; and placed each in a little heap by itself. He then went with the women, and let out the cows, which ran to the dung and ate it with great relish. This repast, it seems, was regularly given to them once a day. These cows were far from being in a starving condition, or driven by hunger to this strange diet. They were frolicksome, and their skins clean and glossy. They were not at all " at the lifting," as it is called in Scotland, when the cattle of a small farmer are, from mere starvation, scarcely able to to rise. They would have been reckoned in very fair condition for a lean stock, not intended for market, on any ordinary farm in the north of Scot land. The practice is general on the skirts of the Fjelde, about Roraas, and over all Bergens Amt. The farmers can keep in summer a much greater stock than they can provide food for in winter. If by these substitutes they can save a fourth part of hay that would otherwise be consumed, and can show a stock of cattle in such very fair condition RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 427 for the month of February, the management may not be so laughable as it appears at first. The inferior animals appear to be capable of forming acquired tastes as well as man. If the farmer can avail himself of these, whether produced at first by hunger or imitation, so as to spare other food, he is wise to use it. The taste for salt is among those acquired ones which will lead cattle to consume provender which they otherwise would not touch. That for warm food is another, and cattle will eat in this state what they would not touch cold. In this district moss of every kind is used very ex tensively ; and sea-weed very generally on the coast is dried, and carted two or three miles into the country, and being scalded with boiling water, which is poured off, it forms good and nourish ing food for cows. Fish heads and bones are care fully preserved in Nordland, Finmark, and in Bergens Amt, and are boiled down to a soup, of which these animals are exceedingly fond. In Bergens Amt, when more herrings or sprats are caught in any particular spot than there are barrels and salt to preserve, the fish are spitted on sticks, and hung up to dry; they are then greedily devoured by the cows, which in many places subsist very much on this diet. The hay-crop last summer on the south side of Dovre Fjeld, was, owing to a long continuance of dry weather, exceedingly scanty ; and but for these substitutes, the farmer could not have preserved his stock. If fish make a diet nutritive enough for a man, there seems no very good reason why they 428 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. should not suit a cow, if she can be got to like them. It appears to be the plan here, not to wait until the cattle are starving before giving them any of those articles in the room of hay or straw, but in all years, good or bad, to give them one or two of these warm feeds weekly or daily. The animal at first has probably been driven by hunger to such food ; but imitation would induce a whole stable of cattle to eat what one appears to relish. It is not likely that substitutes can be brought so far that the horse and his rider will sit down to a beefsteak together, although in Germany they take slice for slice of the brown loaf; but it is very possible that many a poor cottar in Scotland and Ireland might save his cow in a backward spring, if he had spared fodder, by giving her one feed a day of scalded sea-weed or fish heads, or any procurable substitute which he could give her a taste for. It appears extraordinary that in this track of country leading over Dovre Fjeld, where now there is but ^this house and Fogstuen in a distance of thirty miles, marks of human labour are found, which show that it must at some unknown period have been a peopled district. The antiquary Gerard Schoning in his Travels in the north end of Guldebrandsdal in the year 1775, published from his manuscripts in 1820, in a periodical work called the. Budstick, mentions that he found the founda tions of a building, supposed to be a church or temple, thirty-two paces long and twenty-four broad, not far from this farm. On many parts of RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 429 Dovre Fjeld, there are found close to each other an incredible number of square holes, about six feet deep and twelve feet broad, built in the inside with stones, and which he considers to have been in tended for catching reindeer and elk, or to have been foundations and cellars of houses. What we call Picts' houses, in the north of Scotland, have evidently been cellars and store-rooms of houses, of which the superstructure has been of wood or turf. They are always under hillocks of accumu lated rubbish, often mixed with the ashes of the dwelling that has' stood above them. The pits mentioned by Schoning appear to be of this de scription, but square, and larger than the Picts' houses. He also mentions a singular fact, that the bottoms of the lakes on this Fjelde tract are strewed with the trunks of furu or pine trees, from seven to eight fathoms in length, with the roots attached; and, as he justly observes, although there are pine trees still growing on the Fjelde, sufficient to show that the tract may have been a pine forest, yet there is no declivity towards these lakes by which, in the present shape of the land, any stream or torrent could have swept trees down into them. These remains cannot be reconciled to the theory of trees only growing within certain zones of elevation, unless by supposing a change in the temperature, or in the elevation, since the time when they were produced of such a size on Dovre Fjeld. Schoning also notices the accumu lations of rounded pebbles and stones, forming banks and hillocks, which have apparently been 430 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. rounded and brought into these heaps by the agency of water; but that, in the present shape of the country, there is no back ground to pour down any stream or torrent upon this elevated table-land to round or collect them. Hammer, February 14 It makes a fine con trast of scenery even in winter, after driving twenty-five or thirty miles over the uninhabited waste of the Dovre Fjeld, to descend into the sunny cheerful Guldebrandsdal, studded with farm houses, and its magnificent drooping birches showing a luxuriance of vegetation unknown to the upper valleys on the north side of the moun tains. The scenery there is of a more stern character. The pine forest is a gloomy cover to a country ; and the interruption of a bare white rock rearing its head over the dark mass of foliage, or of a deep narrow glen marked by its black shade, does not enliven the face of the country. All is more open and gay on this side of the Dovre Fjeld, I travelled leisurely down the magnificent Guldebrandsdal, generally upon the bed of the river, and long river-like lakes which occupy its bottom ; they were frozen, unless near to the cas cades where one lake falls into another on a lower level. The Guldebrandsdal, from the head of the Myosen lake at this place up to the Dovre Fjeld, is about a hundred and sixty-eight English miles in length, and its breadth of cultivated land in the valley bottom scarcely any where exceeds six or seven. In general it forms only a narrow stripe of RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 431 cultivated land between the hill foot and the water. But behind, over the hills, are, I under stand, the finest high pastures or seaters in Nor way; and, including these, the breadth ofthe dis trict belonging to the Guldebrandsdal farmers may not be less than thirty or thirty-five English miles. There are eight parishes and twenty-six churches in the district. The population is reckoned about thirty-five or forty thousand, including that of the lateral valleys. Of these the largest, to judge from its river, the Gausa, is Gusdal, There is also another considerable river, the Otta, which joins the Laug, the main river of Guldebrandsdal, after running through a considerable valley. The arable land of this district is much encumbered with stones, so that fields of any considerable size are rare. The crops also in the higher parts and in the lateral valleys are rendered very uncertain by early frosts ; while in the lower grounds they suffer much from sunshine. It appears strange, to one accustomed to our cloudy climate, to hear the latter reckoned an equal or greater enemy to the crops. Yet such is the fact. Frost early in Au gust often destroys the corn before it is filled, but it leaves the fodder ; even some of the grain may- have been previously ripe : but, sunshine in June or July often shines it away in blade before it has covered the ground, and thus leaves nothing. A shine year, as it is called, is a very common calamity in almost all the inland parts of Norway. Besides these evils of early frosts and sunshine, drought is another to which the crops are almost every year exposed, and is overcome only by the great exer- 432 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. tions made, as before mentioned, to irrigate the growing corn. This is carried to such perfec tion, although with means which appear rude, that I understand it is not uncommon for those who have an insufficient share or none in the irrigation concern, to hire a day's water from those who can spare it. The returns upon these small patches, so carefully laboured and watered, are almost in credible. Twenty fold is common in favourable seasons. Very possibly where the prolific power of the soil is so often checked it will be less exhausted, and may be very great when such weather does occur as brings it into full action. Pasturage in this district forms the most valuable branch of farming. The best horses in Nor way are also reared in the upper end of Gulde brandsdal. The bonder are considered to be prosperous and substantial. They manufacture a good deal of woollen and linen cloth for country use ; and in winter shoot a good many wild rein deer, and sometimes, though rarely, an elk or two, in the tract of the Fjelde north of the Gausa river. The fresh water fish in the river Laug, and in the lakes which it forms in its course to the Myosen, are also of much more importance to the subsistence of the inhabitants than any similar fishery in the north of Europe. There is difficulty, perhaps, even for the naturalist, to ascertain the English names of some of the fresh water fish in this country, being varieties not found in our waters. There is in the Myosen a species of herring, at least it goes by that name. I have not seen it ; but it is caught in such abundance that in the, parish of RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 433 Faaberg, about two hundred barrels were salted yearly, until the year 1789 ; when a great flood in the river brought down so many stones, and altered the bottom ofthe fishing ground so much, that the produce has not since been so great. A smaller kind of this fish is also caught in the Myosen. Trout also run up from the lake to spawn, as salmon, which they equal in size, do from the sea. At