Show WAKEMANS wanderings LONDON oct 12 1893 if one has sailed up and down the magnificent norwegian coast it is easy to believe the statement that one tenth of the entire population of norway are fishermen twenty million cod alone are annually taken the value of fish each year exported from norway is nearly 1200 oooo from bergen to one is scarcely ever out of sight of fis hermens huts fisher fleets fishing stations and bleak and dreary towns where fish and fishing are the exclusive reason for the presence of man agriculture along the entire coast and among the coast islands is carried on in patches so tiny as to astonish the traveler fer at their insignificance little strips a few rods in length and a few feet in breadth are regarded by those patient folk as prized possessions and what they are made to produce is is amazing to such straits are the coast and islet fisher folk sometimes put for soil that it ais is often transferred from mainland in boats bit by bit to fill some crevice or to be walled in and cultivated against the floods and tempests which often wash it ruthlessly into the sea I 1 have seen these little patches often cared for with vastly more expense and labor than the owners rude habitation it is not infrequent to discover them half way up the broken side of a beetling crag I 1 know of many that can only be reached by lowering the owner to his farm by means of a windlass and it is no uncommon thing to see them walled in at the edges forming a portion of a sloping root of stone huts abutting plains of mighty ell lagged jagged rocks behind these bits of green seem to take on added intensity of contrast for their sterile and desolate surroundings and emphasize the only market gardening of the coast the tremendous harvest of the sea in all the vast region where cod are taken the curious apparent scene is constantly presented at the fishing stations your steamer will call at or pass of some vast clothes washing industry the absurd notion possesses you that the laundry for all europe has been found for at a little distance the white drying crying cod hanging over poles or covering acres of 01 flat rock seem like countless and immeasurable collections of lingerie bleaching in the days of the arctic regions this norwegian codfish has the two names 0 Stok fish 11 stockfish or stockfish stick fish ind and klip fisk or r fish the former derives its name from being dried in pairs hanging from a long siok or pole and the latter are klip fishl from being cured where poles are not available on the flat su surfaces aces of the everlasting rock from these they are sent to the barn like structures around which cluster the dreary habitations of the coast and islets which are to the fishing industry what the astor stor haus is to the norse farmer and from these they are taken by coasting craft called bagts to the great waterside storehouses of bergen from which they find their way to their final market in various mediterranean ports so you will never escape the sight teste and smell of fish in norway tiery every animate object along the coast irom human to seagull sea gull is seeking ifor for fish every coast city town or huddle of houses is is engaged in catching curing stori storing tig or selling fish and would rot in ruin in a decade it fish disappeared from the sea roads and fiords fiorda the most picturesque sights in these waters are the fleets of hermens fishermens fis crafts going or coming between the home ports and outlying stations and the numberless bagts which their high peaked prows and immense sails creeping in ift and out of the blue bays and shadowy fiords fiorda or massing in bewildering confusion about the quays of bergen and at your hotel every manner of fish is served in extraordinary variety and tremendous quantity if you are entertained at the house of a friend the never failing dish is thrust before you the bonder further country wards assaults your satiety with pickled fish if you take potluck pot luck with the peasant there it is again ground into powder and mingling with his porridge up among the mountain saegers the women who care tor the herds and flocks will force it upon you as a hospitable delicacy at the tourist stations along the great stone roads of norway it bo bobs bs up to haunt you dried pickled and in caviale cavi are and penetrating the remotest country districts among the highland lakes and streams you will starve if you do not at once fall upon fresh fish served while it is still almost quivering with its finny bloodless life I 1 have known travelers who passionately protested against the universality of great britaina Brit ains ham and eggs grow voiceless in dis pair from the omnipresence and immutability tabi lity of fish in norway A picture indeed is that gradually unfolding from your steamers deck when morning breaks through the mists and begins to light up the city of bergen A jumble of spar huge flapping sails and then the dim outlines of all manner of shipp shipping ing but chiefly the odd looking lines of the old dragon ships of the vikings the latter of course laden with endless stores of fish are first to come in view then ghostly rows of half defined outlines oy of what suggest monks squatting at the waterside with and bowed heads as in meditation or prayer these prove to be the vast