Show written for this thir paper WAKEMANS wanderings LONDON nov 16 1893 travelers in norway who have written of norway and its people have invariably spoken of two characteristic subjects but in in so brief a manner as always to pique and never to satisfy the readers natural interest these are what have been termed for a better name the eagle nest farms 11 and the saegers sa eters or mountain summer dairies so far as I 1 know no traveler whitin writing in our language has ever visited the former or and while a few have actually seen a saeter its environment and the stran strange e and lonely life at the same have never been adequately described in sailing along the norwegian coast from bergen to the islands one who is closely observant of the mainland scenery and particularly if a powerful field glass is used will be surprised p ris ed at the number of utterly lonely and isolated habitation seemingly perched against the gray crags at great altitudes midway between sea and sky the larger number of these are at least 2000 2000 feet above the sea to the eye it seems inconceivable that place for even their foundations could be secured the picture mack is always the same aline A line of black wall thousands of feet high a dent of purple or a depression of misty V blue where the speck of a home is built and then black and somber crags behind and above and above and beyond these the ghostly glacier fields I 1 because from a distance their eerie 11 location and the ragged huddled structures which often surround the main habitation recall the nest of the eagle at the edge of beetling crags they have come to be called eagle nest farms sometimes the eye will follow a black line of fissure descending from these habitations to a cavernous rock gorged gap beside the water in this case a little boat house may be seen upon the rocks and somewhere near a winding puce like line will trail upwards and into the darkening depths this tells that the eagle nest farmer is a fisherman fisher man too or has this means of communication with the outer world but how he reaches his home perch above how he subsists in his desolate habitation and what manner of folk these are who find contentment tent ment in lives of such endless solitude danger and nature grudged ance where conjectures which haunted ifie me until I 1 found means to know above the din cliff walls of the larger and sterner fiords fiorda which penetrate the mainland from the coast the eagle nest farms are even more numerous than along the outer coast this is i barly true of portions of the sogne bogne and Thrond bjern fiords fiorda in the lordly baero fiord a branch of the aur linds lands branco branch of the sogne bogne and in a few instances in the they are at such lofty altitudes that they appear like specks of snow or ice or like pois poising ing i i birds upon edges of the clife clif I 1 had noticed a few located at PYO prodigious di r heights between styve and Hol 1101 menaS menas on the northern wall crests of this fiord which all the way beyond dybdal to the waterfall of the ytre atre baaken that tumbles feet is like some black and terrible waterway to the realms of eblis and on landing at the esque station of bakke where snow capped mountains rise thousands of feet sheer above the village leaving not a spare foot between habitations and the towering walls of stone I 1 determined that even if the endeavor should end in a broken neck I 1 would first have seen a norwegian eagle nest farm four days passed at bakke four days of contemplation of scenery so sombre and awful that it continually suggested the infernal before I 1 found any one either competent or willing to act as a guide then good fortune came to me in the person of a strapping young fellow a native of Grin dedal who had been lured away from his own in mountain home to australia and tired of a roving life in the antipodes was returning as best he could with a look of homesickness in his eyes almost savage in its intensity the little he was to receive as boatman guide and interpreter would on our return pay his passage on the fiord steamers around through aur lands fiord to bejos and still leave him as many dollars as a peasants hard labor for a whole year will give for saving in norway so we were a happy pair as we rowed in our small boat h ired hired at bakke to the northeast towards styve and Dyrda dyrdalo ls ice fields above the clouds I 1 could not have found in all norway a more fitting companion for this particular adventure not so very long ago the old method of stages by rowboat row boat along many of these nords was still in vogue travelers were then taken from one station to another in cumbrous sh sharp barp pointed boats the crew of each would return with other passengers to its home station and frequently these crews from stress of travelers haste or when hired by the week or month would make voya voyages 9 es the entire length of a fiord and its various lesser branches this often brought the tha real vikings of our generation that is the dwellers on vicks or creeks along the fiords fiorda into acquaintance with the peasant folk of another fiord and the tather lather of my guide whose name was peter erickson was the master of such a boat when peter was a lad those who dwelt at bejos had come to not only know the lowly of