Hunefoss, a waterfall on the Laug, about fourteen miles above its junction with the Myosen, these Hunne trout, as they are called, have been caught of nearly three Bismar pounds, or thirty- six avoirdupois. The falls on the river, by which the Myosen sends its waters to the sea, make it impossible that herrings or salmon could get into it. These are varieties of fresh-water fish with which we are unacquainted. It surprises the traveller from England, where almost every thing that man uses is provided with and valued in money, to find a whole population, in an old European country, dealing direct with nature, as it were, for every article, — fuel, lodging, clothing, fish, meat, grain, dairy produce, fermented and dis tilled liquors, — which are all provided without the intervention of money, or even of barter. Some of these little estates, worth perhaps four or five thousand dollars, are the most complete possible in this respect. They have within them every ma terial of an abundant subsistence, not only the usual products ofland, — grain, meat, dairy produce, &c., — but besides a great command of the com forts and even luxuries of life : fuel ; commodious F F 434 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. houses, or building materials to erect them ; game, venison, fish, fruits. They have even labour un paid, through the portions of land let to housemen. Where will a thousand pounds' value in land thus supply a family with all necessaries and essential comforts, and a rational share of luxuries ? A family with 2000/., laying out 1000/. in the pur chase of a well-situated estate, and keeping an other at interest in case of sunshine or frost mak ing it necessary to go to market, would live in greater plenty here, more free from care, and in the enjoyment of more of the comforts and lux uries of life, than could be done upon an estate of 500/. a year in Britain; where the whole pro duce must first be turned into money, and that money into every thing wanted; where neither fuel, labour, nor a commodious house, much less the luxuries of fish, game, and venison, are within the estate or its privileges. Nor would they be so entirely without good society as might be sup posed ; provided they did not set out too high, and live, — as the English abroad generally do, — differ ently from their neighbours, instead of following the modes of the country. In every parish there is the clergyman and his chaplain, men always of high education and acquirements. The whole corps of law officers and solicitors are well edu cated, and have taken degrees either at the -uni versity of Copenhagen or of Christiania, as other wise none are allowed to practise ; and they are not, as with us, huddled together in the country towns or metropolis, but are spread over the coun- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 435 try; as the courts, by a wise arrangement, are held as much as possible in single houses in each parish, removed from villages or towns, and from opportunities of feasting or drinking. In every parish, also, there are retired military officers living very often on small means, but men of education and acquirements superior to our own half-pay of the old school; because the Danish government began a generation before the British to educate its officers. The system is kept up in Norway; none being admitted into the service who have not gone through a course of education at the military college, ¦ which is good, and at least equal to that which many of our officers obtain. The ladies here are necessarily more occupied with house keeping; but in appearance, in manners, and in the usual female accomplishments of music, danc ing, and conversation, they are not behind our own. They have read less, but are not unedu cated. Such a state of society and property would undoubtedly suit many an English emigrant family better than a log hut in the forests of Upper Ca nada or Australia. The difference of language is the only difficulty ; but it is short-lived. If the trees in Canada could speak English, it would be a reasonable ground of preference. As it is, I suspect such emigrants as have a little capital would sooner learn to speak a language than to fell a tree. This place. Hammer, ought in all conscience to be a considerable market town. It is situated in a beautiful little bay of the Myosen, at the end of F F 2 436 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. the well-inhabited Guldebrandsdal, at no great dis- tance, by a road over the hills, from the great and well-inhabited valley of the Glomen, or Hedemark, and from Sweden; and so far from Christiania that no competition thence can prevent its rise. Yet it is not a town, — scarcely, indeed, a village, — al though it has a few shops and stragghng houses. It will not advance, notwithstanding all the encour agement which government has at different times given. What can be the reason that in America villages and towns start up, as by magic, in the midst of the forest ; while, in Europe, it requires several generations to form one, unless pushed on by some cotton, iron, or other manufacture that leads to the congregating of people to one spot ? One reason may be the want of roads, of trades men, and of a distribution of raw material and skill over a newly-settled country. The black smith and his iron, the shoemaker and his leather, the tailor and his cloth, all, in short, but the wood man and his axe, must be collected in one centrical spot to serve the country. But when a country is fully settled and inhabited, its roads and commu nications numerous and good, and its demands for labour well supplied, it is to be apprehended that these Aladin-lamp formations of towns and viUages in America will disappear. Tradesmen, professional men, and even dealers, will have to seek their customers, instead of their customers having to seek them. They will have to live in the neighbourhood of their employers, or others in the same trades will spread themselves over the RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 437 country, and then adieu to the existence of all those American towns which are not supported by any peculiar manufacture or commerce, but simply by the aggregation of ordinary handicrafts, storekeepers, and professional people. They will die away as the country advances, just as such country towns decay in Europe. This place was at one time of considerable extent, and the seat of a bishop. It had a cathedral and a monastery, both founded about the year II6O by Adrian, an Englishman, who at that time was the pope's legate in Norway. He became afterwards a car dinal, under the name of Nicholas Breakspear, ab Albano ; and pope, under the title of Hadrian the Fourth. The place was reduced to ashes by the Swedes in the seventeenth century, and appears never to have been flourishing. I searched in vain for some appearance of remains of this city, its cathedral and monastery. I feel a doubt whether, as there is another place of the same name lower down on the Myosen, I may not have mistaken the spot. The building material, however, in Norway, leaves little trace. The wooden structure may last a couple of centuries ; but when it decays, there is nothing left for posterity to gaze at. For a town, into which government has attempted to foster it, the situation is beautiful. The ground slopes gently towards the lake, which is here only 800 yards broad. The variety and luxuriant growth ofthe trees show that the soil must be good, I walked across the lake on the ice ; and I understand it is frozen for about twenty F F 3 438 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. miles down, but is open below, so that I must travel on the high road. The Myosen for the first ten miles appears not to exceed a mile or a mile and a half in breadth, a size favourable to the scenery. Trees, points of land, rocks, houses on the opposite coast, unite in rendering it beautiful. February. — The Myosen expands into a great breadth about twenty miles below Hammer, where its waves and shores are like those of an inlet of the ocean. The opposite coast is so distant, that the eye cannot distinguish single features. The outlet of this grand body of water seems very small. It is crossed by a ferry-boat and a rope stretched across the river. The evaporation of so great an expanse may render a large river from it unnecessary to keep up a proper balance between its influx and efflux. February. — The horses in Norway have a very sensible manner of taking their food. Instead of swilling themselves like ours with a pailful of water at a draught, no doubt from the fear of not getting it soon again, and then overgorging them selves with dry food for the same reason, they have a bucket of water put down beside their allowance of hay. It is amusing to see with what relish they take a sip of the one and a mouthful of the other alternately, sometimes only moistening their mouths as a rational being would do while eating a din ner of such dry food. A broken-winded horse is scarcely ever seen in Norway, nor have I met with one in the slightest degree so affected. The animal is not impelled to overload its stomach, and RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 439 distend the vessels with unnecessary quantities of water or hay at one time. Broken wind is under stood to be a rupture of the vessels connected with the lungs, and to be brought on by over-feeding, or over-exertion with a full stomach. In a field, when left to himself, the horse is perpetually eating. He does not fill himself at once, like a cow, and remain then for three or four hours without food ; yet we treat him like a cow, giving two or three feeds only in the day, and he consequently fills himself too rapidly, and without sufficient mastica tion. Probably many of the diseases of our horses arise from this unnatural custom. The horse pro bably, knows better than the groom when he should eat and drink, and would be more free from diseases if left to his own discretion. F F 4 440 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. CHAPTER XI. CHRISTIANIA. — FIORD FROZEN. POPULATION. UNIVERSITY. STUDENTS. — STATE OF EDUCATION IN NORWAY. THE MEETING OF STORTHING. NUMBER OF MEMBERS. PRIN CIPLE OF REFORM OF THE REPRESENTATION ALWAYS ACTING. — WHAT DESCRIPTION OF PERSONS IN THIS STOR THING. — PAY OF MEMBERS. THE LAGTHING OR HOUSE OF LORDS. HOW ELECTED. — WHAT DESCRIPTION OF PERSONS. STORTHING PROPERLY THREE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. MODE OF PROCEDURE WITH BILLS REJECTION OF ROYAL PROPOSITIONS FOR A VETO AND POWER TO NATURALIZE. CHAMBERS. DRESS. APPEARANCE OF MEMBERS. SPEAK ING. EXAMPLES OF PROCEDURE ORNAMENTS OF A STATUE OF ODIN. BOOTY OF AN ANCIENT V2ERINGEB. QUESTION BEFORE STORTHING HOW TO DISPOSE OF THESE. RETURN OF BANK OF NORWAY TO CASH PAYMENTS. — DEBATE IN STORTHING. HOW DETERMINED. INFLUENCE OF THE PRESS. SIMPLICITY OF PROCEDURE IN THE STORTHING. CONSTITUTION WORKS WELL. BY WHOM FRAMED. GUA RANTEED TO NORWAY BY ENGLAND. TREATY OF MARCH 1813. CHARACTER OF OUR PROCEEDINGS. — BOUND IN PRINCIPLE TO GUARD THE INDEPENDENCE AND CONSTI TUTION OF