Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Chapter XIII
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
242 THROUGH NORWAY WITII A KNAPSACK.
of a century or so, it will probably be high and dry,
and cultivated right across to Marifjoeren on the opposite
side.
My next day’s walk was over rich cultivated country
between Marifjoeren and Hafslo. There is a beautiful
lake by Hafslo, and a remarkable steep zigzag road
near Naglören.
On arriving at Sogndalsfjoeren, I found a considerable
portion of the boating population either drunk or in a
state of recovery from drunkenness (which, of the two,
is rather the most disagreeable), and I spent two or three
hours vainly endeavouring to engage a boat to take
me down the fiord: for there are no roads, or even
tracks, or scarcely possibilities of travelling on foot,
hereabouts, where the rocks dip almost perpendicularly
into the waters of the fiords.
The people here seem very different from any
Norwegians I have met before: they have larger features,
lower heads, and, many of them, dark hair and eyes,
and almost a Neapolitan physiognomy. The boatmen
are very uncivil, and, for the first time in Norway,
I found them bent upon making an overcharge:
evidently calculating upon my being an Englishman
and submitting to it. This, and the drunkenness, are
partly explained by the fact that an English yacht
had been there just before: English lavishness had left
its usual demoralizing trail behind. After a great deal
of trouble and altercation, I got a boat and two men,
one of them partially sober, the other entirely drank.
In order to obtain these, I was obliged to offer 1 mark
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