bakke but many had acquired the almost unconscious cunning of the indians woodcraft wood craft or the coast sailors unexplainable b le eighth sense of instinctive pre consciousness of location in fair weather or foul this made clearer to these boatmen than an ordinance chart every hidden chasm sequestered waterfall or unseen home nest upon the crags while the very cragsman whom he had set out to visit had been in the days before the steamers whistle awoke the sleeping echoes of the sombre baero fiord one of the crew of peters fathers boat it was well we had provided food and blankets the enthralment ot of the savagely majestic scenery of the fiord the loite rings at chasms gorges an and narrow valley openings where odd and fant fantastic tic hamlets and half hanging clusters of farm buildings toppled at the edges of precipices or seemed tr trembling emblin from the furies of roaring torrents ana and above all the meetings gs and partings parting S with quaint peasant groups to whom the shadowy fiord was the only highway ever known and who always shook hands with us as though we were old and dear friends they had not seen for a decade and never expected to see again shouting and waving Fa fagels vels to us as long as we were in sight brought us only to the real beginning of our cliff journey when it was already fairly night down there at the bottom of the narrow walls of the fiord the place 1 into which peter dexterously guided our boat was the most forbid ding and gru gruesome esom I 1 ever had the fortune to enter from the middle of the stream the opening was wholly unobservable but my guide informed me that hundreds more like it could be found among the tremendous walls of the norwegian fiords fiorda it was practically a vertical fissure 2000 feet high andeer and perhaps ha p s as deep below the w waters aters su surface ace 0 one ne edge was almost as smooth and rounded as a hewn pillar for all its mighty height the other correspondingly hollowed would have closed against it had the same inconceivable nature force which separated it set it again in place with perfect lamination and without an inch of variance or waste space the two edges of these formations reaching above the clouds were not fifteen feet apart at the entrance but jy away in there were weird and awful depths for while sight could not penetrate them the whispers murmurs plaintive songs and hoarser threnodies thren odies of falling failing waters vaters told the wondrous sto story ry of erosions ero displacements boat battles and all the elemental struggles which the dead centuries had known not fifty feet from the entrance our boat grated against a shelving rock it was almost as level as a floor and but a few inches above the water joey beyond 0 nd this the rock had perhaps centuries before been eaten away or had given away forming a covered hollow like half of a 41 44 truncated cone this spot resembling A a section of the prehistoric pre pro historic bee hive huts of ireland was to be our resting place for the night a place which had probably sheltered more human beings before me than the greatest and oldest hotel in norway and I 1 thus learned of another interesting custom of norwegian pa 1 peasantry As I 1 have before pointed out the fiords fiorda are their real highways journeys of hundreds of miles are still made by entire families or parties too poor or too thrifty to seek shelter an and d food at the fiord side hamlets they have for centuries used these nature built stations their food fuel and sheep skins for covering are br brought 0 aught with them in their boats and water t sweetest purest coldest water in the world is leaping or trickling from every rock peter had no sooner built a cheery fire for each halting party from immemorial custom contributes to the public supply and there is always fuel feel at hand than he explains torch in hand some ol of the curious characteristics of this quaintest quain test hospice I 1 had ever beheld A genuine norwegian inn inn without landlord station without master hotel with t out host on the same rocky level but just around a projection of the fissure A wall was a tiny paddock with tittle lutle walls knee high built of loose stones the source of certain unaccountable yi sounds I 1 had already heard with dire forebodings were now made clear ip r three tiny norwegian cows were munch I 1 4 ing their green lodder fodder and two of th tiniest calves I 1 had ever see seen n atz gravely beside them these might bb aft long to the cragsman we were about to visit peter told me itt in any event the peasantry who often changed the d grazing places of their little herds penned panned the animals at night and the wise wise little things conscious as their v 4 lv fe masters of the danger of night roalin roaming 9 or misstep never budged from the few square yards of rock to wah chuh they were meekly leefrom led from the boats boatsy where we built our fire fires had been lighted since the time of harald haarsager Haar fager in a hole or little chamber in the rock were a few rude iron utensils which had perhaps been used for centuries by these fiord wayfarers wayfare rs and another little indention in the wall served A 1 1 as a sort of toll box where those who felt able or willing to do so deposited a ir few ore nearly the smallest coin