NORWAY. CONCLUSIONS. BEST STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY. TRUE CHECKS ON OVER-POPULATION. — ONLY REMEDY FOR THE CONDITION OF THE IRISH PEOPLE. Christiania, February, 1836. — This town, which I thought dull and deserted on my arrival in Nor way, appears now busy, bustling, and crowded. The difference, I suspect, is not so much in itself, as in the impressions of the travellei" — then fresh from the stir and life of English towns, now from the solitude and quiet of the Fjelde valley. The meeting of the Storthing, however, adds no doubt RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 441 something to the bustle. The university also is now sitting; and its six hundred students make the streets fuller than in summer. The driving also is good this winter ; all the wood and other articles for exportation are brought into town at this season by the country people from great dis tances, and produce a little movement in the market-place. I was surprised to find the Fiord here quite frozen, although the sea is ten fathoms deep ; horses, sledges, and people are travelling in all directions over it, while the fresh water of the Myosen, for forty or fifty miles up, is quite clear of ice. The Fiord is no doubt narrower at Christiania than the Myosen, and more shut in by islands and points of land than the lower end of that lake. As the vessels are frozen in, and no arrivals can take place, little business is going on ; and from the appearance of the accommodation for shipping, the want of warehouses, of an open exchange, or of the conveyance of goods in the streets, the mer cantile business cannot be very great. Profes sional men, public functionaries — those whom the courts of law, the university, and the various de partments of administration, support, — form the principal part ofthe society, and that by which a great part of the other citizens live. In the con struction of its society, it is the Edinburgh of Norway. Christiania is considered to have twenty-four thousand inhabitants. The town appears small for this population ; but there are suburbs stretching 442 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. out like spiders' legs from the body of the place, and little connected with it. It contains no build ing of any importance. The streets are not par ticularly clean, although wide, and in straight lines. It is altogether inferior to Dronthiem. The in habitants also are by no means so handsome as the Dronthiemers. It is probably not a very healthy place. The people look pale and sickly ; and there is not, from the form of the ground, such a rapid drainage into the sea as Dronthiem possesses. The university has not buildings, as yet, sufficient for its business. The professors lecture in detached rooms, not in any public edifice. The library is considerable, but not rich in old or valuable editions of scarce works. It is entirely for use, and upon a very liberal footing. It is open for two hours daily for lending out books ; but there are reading rooms for those who wish to consult maps, manuscripts, or works of too great value to be lent out. It is not necessary to be a member or a student in order to have the use of the books. Any householder giving his note for their return enables the stranger to get them out upon his own receipt; and the number of persons, of all classes, whom I have seen changing books at the hours of delivery gives a favourable impression of the reading disposition of the people. The students at this university have none of the silly propensities of the German students : no affectation of being a separate class, or of distin guishing themselves, as Burschen, by peculiarity of dress or roughness of manner. They are RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 443 dressed like other gentlemen, — live like the students at Edinburgh, mixed with the inhabitants, and associating with them. They have a society to which they all belong, and subscribe to its funds ; but its objects are altogether literary, and the money is employed in providing elementary books, of which the university library cannot be expected to have so many copies as must be required at once by those attending a course of lectures. If they ever dabbled in political questions, govern ment had no power to prevent them ; and there fore being made of no importance, they were of none. They form no distinct body at war with the citizens. Many give instruction in famihes, or to younger students preparing to pass examin ations ; and from the number of advertisements in the newspapers to and from tutors and teachers for all classes, the diffusion of knowledge appears to be going on very rapidly. It is not at all un common to see a person advertised for to teach in a bonder family, and frequently in two neighbour ing ones, or in a small country circle. The considerable number of periodical publi- cations which circulate in Norway, proves a state of education among the people which is far from being limited. There are two daily newspapers, and at least six published t'wfo or three times a week, all in extensive circulation. Every little town also — as Stavanger, Arendal, and others — has local newspapers, A penny or skilling magazine has an extensive sale, and also another publication on the same plan. It is not merely from the sale 444 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. of these works, but from their matter, the adver tisements to and from parties, and the subjects treated of, that I infer, in proportion to the popu lation, a considerable reading pubhc in Norway. There are also periodical works of a higher class, literary journals, and others on peculiar branches of knowledge, antiquarian, topographical, military. The education of the body of the people in countiy parishes is provided for by an arrangement similar to that in Scotland, There are parochial school masters, of whom some have fixed houses, others live six months in one locality and six in another. From the great extent of country, and its being inhabited in valleys or districts, separated by un inhabitable and in many cases impassable ridges or by fiords, it is impossible that education can be brought to the door of each isolated little commu nity ; nor can any just conclusion be drawn from the state of intelligence and knovpledge in one of these little societies as to its state in others. There are districts in which, from peculiar circum stances, as the example and success of some one self-taught individual, some of the finer mechanical arts which require considerable powers of mind as well as manual dexterity, as watch and clock making, are spread generally among the bonder. There are others in which, by the same means, a knowledge of the practical branches of mathe matics is so general, that every lad is acquainted with land-measuring. In the parish in which I passed the last winter, there were eleven schools for a population of five thousand persons, besides RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 445 three or four private family teachers. This is not a low provision, being a school to every five hundred. There are counties in England which have nothing like it. It could not, however, be justly inferred that education is diffused in the same or nearly the same degree through the whole Norwe gian population. The means are undoubtedly good. A small tax is levied from each householder, besides a personal payment from each adult, male and female, amounting in the case of agricultural servants to about eight skillings, or half of a day's wages in the year, out of which schools and teachers in each district are provided. The great and unremitting attention of the clergy to the con firmants personally, and the importance before explained which is universally attached by the people themselves to the rite of confirmation, have undoubtedly diffused education by the aid of these schools very generally, to the extent at least of reading. There are causes, however, in the con stitution of society in Norway, which must keep education always on a low footing, however widely its first elements may be spread. Whether this be better or worse for a people, let others determine. One is the high education of the clergy and other professional men. To send a young man to the university, and maintain him there, although the students pay no fees, costs between 300 and 400 dollars yearly ; which is in this country a very im portant sum. The preliminary education also, in the ancient languages, must be sought for generally at a distance, and is consequently expensive, A 446 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. man cannot reasonably bring up his son with a view to professional livelihood, unless he happens to be himself in a profession, or in a situation with peculiar local advantages. There is no demand for educated labour, beyond what the classes living by it can breed up to and supply out of their own stock. There is not, as there is or was in Scotland, an undefined demand for educated men in the medical, legal, or commercial professions, and even by the secession church in the clerical ; one too extending not merely to employment in the coun try, but in England, with all its colonies, and in America. In national education, as in every thing else, supply follov/s demand ; and here there is no demand beyond what the supply is visibly suffi cient for. Education, beyond the ordinary acquire ments of reading and writing, can lead to none of the ordinary objects of ambition ; and being there fore less valuable than with us, is less valued. The restrictions also upon the free exercise of trade or industry, limit the demand for young men of good but not learned education. If a person must obtain peculiar privileges from a corporate body, not merely before he can carry on any medical or legal employment, but before he can buy and sell, or manufacture, or engage in any trade or calling for which intelligence and useful education fit him, he naturally lets the educational part of his qualifi cations stand until he is sure of the apprenticeship and privilege part. As the expense of preparation, and the small number of prizes to be obtained, place the higher and learned professions out of the RESIDENCE IN NORWAY'. 