white fronted ancient storehouses store houses of bergen what seemed a cowl at the peak of each is only a huge or rude crane with its cum berous hood like cover used when the nord far or northern seafarers aaers arrival crowds the bay with ra fishing hing craft in unloading the unsavory freight ayere here is the ancient quarter brave are the tales of trade these odd old storehouse store ston house shells might tell strange scenes were once here in the olden council rooms strange romances blin cling to the ways and days of these sturdy od oad league merchants and strange and grew some were the lives of their slavish clerks who passed their days in these mighty caverns of dead fish and by the iove jealousy of different nations might ever love but never wed through the misty rose like the tint of the ripened peach the quaint old city seems at last to float out of its ghostliness into clearer view behind the masts and the hooded storehouses rises the grim cathedral roof and dome then bits of green where the open s spaces ac es are wondrously green in these erie brief f and humid summer days checker the uplands of roof at first as brilliant in pu purple le and red as a ragged heather clad ScTt scottish tish mountain side jor for all these roots roofs are flaming as peonies in in ruddy red tiles angle projection quaint corner here and there a pagoda like house end everywhere peaked roof and sharp pointed kable gable in successive jagged ends and bits of color and contrast of color rise not tier on tier but most picturesque jumble upon mass and mass upon jumble defined at last by the loveliest of valley landscapes delicate in whites of villas and greens of parks gardens farms and forests as a tuscan dreamland dreamland reach of vineyard vale and then all about the dark mountain edges serrated dark and grim which shut in every scene eyes may bedol 1 l in norway as if only nothingness and immensity lay forbidding and measureless beyond one is in love with old bergen town before foot is set upon its huge hard quays the feeling instantly possesses you that you are in a city and among a folk that have not let all manner of modern notions run away with their comfortable olden possessions and ways there is a sense of amplitude and almost benignity about these wide old structures of the sort one feels when coming unexpectedly into a house with capac capacious iou S and c heery cheery fireplaces still doing their hospitable duty and the people themselves impress you even before dealing with or knowing them witha with a personal consciousness essof of simple integrity and measured paced content that irresistibly puts sunshine and benignity into your own heart and leads you on to each successive experience with a cheeriness and good nature mutually reciprocal with yourself and every soul you meet in all other wanderings my own experience has been that I 1 never came to strange people or city without indefinable anxiety faint presages of unforeseen ill sand forebodings of unhappy y discoveries cisco veries happenings and scenes kot not so with norway Y you 0 u may not know the language of her r people e 0 P le but every face that is turnes turned to yours seems so frank and unruffled every eye that meets your own is so steady and clear in its friendly candor and every salutation dealing and new experience seems so unaffected honest and genial that you move forward in each days doings as in an atmosphere of ben beneficent hearthside hearth side calm you will secure a still finer view of red roofed bergen and environs than from your steamers deck by leisurely wandering up the magnificent mountain road called the grammens vei the drams adrams way because built from the profits derived from liquor license revenues rising along the grand slopes of the Floi fjeld heights dominating the city on the east it is is a stone road making five great bends before reaching the brow of Floi fjeld but from this point the lights and shades playing upon the city roofs transform old bergen into a curiously wrought en taglio of coral set round about with the lustrous emerald of foothill and valley verdure and the gleaming sapphire of the sea gradually the chief objects of the town come into prominence the most anost ancient portion of the city is beneath you there is the where are the dutch looking houses andall the quaint memorials of the league here the steamers lay along side in the broad across the or harbor is the more modern built city with its its regent street or broadway with its fine shops the warehouses customhouses custom houses and other buildings for commerce and trade behind these to the south are the cathedral public squares and gardens the cemetery the lepers hospital the only object of dread in norway the villas and gardens of the substantial merchants reaches of bright bays which nearly surround the city and then blossoming bloss oming vale land above which circle the everlasting hills seaward the eye rests upon dim ribbons ot of blue winding away into misty fiords fiorda interlacing the bases of grim headlands and threading between mazes of islands countless and beautiful to the far and serrated horizon rim probably the most characteristic scene in bergen is down here at the korv of a saturday morning this is the ancient fish market it is an open space in