in the I 1 world in tribute to the eagle nest farmer thousands of feet above to whose possessions this strahle place was a sort of lower and outer lodge drawn our boat the rock u we ale slept t within it it was a wakeful night floor for me the soughing of the wind through the narrow fissure was full oi of ghostly plaints plaines and voices while the falling of near yet unseen waters of S different volumes from varying heights seemed almost almose articulate with wild t speech and song as if the mighty myth C dogic heroes of norseland in concourse within this mysterious chasm were re turned for a night to chant their sagas there of love of the chase and of war it was as late when we awoke the calves had mysteriously disappeared petersen was then sure they were fre derick sons on the cliff top above their owner had come with a companion and without di disturbing ng us had slung the little animals over their shoulders and were A now scaling the heights with them peter said we must make haste as the cows were to follow and we should overtake the cragsmen cragsman crags men at home hom e before they be began n another descent with a bit 0 of f fa food in in our hands we started peter in the van the way led for a few hundred feet past the crags mans boathouse boat house along the edge of what was on three sides an almost vertical hollow R cu cube b e cut by nature from solid stone more than a score of waterfalls could be seen some seemed no larger than a white ribbon of lace waving down the black rock sides others poured from cups and hollows larger accumulated volumes and still others issued like spouting pouting tunnels from cavernous holes m in the rocks all fell in an immense pool ool of such great depth that the dis harge charge of the waters from the black cauldron cauldren caul dron was without ripple where they mingled with those of the fiord the other side of them the mighty eighty hollow hollo w cube was broken into irregular masses of f rock some ploughed sloughed hed as smooth as though polished by a lapidary and between these tremendous displacements were powdered stone and dearius of sand so I 1 knew that some time thousands of years ago a parcel of glaciers had bad tilted into the chasm and thus provided a not altogether perilous way for our ascent A zigzag zig zag path forming altogether a distance of perhaps two miles led up the broken chasm side and at three places huge timbers had been rigged for raising and lowering with rude windlasses wind lasses animals with huge leather bands fastened around their bodies and all things that could not climb or be carried on these sturdy crags mens backs here then was half the mystery of the famous eagle nest norwegian farms removed peter said they were all equally accessible both upon the coasts and the fiords fiorda they uve have simply seemed inaccessible to those travelers who make books from steamers decks and have been put among the eagles the clouds and the glaciers in the pictures without so muc much h a as s a rope and swinging wicker basket to aid the readers imagination in safe ascent we met the head farmer and his son on their way back to the fiord side paddock near the th upper edge of the chasm I 1 was much more of a curiosity to these good folk than they to me for I 1 was the first foreigner that had ever visited this or so far as I 1 gan can learn any other eagle nest farm in norway peter made them know easily enough who he was and the greetings at the farmhouse farm house or houses for several branches of one family were huddled in great roomy houses along the plateau were rather an ovation than a welcome I 1 was altogether disappointed for I 1 had looked forward to knowing in this experience the uttermost desolation in which human beings c can an sustain life I 1 was glad to find one of the cheeriest chee riest places I 1 had come upon n anywhere in norway the eagle ne nest st farm comprised altogether or atres acres of partially tillable and grazing land A mountain stream ran through it the cliff efte edge above the fiord was protected by low walls ol of timber and stone the entire tract might be called a swail or little corrie or saucer shaped depression such as you will find in the scottish highlands in front was a misty line above the fiord then a mighty panorama of mountain valley and waterfall as far as the eye could reach behind lay first a fjeld of shapeless rock then came a seemingly impenetrable forest of ke fir above this was another line of sacred gray masses of jagged stone its upper edge serrated with streaks and gullies of snow and then the glittering range of ice upon the dyrdal fjeld beyond the light at this altitude with white peaks everywhere along the circling horizon line was painful and blinding after a week passed in the shadowy depth of the fiord region below there were fine low wide stout timber built homes perhaps a half score of out buildings for flocks and herds all arranged so as to protect as much as possible both humans and animals from t the he awful winter winds a huge storehouse as big as a village church for common use and a curious old mill for grinding grain where the stream tumbled into the chasm in which we had passed the night the larger farmhouse or sort of patriarch to them all had a wide outer buter enclosed hall in thi this |