447 reach ofthe main body ofthe people as objects of rational ambition, for which they might endeavour to bestow superior education upon their children ; so the restrictions and monopoly system shut them out from the various paths and employments for which ingenuity, with ordinary useful education, might qualify them. Education can never be high, although it may extend very widely in an inferior state, in a community under these circumstances. Another cause which limits the cultivation of the mental powers is the total absence of religious dissent in the country, A difference of opinion upon religious doctrines among a people is the most powerful stimulus to the human mind to in vestigate, to obtain knowledge, to exert the mental powers. The spirit of religious controversy adds nothing certainly to their domestic happiness, but much to their intelligence, acuteness, desire for education, and value for religion. Scotland and England, without their seceders and dis senters, would have been countries in which the human mind slumbered. A land of universal con formity is necessarily one of universal apathy as to religious matters, or else of gross superstition. It is to expect effect without cause, to expect zeal or enlightened belief without inquiry and oppo sition, and the collision of mind against mind. There is something of this apathy, and of this superstition, observable in Norway : there is no stimulus awakening men from the passive state of mind produced by uninquiring conformity. Those who maintain that a nation should have but one 448 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. religious code fixed by law, to the exclusion of all dissent, should look round and see whether there is a sound and true sense of religion in those countries, whether Catholic or Protestant, where the public mind has remained in this state. " If ignorance be bliss," it has been said, " 'tis folly to be wise." It is this bliss, and this wisdom, which universal conformity to the doctrines of an esta blished church, either in a nation or parish, will produce. The almost mechanical arts of reading and writing are certainly diffused very generally in Norway considering its local circumstances, but there its education stops. Books are scarce. The means of obtaining them in the country are diffi cult, there being no coaches or carriers conveying parcels or goods in all directions. The teachers themselves in the country schools have little op portunity of obtaining information. The plan also which was unfortunately adopted of having one large university, instead of two or three in different places, militates against the diffusion of knowledge in a poor country. Scotland had four universities when her population did not greatly exceed that of Norway at present ; and all the four probably cost the country less in proportion to her wealth than this one costs Norway. The inhabit ants of great part of the country, as of the pro vince of Bergen and of the territory north of the Dovre Fjeld, have little benefit from a single university situated at the extreme verge almost of the kingdom, at a distance of three or four hun- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 449 dred miles, and in the capital city, in which the expense of the students' living is necessarily high. The diffusion of knowledge over a country from such a centre cannot be rapid. It is not acces sible, owing to the distance and expense, to the great body of the people. The establishment of a university 'on the north side of the Dovre Fjeld, seems necessary for the general diffusion of education of a higher description among the in habitants of Norway. Christiania, April, 1836. — The eighth Norwegian Storthing met on the 1st of Februj^ry, in terms of the ground law of the constitution. I have before explained that it is elected and meets suo jure on the first day of February of every third year, and continues its session in its own right for three months, or until the last day of April. This trien nial meeting and session of the legislative body, being constitutionally independent altogether of the will of the executive, cannot be arbitrarily postponed, as the calling together of parliaments was by our Charles I. The prolongation of the ses sion, however, beyond the period of three months, is entirely a matter of royal prerogative, and must in practice depend much on the nature and amount of the business to be despatched. It has been prolonged to autumn. As the powers of an ex traordinary Storthing do not extend to the altering of any constitutional law, and its enactments are but temporary, and must be ratified by the next re gular Storthing, there have been usually propositions G G 450 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. from the executive which could only be disposed of in the regular Storthing, and which have pro longed the session. The budget is necessarily one of the last subjects discussed and passed by the Storthing. There is consequently the same check which is acknowledged in our constitution in the hands of the Storthing, for securing sufficient time for discussing and passing its legislative mea sures before granting the ways and means to the executive. I consider the Norwegian Storthing as a working model of a constitutional government on a small scale, and one which works so well as highly to deserve the consideration of the people of Great Britain. The qualifications of electors, the mode of election by the middle wheel in the machinery — that of election-men between the electors and representative — and the constitutional powers of the legislative body, I have explained before, as far as from conversation or books I was able to do so ; but I had a great curiosity to see the meetings of a Storthing, to hear the debates, to Understand the procedure of a legislative as sembly so entirely elected by the people from among themselves, and which has shown so much wisdom in its enactments. I may confess, as an idle man, that it was my principal inducement to visit Christiania. I shall endeavour to condense into small compass the observations I made during my stay, being quite aware that subjects deemed very interesting by the traveller are not always so by the reader. RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 451 The present Storthing consists of ninety-six members, elected in the way before explained. Each town and district elects as many substitutes (suppleanter) as it elects representatives ; so that in case of the illness or death of the one, the suppleant is sent for and takes his seat, and the constituency cannot remain unrepresented. The elective franchise, it is to be observed, is not con nected with the place, as in England, — with the brick and mortar, for instance, of Sarum or Aid- borough, — but with the number of electors in a place. The city of Dronthiem, for instance, had just the number of qualified electors to send four representatives. If the electors had been fewer, it could only have sent three, or two, or one, or even none, if its number of qualified electors had been under fifty ; and must have joined itself in that case to the constituency of the nearest town, Christian sund, and elected jointly with them. And again, if the number of its electors had increased, it would have sent its proportional number of representa tives. This goes on without our process of dis franchising or enfranchising places ; it being a self-acting principle of parliamentary reform, ope rating without any stoppage in the machinery of government, in order to rectify the representation, and obtained by simply considering the elective franchise a privilege belonging to the constituency, according to the numbers dwelling in a place, and not a privilege attached to the place. The num ber of members of the Storthing may consequently be different in different Storthings ; but the vari- G G 2 452 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. ation cannot well exceed two or three, more or less, and can be of no practical importance. I was very desirous, and was at considerable pains, to ascertain what description of persons were sent to the Storthing ; from what classes or em ployments ; what proportion, from their functions, — civil, military, or clerical, — might be connected with the executive government, and have possibly a leaning towards the source from which their own advancement, or that of their families, might flow. I could not discover, in the district in which I lived. North Dronthiem Amt, any influence at work during the time ofthe elections; and the representatives elected were two bonder and a clergyman. I was desirous to know if this was the case generally. The representative to the Storth ing is allowed a dollar and a half per day during his attendance, and his travelling expenses. I was desirous to ascertain if this had any influence on the elections. I have heard this allowance ob jected to by sensible men ; and the propriety of it has been under the consideration of former Storth ings. The objection is, that a member, living up to his rank and station, may save money out of it. In the best hotels, twenty dollars a month is the charge for lodging, board, fuel, and every accom modation. In private lodgings he is suitably ac commodated for sixteen or eighteen. Many of the bonder class who are returned to the Storthing live for half a dollar a day, and bring home a little capital saved in this trade of legislation. . It is therefore alleged that it becomes a sort of intrigue RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 453 among them to be elected for the sake of the profit, to the exclusion of more able and educated men in the district, — clergy, public functionaries, or pri vate gentlemen, — who would otherwise be preferred. This objection, whether well grounded or not, does not, in my opinion, outweigh the advantages in this country of the allowance. There is no class in its society, few individuals indeed, except some of the highest functionaries, clergy, and merchants, who could afford to leave their homes and employ ments and live in Christiania at their own expense, and without any remuneration for their time, dur ing a session of the Storthing. The representation of the country would, therefore, fall entirely into the hands of those few who, from the very circum stance of being above the ordinary business of the country, would necessarily be, as in England, the least acquainted with its interests or affairs. The bonder class also, although deficient in the higher branches of education, or in extended views on political subjects, do not want sound good sense ; and a man chosen by several thousand of his fel low-parishioners to be their election-man, and again selected by his fellow election-men, each as wihing to take two and a half dollars a day as he is, must be a man distinguished for his judgment and cha racter. He can neither be a fool nor a knave. Another consideration is, that if a man is paid for discharging his duty faithfully, and according to the best of his judgment and conscience, he can scarcely be induced to act a contrary part. It is, in general, the needy man who is corrupt. He who gg3 454 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. can, as Paley expresses it, afford to keep a con science generally does keep one. This Storthing consists of twenty-two persons in civil offices, three in military, sixteen in clerical, four lawyers, fourteen mercantile men, thirty-seven landowners. Of the civil functionaries, eleven are connected with executive function, the others with judicial. I have included in this class one rector of a school, and one collector of taxes. Of the clerical, four are parish clerks or precentors (kirke Sanger), not clergymen. Of the mercantile, some are landed proprietors as well as merchants, some country dealers. The mercantile towns, as Bergen, Dronthiem, and Christiania, are not represented entirely by mercantile men, but by men of high reputation from various