the quay precisely like the fish market at newhaven edinburgh at plymouth england and at galway gal way ireland but few fish are brought ashore the stalls are the bagts or fishing boats and there are no howling fishwives fish wives hundreds of peasants fr m the surrounding country dressed in the peculiar costumes of their respective districts come to the korv to sell vegetables cheese butter eggs fowls and many rude articles of home manufacture mingling with these are the honest housewives and maid servants of the city it is a cheery chatty hearty crowd all life animation and geniality glittering with quaint old gilt and silver ornaments colorful irom from bright garters gaudy bodices bo dices saffron and scarlet shoulder ribbons lustrous braids of yellow hair snowy white caps and head kerchiefs glinting with silver gimps dimps or fine old lem embroidery every woman who comes to buy fish carries a shining tin pail or scuttle often ornamented in gaudy audy colors the fisherman standing th an fn their boats say never a word they are the most silent and sodden salesmen you ever knew the women do all the bartering and chaffing when a satisfactory price is is reached the fish is towed tossed up to the buyer and the coin exe exchanged liang art frt and so with pleasant t badinage from the quay and utter solemnity to iti the the boats the sales go on but think of fresh cod salmon mackerel and turbot sel selling lingat at the bergen korv at but from four to six cents per pound I 1 the more modern streets of bergen are spacious and wide and all are match matchlessly lewAy clean nearly all the houses site are of wood large rambling roomy i and every window is gay with boxes and pots pets of flowers not even in thel the tropics are more flowers to be seen in summer all ail vegetation here seems to take on added beauty and luxuriance in proportion to the brevity ol of its yearly outdoor out door life and norwegian folk are food fondro to passionate tenderness of every leaf andrud and bud and bloom for its seeming responsiveness to affectionate nature and care every open space is filled with trees and shrubs every street or thoroughfare yields a vista bordered with groon green and ending in the blue of the bloe of flowers many of the olden structures are ve re very ancient and Am curious amerious rious some of f the oly old time villas and homes on the outskirts are interesting for their suggestions of wooden castles where there was possible occasion for defense the timbers are something mighty in these and the out buildings for servants and vast storehouses on pillars of stone all tell their tale of generations of master and folk and servitors living in a little community capable of protecting its own integrity against any manner ot of offensive sion or harm over in the finnesgaard Fin on the in the region of moun bains of barrels fences decorated by drying codfish and all the curious gear of the greatest fishing mart of northern europe still stands a single house it is the only one left in bergen where the old time german traders lived and traded almost like a parcel of pirate monks the strangest of rude carvings painted in barbaric colors bedeck the exterior the merchants fantastically carved and paneled office the managers musty bureau the clerks livin grooms and dormitories remain just as they were once used the latter are very unique and interesting the beds are built in tiers like a shim ships I 1 s emigrants quarters one side of each tiny bunk is closed with hinged doors or shutters opening to a passageway where the female servants could make the clerks beds without entering their rooms you will also see in this ancient house a great number of strange relics of daily use in this ancient and powerful money grabbing community among them are huge candlesticks cabbage chopping machines curious lamps bowls mammoth long stemmed pipes staves with bags for church collections for these old robbers were pious as shrewd strong boxes bound with brass and iron arms of the leaguers and even ledgers recording their mighty gains ones fancy conjures rembrandt pictures here and you look for some romance master to see and seize and set in enduring page the hardness sternness and often the hopeless pathos of this grim old trade conven life there is also an interesting district of I 1 lergen bergen lying between the Strand gade and the harbor one never tires of this tor for narrow thoroughfares lead down to the bay in which are strange projecting roof huge diamond panel windows shadowy colonnades clumsy balb balconies onies and drowsy echoes of endless waterside traffic on the Strand gade itself there are showy shops to barter in ancient shops into which curiously carved stairs ascend or descend and museum like shops where old silver norway carved woods furs furi and all odd manner of keep sakes may maybe be bought it is here that all day long and nearly all night long for it is still daylight in bergen summertime between eleven and twelve at night move to tb and fro the placid pleasant throngs among them are the peasantry from Sae terdal from hardinger from The lemark from Evan evanger geri and from the outlying islands these more than all else give color and character to ancient bergen town and you grow impatient to follow them over the mountains to their |