professions. Of the land owners, with the exception of one or two who pos sess more than one farm, the thirty-seven are sub stantial bonder ; proprietors only of the farms they live on. It appears from this analysis of the com- -position of the Storthing, that there is no founda tion for the objection to the daily allowance, as the class of bonder have not sent any undue propor tion of their own numbers, but have chosen re presentatives from other professions. A much more important inference may be drawn, — that, while the qualification is as low as it well can be, and the education of the electors is also but low, there is still such an amount of good sense in a community at large that where undue influence, bribery, delusion, or party spirit, are not at work RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 455 (and by the machinery of the middle wheel of election-men these are entirely excluded), a great majority of educated and enlightened men will be elected to do their business. In this representa tive body there are nearly sixty members, who, from their professions, must have enjoyed the best education which the country affords, and must be among its most able men ; and there are only thirty-seven who may be presumed, from their oc cupation, not to have habits of business, although they are likely to possess great natural talents and judgment. The representatives of this class in former Storthings have, I understand, often proved the most efficient members, after they got acquainted with the routine of business. The first proceeding of the Storthing is to elect its president, or speaker, and its secretary. This is done once a week. A president has much in his power, in the form in which he may propose the question to be voted upon to the house, and in the turn of expression that may be given to pro ceedings or motions in writing them in the proto col. Great jealousy is therefore exercised by the Storthing in preserving the nomination of presi dent and secretary in their own hands. It was one ofthe rejected propositions of the cabinet in 1824, that the king should have the nomination. The next proceeding is to examine the writs or full powers of the members from their constituents, to ascertain that all are duly elected. The .Storthing then proceeds to elect what is G G 4 456 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. equivalent to our House of Peers, the Lagthing, or division in which the deliberative functions of the legislative body are invested. This consists of one-fourth of the members of the Storthing, being in the present assembly twenty-four, who are voted for by the whole body ; and they form a separate house, and sit in a different chamber, with their own president and secretary, also elected by them selves weekly. The functions of the Lagthing are not exactly the same as those of our House of Lords, but are more confined. No bill can have its initiative there. It can only receive bills from the other house, the Odelsthing; deliberate upon what is sent up to it; and approve, or reject, or send back the bill with proposed amendments. It is also the court before which, aided by the Hoieste ret Court, which is an independent branch of the state, the lower house, the Odelsthing, may impeach minis ters of state. The composition of this House of Lords, which does its business quite as well as a house of bishops, dukes, and barons, may be an object of curiosity to our British radicals. It con sists, in the present Storthing, of eight persons in civil offices, five in clerical functions, two lawyers, and nine bonder or peasants ; in all twenty-four. They are not elected to the Lagthing with any re ference to profession or rank, but simply from the opinion their fellow-members in the Storthing may have formed of their judgment, knowledge, and fitness for deliberative function. Of the whole ninety-six members of the present RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 457 Storthing, forty-five have sat in one or more pre ceding Storthings ; the rest are new members. The mode of procedure differs in some import ant respects from that of the British parliament. The Storthing consists, in fact, of three houses ; the Lagthing of 24 members, the Odelsthing of 72, and the entire Storthing, consisting of the whole 96 united in one house. In this latter all motions are made and discussed ; and if enter tained, are referred to committees to report upon to the Storthing. The report, when received back from its committee, is debated and voted upon ; and if approved, a bill in terms of the report is ordered to be brought into the Odelsthing. This house entertains or rejects the proposed bill; frames and discusses the enactments, if it is not rejected in toto ; and sends it up to the Lagthing or upper house to be deliberated upon, approved, rejected, or amended. The Storthing appoints standing committees at the beginning of the session for each branch of the public business. These have to revise and, report upon the proceedings of each de partment during the preceding three years ; and every motion or petition to Storthing is, if not re jected at once, referred to the proper committee in the first instance to report upon to the house. Two propositions presented on the part of the King by a counsellor of state, and delivered in writing to the president, were, I observed, rejected by a unanimous vote, when brought before the house, as having been referred to a committee 458 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. already in the last Storthing and unanimously ne gatived. The one was to give the king an absolute instead of a suspensive veto ; the other to give the king the power of naturalization. By the ground law of the constitution none but Norwegians can hold office in Norway, and the Storthing alone has the power of naturalizing foreigners. The Swedish cabinet cannot fill up a single post or office in Norway with a Swede. It appears extraordinary that the Swedish cabinet should be so much in the dark with regard to the state of this country as to bring forward. Storthing after Storthing, such crude proposals in the King's name as cannot be expected to find even a single vote in Norway. It appears almost a jest to propose to the legislature of an independent nation to allow its public offices to be filled with strangers' ignorant of its laws and lan guage, and to divestt itself of its own most efficient power in legislating. But the Swedes of the higher class really are, I suspect, extremely ignorant of the state of their Norwegian neighbours. They seem to travel very rarely into Norway. During nearly two years I met only two Swedish travellers of the higher class ; and in the books kept at the inns on the road, in which every person who takes post horses writes his name and residence, I ob served many more English and German than Swedish travellers. The Swedish nobleman may naturally conceive the Norwegian bonder to be like the peasants on his own estates, and that they may be treated in the same way. The lower classes of RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 459 Swedes have much more intercourse than the higher with Norway by frequenting the fairs ; but still it is so inconsiderable, that Swedish money is not current. The mode of taking the votes in the Storthing is by the ayes standing up in their places, and the noes sitting still ; or if there is difficulty in thus making out the numbers, the president takes the votes by the list. There are no right and left sides, no ministerial and opposition benches. Ya and Ney sit side by side all over the house. Each member usually occupies the same place for the whole session, and has pens, ink, and paper before him. There is evidently no such formed party as in our parliament. Some members are more con stitutional than others ; but government, having no means of returning even a single member to Stor thing, there is no ministerial and consequently no opposition party. It is considered a defect, and, practically, a hinderance to business, that govern ment has no member in the Storthing to bring forward and support its propositions, and who,, being instructed in its views, might be able to give the information on points of public business which is often required. There is a proposition from go vernment to the present Storthing to remedy this defect by giving a seat and right of speaking, but not of voting, to a counseller of state in each of the houses of Storthing. This is approved of by some, as a measure absolutely necessary for the despatch of business. Others think it contray to the representative principle that a member not 460 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. elected by any part of the community should take part in the deliberations, and influence the reso lutions of a constitutional assembly. The influence of a practised speaker, with all the weight derived from his uttering the sentiments of government, might lead to results not to be foreseen. The " nolumus leges Anglise mutari " will probably be the principle on which the proposition will be dis posed of. The constitution has gone on well for twenty years ; each Storthing is more expert than its predecessor in getting through business. A little inconvenience attends the want of a person in the assembly to give the information which can now only be obtained by sending to different de partments ; but no injury, on the whole, has been sustained by the present system. It is, therefore, not probable that the proposition will be adopted. It appears to be a fixed principle with all the Nor wegians to allow the constitution to consolidate itself by time ; to alter nothing in its ground law, even for the better, because the very precedent of an admitted alteration would, in the peculiar spirit of jealousy, or, in fact, animosity towards the con stitution, shown by the different Swedish cabinets since it was established, be an opening to other alterations, which state of alteration upon alteration would be a greater and more dangerous evil than any which the country is exposed to from its con stitution as it is. The room in which the Storthing holds its meet ings is small, and lighted by four windows on one side. The president sits at a table, a little elevated RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 46l between two of the windows. The members oc cupy the other side of the room in five rows of benches and desks, like the seats in a chapel. The gallery is behind the seats of the members, and could contain perhaps two hundred persons. It is generally full; and the lobby leading to the gallery is always crowded before the Storthing opens, when any interesting subject is under discussion. When the Storthing resolves itself into its two parts, the Odelsthing occupies this room, and the Lagthing, or upper house, has an adjoining one communicating by folding doors. The rooms are very simply but tastefully fitted up. They are too small for show, not being larger than the drawing-rooms in a large private house ; but are light and comfortable, well ventilated, and apparently not^ requiring more exertion from a speaker to make himself heard than in ordinary conversation. Neither the president nor the members wear any peculiar dress. They do not, like the members of the French Chambers, enact a scene of a free constitution in theatrical costume. Those members who, as public func tionaries, have uniforms, or happen to be decorated with orders, have in this Storthing, as a matter of taste or propriety, laid aside these distinctions by common consent, when officiating in the higher capacity of representatives. Ther appearance of the assembly resembles very much that of a meet ing of gentlemen in one of our Scotch counties. Some traveller tells us that he saw the bonder sitting in the Storthing with red night-caps, and clad in homespun clothes of the fashion of the 462 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. sixteenth century. This is not the truth. What ever they may wear in their own valleys, in Christiania they dress like other members of the Storthing. The representatives belonging to this class look like the respectable farmers one sees on a market-day at Haddington or Edinburgh. In the Storthing no member wears his hat. The greatest decorum and propriety of manners are ob served. There is not even the coughing or scraping down of an unmercifully tedious speaker, which legislative assemblies of higher pretensions allow themselves to practise. There is, however, seldom occasion for it, as members seem to speak only when they have something to say. The style of speaking is altogether business-like, and to the point. It is not oratorical, but rather conversational. It is very much in the taste of good public speaking in England at the present time. I have heard nothing that could be called haranguing, or making set written-out speeches, or beginning with some thing far off from the point to which every one but the orator has got long before ; but I have heard clear expositions of views delivered without pre meditation, but fiuently and to the purpose. This is in good taste, because it is adapted to the end, which is simply to get at the best and most suitable views of the subject. There is no party within doors to strengthen or weaken, no public out of doors to gain by fine speeches ; at least the art of reporting is but in its infancy, and could not convey a fine speech. There being no demand for oratory, there is no supply ; but for plain and clear RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 463 statement of argument or fact, there are several members of this Storthing who are equal to any of that class of our public speakers. To show the course of procedure through these three houses, I shall follow out a case which, as it relates to a literary subject, and not to local ' politics, may be of some interest to an English reader. In August, 1834, a considerable number of valuable gold ornaments, the metal weighing above eighty-eight ounces, were found about three feet under the surface of the ground in a spot which had formerly been a lake or pond, near the farm of Hoen, in the parish of Egger in Agger- huns Amt. The value of the gold is considerable; but is greatly enhanced to the antiquarian, as these ornaments are supposed by the learned in northern antiquities to have adorned a statue of Odin, and on the introduction of Christianity and the spoliation of the temples of the old religion, to have been hid in the spot where they were now discovered. In feudal kingdoms, the king, as lord of the soil, has generally a right to such treasure-trove. In this country, the government is only entitled, by some Danish law, to purchase such objects as may be interesting to science from the owner of the land and the finder, at the market value. The sum of 2030 dollars was accordingly paid to these parties for the articles ; and in submitting this item, along with the other extraordinaries, to be examined and provided for by the Storthing, government also 464 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. proposed that they should be presented to the museum of the University. The royal proposition was referred by the Storthing to their budget committee, who in due time gave in their report. It recommended the adoption of the royal propo- "sition, as to disposing of these articles to the University museum ; but as the University had a yearly allowance granted by Storthing of 550 dollars, to purchase articles for its museum, that it should repay to the state by yearly instalments, in nine years, the 2030 dollars. When this report came before the Storthing, it gave occasion to a very animated discussion. Several good and interesting speeches were made against the adoption of the committee's proposition, as derogatory to the honour of the nation, and con trary to the spirit of the age. The cause of the University, of which the resources would have been seriously diminished for a long period by such a repayment, met with zealous support. The question excited a great deal of interest out of doors, and the gallery was full at nine in the morning, when the Storthing begins its business. On the division there were only fifteen votes in favour ofthe committee's proposition. Its members made out a very good case in favour, or at least in excuse, of their report. They were a budget committee, entitled only to treat the subject in an economical view. The property of the nation was in their hands to be taxed ; and they were not warranted to take either the honour of the country, or the interests of science, as principles to be in- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 465 eluded in their consideration of the amount of burden to be imposed, but simply what was most economical. The course of procedure is, that after a propo sition, such as the above, comes back from their committee, and is considered by the united Storthing, a bill is ordered to be prepared in terms of the resolution formed on the subject. The Storthing then dividing itself into its two chambers, the bill is brought into the Odelsthing, which treats it as in our House of Commons, rejecting or amending it as they see fit ; and when prepared it is sent up to the Lagthing or upper house. If not approved of there, the bill is lost. If amended, it is sent back with the amendments to the Odelsthing. If they do not approve them, the two houses have a conference; the whole procedure being similar to that established in our two Houses of Parliament. The only peculiarity is that which necessarily flows from the upper house being chosen out of the representative body. As that house has only a deliberative, and not an initiative power in the legislation, their constituents would enjoy only in a secondary^ degree the benefit of representation, if it were not for the expedient of the united Storthing, consisting of both houses, handling by itself, and by its committees, every proposition in the first place upon which a bill is to be founded. The gold ornaments above referred to consist of fifty-two gold and thirteen silver ornaments ; among which are a massive gold collar, various H H 466 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. bracelets, a brooch or breast ornament for fastening the cloak, rings, and a number of coins, each fur nished with a loop or eye for passing a string through and suspending them as embellishments, or amulets on the person. The workmanship of these ornaments, and ofthe loops or eyes attached to the coins in general, is so much superior to what could have been executed in that early age in the north of Europe, that the eastern origin of the articles is considered unquestionable. The coins are, nine Arabic, Cuftish, four Byzantine, five Franco- Galic one Anglo-Saxon ; and of these one is of the fourth century, one of the sixth, and the rest are coins struck between the years 769 and 867 of our era. There are no Scandinavian coins among them ; and it is doubtful whether any were struck in Scandinavia before the time of Canute in the beginning of the eleventh century. Professor Holmboe of Christiania delivered a learned and elegant descriptive account of these very interesting antiquities in the Latin language, at the University commemoration of his Majesty's birthday in 1 835 ; and it has been published bv order of the University. This learned antiquarian conjectures that these ornaments may have belonged to one or more idols about the time of the intro duction of Christianity into Norway in the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century, and may have been concealed to prevent their becoming the spoil of the Christians who plundered the temples and destroyed the idols of the wor shippers of Odin, The conjecture he considers RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 467 probable, because three of the ornaments for the arm or bracelets are too small to have been intended for a man, or to allow the hand of a male adult to pass through them, and too heavy to have been worn conveniently by a woman : they have there fore probably been made for an idol ; and it is proved by many passages which he quotes from the Saga, that the idols of the religion of Odin were very richly decorated with gold and silver orna ments. There are two or three considerations which I conceive militate against this ingenious conjecture. The images by which a barbarous people represent their deities naturally run into the gigantic, not the diminutive. The fine arts, and the ideas of a people, must be in an advanced state, before they disconnect the idea of greatness and power from bulk and personal strength. These qualities were still at the introduction of Christianity, and long after, prized as the highest endowments of man. It is not likely they would fashion their idols without them. In the Saga also, the descriptions occa sionally given of the idols seem to indicate an image above, not below, the human size. That which Kolbeen Kiempe, by order of King Olaf, struck into pieces with his axe, before the assembly of the bonder in Guldebrandsdal, was a hollow figure brought out apparently with difficulty, and large enough for rats and other vermin to have lodged in its cavity. This account gives the idea of a figure larger than human. But allowing any particular image to have been less than an adult H H 2 468 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. man, is it likely that the measure of its arm and hand should have been sent from Norway to the workmen in the East, in order to make a gold ornament to fit it ? There is a third consider ation : it is not likely that a Byzantine coin, struck by Michael III. between a. d. 842 and a. d. 867, bearing not only the name of Jesus Christ, but also the figure ofthe cross, should have been used as an ornament of an idol of which the worship pers were persecuted by those of whose religion the cross was the symbol. For these reasons it occurs to me as more probable, that this treasure has been the plunder brought home from the East by one of the vseringer or body-guard of the Greek Emperors. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the vaeringer at Constantinople appear to have been principally from Norway, and to have re turned with great wealth, of which there is an instance in the Orkneyinga Saga. The bracelets too small to admit the hand of an adult man, and too heavy for female ornaments, are probably just the size which at the present day would fit the Arab, or other native of the East, whose frame of body, like that of his horse, is fine-boned, and slight compared to the massive limbs of the Nor wegian, although in muscular strength perhaps not inferior. Another subject which I heard discussed with great ability, and which may be interesting, or, at least, more intelligible than topics merely local, especially as our own legislature has dealt with a similar one, was the return of the Bank to cash RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 469 payments. The Bank of Norway, by its original ground law, should, after a certain lapse of time from its foundation, have begun to pay its notes in cash ; but in 1822 these notes, on the Exchange of Hamburgh, could only be exchanged against silver at the rate of 187^ dollars in paper for 100 in silver. The Storthing, therefore, passed a law, that the Bank should only pay 100 dollars in silver for 190 of its paper ; but that the directors might, at their discretion, reduce the rate to 100, for 175, without any new enactment. This maximum and minimum included within their limits the variations in the value of the paper dollar in the money mar ket of Europe, but prevented any speculations of jobbers in the Bank stock or notes. In 1824 it was found practicable to reduce the maximum and minimum to 150 and 135 dollars, the value at Hamburgh being 145 paper for 100 silver. In I827, it was again found practicable to reduce the maximum to 125 paper dollars, at which it has continued ; but the paper dollar has for a con siderable time been at 112 for 100 silver on the Exchange of Hamburgh. The Bank is able to pro vide for all its notes in silver ; and the question before the Storthing was, whether its course of 125 paper for 100 silver dollars should not now be re duced to par, 100 paper for 100* silver. This is Sir Robert Peel's celebrated operation on the cir culating medium of England, concerning which the opinions of judicious men are stiU divided. In this country, the question is divested of many of those secondary considerations and interests, H H 3 470 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. which, in the complicated concerns of England, almost hid the real effects of the operation. The effects of raising the value of money by legislative enactment, and lessening, consequently, that of all labour, goods, and property, as compared to it, — the alteration in the true meaning of all contracts, loans, debts, taxes, salaries, annuities, giving to the one party and taking from the other the value of 25 per cent., which at the time of agree ment was not and could not be in the contem plation of the parties ; these effects appeared more strongly in the simple affairs of this country than in England, beneath the load of important but se condary interests with which the question was there enveloped. The measure was supported here with great ability by members who in theory were undoubtedly right : that by bringing the paper dollar to what on its face it promises to be, — the representative of a silver dollar, — all articles imported from abroad, of which corn is an important one, would be sup plied so much cheaper, being paid for in money of the same value as that in which they were bought ; that the wages of labour and value of its produce would suffer only a temporary and inconsiderable shock, the difference now between paper and silver being too inconsiderable to affect the ordinary transactions of life ; and that as to the relation of debtor and creditor, every man who borrowed knew at the time that he was borrowing in a kind of money liable to be repaid by him in silver, and whidi every year was rapidly approaching to silver RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 471 in value. The government therefore would do no injustice in declaring the two kinds of money now to be of the same value ; a step which must be taken at some time or other, and could never be done so easily as at present. As to salaries paid by government and taxes, a reduction might be made equal to the increased value ofthe currency in which they were paid. The novelty of argument was on the other side. It was forcibly stated in a very able speech by the representative of Dronthiem, that a bank was only a kind of broker or middle-man between man and man in their transactions ; and however extensive its operations might be en masse, it was in each operation only an individual standing between two others, issuing notes of hand for the value of the twenty, or hundred, or thousand dollars involved in the transaction ; and the value of these notes of this great broker was no more a subject of legi timate legislation, than the value of the matter passing between the other two individuals in each transaction. Government might for special reasons pass laws to protect this broker from ruinous spe culations in his notes, by fixing a certain maximum and minimum rate at which he might be called upon for silver ; and this rate was always adjusted by law according to the real valhe of his notes in the general money market of Europe, This legal rate merely put it in his power to protect himself by reference to the law from any forced or undue run for silver from speculators, by putting it in his power to demand legally for silver a somewhat H H 4 472 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. higher rate than his notes in the general market were worth ; it was optional to go to him or to others. But this was a very different operation from that of forcing by legislative enactment a particular value on his notes, at and from a particu lar date. Every man in his transactions, either buying, selling, or borrowing, was prepared for the rise or fall of the value in the general money mar ket of Europe of that particular money medium in which he was transacting ; and be the change sudden or gradual, it is a kind of natural contin gency, which he cannot complain of, and which he is prepared against or runs the risk of. But no man can be prepared for changes of value effected by interference of government. It would be legis lating upon a principle monstrously unjust, to give by law to these notes a greater value than that which parties contracting in this medium might have reasonably foreseen at the time, and have reckoned upon being liable to in the currency of their engagements. It was also argued onthis side, that as the value of the paper dollar had risen gradually from 187^ to 112 for 100 silver, it was more prudent to continue the same system of allow ing them to find their own level in the general money market of the world, merely giving power to the Bank, as before, to protect itself against any speculative demand for its silver by fixing a max imum rate of exchange ; and by continuing the same system, the bank-note would of itself gradually come to par without any shock. This opinion pre vailed, and was adopted by the Storthing, as recom- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 473 mended by its committee ; and a law, fixing 115 and 110 paper dollars as the maximum and mini- num rates at which the Bank could pay 100 silver, was ordered to be brought into the Odelsthing. The value of the paper dollars in Hamburgh is 111^ for 100 dollars. This view is different from that which the British legislature acted upon in the operation in the cur rency during Sir Robert Peel's administration. There is perhaps such a radical difference in the state of the two countries, that it would be impos sible to conclude that what is good and prudent in the one would have been so in the other. To have left the Bank of England to work out a value for its notes equal to gold, as this bank has nearly done, having brought its notes from 187^ to 111^ for 100 silver, would have been a more just, although a more slow operation, than that which was adopted ; and by fixing a bank rate of exchange from time to time, the danger of any sudden run for specie, arising from speculation alone, would have been checked. There is, however, the impor tant difference between the paper-money of this and of other banks, — it is an issue almost entirely upon the value of land, not of goods, or bills of which goods are the basis. There can be but one issue upon one basis of value where that basis is land. If the bank gives out its notes upon the security of land, it does not of course take the same security of one piece of land twice over. But there may^ be ten or twenty issues upon one and the same basis of value, where that basis consists 474 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, in goods. Each buyer in succession may have his bills for their full value in the circle at the same time, and the bank's notes are issued upon each bill; so that twenty times as much paper money as is represented by real value may be in circulation. This difference might make it much more easy to bring the paper of the Bank of Norway than that ofthe Bank of England to par. In the course of this discussion there occurred an instance ofthe infiuence and importance in this country of the periodical press. In a daily news paper lately established, the Constitutionelle, there appeared the first part of an article of great ability upon the subject. It was resolved by the Storthing to postpone the discussion for a week, in order to give members time to consider the question under the hew points of view in which it was thus anony mously presented to them. There is great and rather amusing simplicity sometimes in the mode of procedure. I saw in the newspaper one morning, that a royal proposition was to be presented to the Storthing by a coun sellor of state. I repaired to the gallery to see the ceremony. A deputation of six members was sent out to receive and usher in the royal messenger. The counsellor of state, in full court dress, enters through the folding doors, is received by the president and members standing, and walks up to a table placed for him on the floor of the house. After a bow to the president, and another to the members, he reads an open letter under the royal signature, with the great seal attached to it, au- RESIDENCE IN NORWAY, 475 thorizing him to appear before the Norwegian Storthing and deliver this special proposition, which he lays upon the table. He then retires through the folding doors, repeating his bows. The proposition was one relative to the distillery laws. The Storthing, on resuming, merely ordered the royal proposition to be referred to its standing committee of trade and manufactures, as materials for the report upon the distillery laws, which that committee had to prepare. It seemed not to enter into the head of any one that a proposition de livered with so much form, ought to be referred to a special committee, or be ordered to be printed, or be treated in some way or other ceremoniously. The simplicity struck me ; for it was simplicity, not rudeness or intentional disrespect, because a day or two before I had remarked that a member had presented a paper, not a petition, to the house, containing propositions upon the same subject — the distillery laws — from a peasant in Hedemark, The member saying he adopts the propositions as his own, was sufficient to give the same effect to this paper as to that containing the royal propositions. It was ordered, precisely in the same way, to be referred to the committee. The result of this simple way of doing business is^ that the plan of his Majesty's ministers with regard to a new dis tillery law, and that of the peasant of Hedemark, will be weighed and made use of exactly accord ing to their merits. It is impossible that an exe cutive and a legislative power existing together as parts of one state, can perform their functions 476 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. more independently of each other, and with less encroachment or influence upon the duties be longing to each, than in this Norwegian consti tution. I have often asked by whom this constitution was originally framed. It is evident that it could not be the work of four days — from the 12th April to the l6th, 1814, — which is all the time the committee sat before the constitution, as it now stands, was laid before the national assembly. From the contrivance of the safeguards with which it is protected against every thing but the hand of open violence, it appears more like the work of some philosophic mind, a Seyes or a Bentham, long meditated upon before it was pro duced in such perfection in all its details. On the other hand, although the principles and machinery of this constitution might lead to the supposition that it was the production of one of these master minds, the perfect adaptation from the first of every arrangement to the local and very peculiar circumstances ofthe country, as to law, property, and state of society, could only have been the work of a native. It is fortunate for mankind that this model of a free constitution, formed in the closet of the philosopher, and not the hasty erection of a revo lutionary spirit, exists under the powerful guarantee of England, Russia, and its own excellent sove reign. The darkest spot perhaps in the history of Great Britain is her treaty with Sweden, dated March 3. 1813, By that treaty England gives to RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 477 the King of Sweden the kingdom of Norway, — of which Britain was not in possession — together with Guadaloupe and a milhon of pounds sterling, in consideration of his Swedish Majesty joining the Allied Powers against France. The money and Guadaloupe were ours to give ; but Norway was a separate kingdom, belonging to a power then at peace with the two contracting parties, and to which neither could pretend the shadow of a claim. The partition of Poland was a pure and innocent transaction compared to this ; and, but for one redeeming circumstance, it would be recorded in history as the most unprincipled transaction of modern times. It is, that however indefensible as a spoliation ofthe Danish monarch, it was not, like the partition of Poland, the annihi lation of an independently existing nation ; it was not the reduction of a people from a distinct social state of its own to that of vassals of a province under a new master, which is the character of the partition of Poland. The independent ex istence of Norway as a kingdom was secured in this treaty, and was brought out even more dis tinctly than it had been latterly during the union with the Danish crown. It was, as a kingdom, to be united to the Swedish crown ; ^and not, as a pro vince, to be amalgamated or united with the Swe dish kingdom. Whether from the compunctious visitings of conscience from which it is to be hoped that cabinets are not exempt, or from the hurry to get the Norwegian nation pacified and quieted at any rate, so as to allow Sweden to take the field 478 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. with the Allies, this constitution, which the Nor wegians had prepared in April, 1814, and which, together with their independence as a nation un der the Crown Prince of Denmark, whom they had proclaimed sovereign, they were in arms to main tain, was guaranteed to them, on the Crown Prince laying down his short-lived royalty, upon con dition of accepting along with this constitution the Swedish monarch as their king. This was done ; and on the 17th of May, 1814, both parties, — the Norwegian nation and the Swedish king, — solemnly entered into this compact under the guarantee ofthe Allied Powers. England, as a party to the nefarious treaty of March, 1813, is more particularly bound in principle to take care now that the results which may ensue from it shall not bring it into the same class of transactions with the Polish partition; and that to the unjustifiable dismemberment of a power with which she was at peace, is not added the crime of the extinction of the independent existence of a nation. In the headlong attempt of the Swedish cabinet in 1824 to force on the Norwegian nation an amalgamation with Sweden, the firmness of the Storthing, the good faith of the sovereign, and, it is said, the interference of Russia on the part of the Allied Powers, prevented a measure which it would have tarnished the honour of England to permit. It is not known whether the British Resident at the Court of Stockholm at that time interfered also to prevent the guarantee of this country to the Nor wegian nation from being infringed. England RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 479 having positive duties to fulfil towards Norway as a distinct nation, should have distinct diplomatic relations with that country. Hanover and Eng land are not more distinct nations than Sweden and Norway. The crowns alone are united in each case : the rights and interests do not always coincide ; and in this case of Norway, England is especially bound to guard her separate existence as an independent kingdom, having her own le gislation guaranteed to her on the 17th of May, 1814. There is not probably in the history of mankind another instance of a free constitution, not erected amidst ruins and revolutions, not cemented with blood, but taken from the closet of the philosopher and quietly reared and set to work, and found to be suitable without alteration to all the ends of good government. The reason of this apparent singularity is, that all the essential parts of liberty were already in the country. The property was in the hands of the whole body of the people. The ancient laws and institutions affecting property were in full operation, and were conceived and ad ministered in the very spirit of liberty. As far as regards property, these laws and institutions left no thing for the most liberally constiti|ted assembly to legislate upon. As far as regards personal rights, the mild and enlightened administration of Den mark, although under an arbitrary form, had left few general grievances to be redressed. There was nothing in the condition of the people, the state of property, the civil or religious establishments. 480 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. which did not fit in with a free constitution, in which legislative power was vested in the people. These had all emanated from the people in ancient times ; and, there being no hereditary privilege, or power, or property vested in any class of the community, had been handed down unbroken through' ages. The new constitution was but the superstructure of a building of which the foundations had been laid, and the lower walls constructed, eight centuries before by the ancestors of the present generation. Esto perpetua ! must be the earnest prayer of every man who sees this contented and amiable people enjoying the blessings of rational liberty under laws, institutions, and a constitution the most liberal of which any modern nation can boast. The conclusions which I would draw from these views and impressions of the state of society and property in Norway, will appear to many extrava gant or visionary. By stating them, however, I may direct the attention of some to points very interest ing in political science, and may set thinking people a thinking upon subjects which they have not considered before. My conclusions are these : — First. — That the structure of society, in which, through the effects of the natural law of succession in equal shares, there is a very general diffusion of property among all classes and individuals, is better calculated for the end of all society — the produc ing the greatest possible quantity of wellbeing and RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. 481 happiness to the greatest number of persons — than that structure in which the possession of pro perty by the operation of an artificial law of suc cession, such as the feudal law of primogeniture, is restricted to particular classes and individuals among the families of the community. Second. — That the influences of property upon the human mind, — the never-ceasing propensity to acquire, to save, and the equally strong propensity to indulge in the tastes and habits generated by property, — form the real checks which nature has intended for restraining the propensity to propa gation by improvident marriages, and for prevent ing the population of a country from exceeding the means or property upon which it is to subsist. Consequently the diffiision of property through society is the only radical cure for that king's-evil of all feudally constructed societies, — pauperism and over-multiplication. Consequently the idea of bolstering up this unnatural structure of society, as proposed by Dr. Chalmers and other eminent political economists, by inculcating in the minds of the labouring classes a fictitious moral restraint upon marriage — an act which may be eminently imprudent, but can never be designated as immoral, without confounding together prudence and mo rality, and overturning all the land-marks of human virtue, — is as contrary to political as it is to moral principle. Third. — That for the admitted evil condition of the vast population of Ireland, there is no other effectual remedy than an alteration in the law of I I 482 RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. succession to property, by which, without injury to the just existing rights of any living individual, the succeeding generations in that country would become gradually connected with its property; inoculated and imbued with the civilizing tastes, habits, and influences thence arising; and their increase of numbers thus placed under the restraint of the only natural and effective checks which Providence has imposed upon the tendency of population j;o exceed the means of subsistence. THE END. London : Printed by A. Spothiswoobe, New-Street- Square • YAIE YfiLE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY fi390020146011 YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Preserved in honor of SCOTT BENNETT Yale University Librarian 1994-2001 On the occasion of his retirement T,l "(¦t!:'rj;i'ij!j m. m m