BOOKS.
MR. HURTON'S PICTURES OF SCANDINAVIA.* WHO shall say that life is grown formal, uniform, and dull ? The fault is not in the world, but in those who confine themselves to the " high civilization" of England, or rather to a portion, and but a small portion, of English society. Beyond it there is variety, ruggedness, and roughness enough, if we throw aside over-squeam- ish delicacy, and that nicety of refinement which springs, how- ever we may deny it, from latent pride. Events in Western Christ- endom may be less striking than of yore, owing to the police and the general " knowing " condition of society ; though the reports of the press indicate the existence even yet of that simple gulli- bility which forms the basis of the comic novel of adventure. Character, and the scenes which develop character, without reach- ing incident or passing on to continuous story, may be found by those who make up their minds to look for them.
William Hurton is a man of this kind. Not yet, as incidentally appears, twenty-six years of age, with a poetical temperament, a love of poetry, and an acquaintance with general literature, he seems to traverse the world from a liking for locomotion and strange scenes. He appears to have visited many distant re- gions, and to have served a voluntary apprenticeship to the sea service. The summer of 1849 saw him in a hospital at Paris, dangerously ill of cholera; the opening winter found him on board a steamer bound for Hamburg, which he could not reach, ow- ing to the ice in the Elbe. But he was not a line-weather travel- ler, to be stopped by trifles ; to Copenhagen he was bound, and to Copenhagen he would go. Landing at Gluckstadt, he proceeded to Kiel ; and thence got to the capital of Denmark by means of small trading vessels, a diligence, and a steamer. At Copenhagen he wintered ; and in the very earliest days of spring started for Swe- den, still in a small trader. But the spring of our alraanacks and of the Baltic are two different things. Weather drove him back and coated the sea in shore with ice. When he finally sailed, they had to cut a canal to get out the vessel. When they reached Drobak, in the very early part of April, Mr. Hurton proceeded to Christiania, in a sledge ; crossing streams and arms of the sea upon the ice ; and as late as the 26th of April he walked over the ice on the fiord of Christiania. At this town he lingered two months, and then was off to Bergen, again in a coasting vessel ; and thence in another trader he sailed for the island of Tromso, one of that numerous archipelago which lies off the Northern coast of Nor- way. This place he made his head-quarters ; crossing to the main- land to visit an encampment of Laplanders with rein-deer, taking a trip to Hammerfest, the capital of Finmark ; and proceeding to North Cape in an open boat. He has ere now started off again to some remote region ; and all apparently for love, since there is no trace of a purpose in the book beyond the gratification derived from scenery and change of scene. Even that pleasure would to many tourists have been a sad toil, pursued in the manner of Mr. Hurton. But he is not the man to " rough it on a steak and a bot- tle of port "; he can get on swimmingly with a soft plank and a hard biscuit. Yet his mid-winter journies and spring voyage re- mind one of the proverb " de gustibus." This was pleasure in the way you like it, off Copenhagen in the middle of March, when his bark had been driven back by storm and cold.
"Tuesday, 16th, opened with a brilliant sunrise ; and although the ice was in certain tracts thin in our immediate vicinity, yet nearer the shore it was very strong, and we had not a very favourable wind to force our way into the open sea—even if such a course would have been otherwise practicable. Of all outward-bound vessels in the roads, ours was lying nearest the sea- ward edge of the ice, for the latter did not extend more than three hundred yards from us in the direction of the Battery. A large Swedish barque, coming into port with a strong wind, tried the experiment of dashing through the ice at full sail, about two hundred yards distance, in a course across our bows ; and she got a long way towards port. I went aloft to gaze on the grand panorama spread around ; and had thus, also, a capital bird's-eye view of our neighbour the celebrated Three Crowns Battery,'—which is of vast extent, rising from an artificial foundation in the Sound, about two English miles (I believe) from the entrance to the port. The cannon planted on it seemed of immense calibre, as indeed many are at the batteries on shore. As I sat on the fore-crosstrees, I sang light-hearted as a middy ; and despite the cold, I there managed to write a letter home, duly dating it from that breezy elevation !" "On the morning of Wednesday, 27th, the wind proving favourable for sailing, we all turned to with a will a little after daybreak, to cut a way out of the ice. We had, as nearly as I could judge, a couple of hundred yards or more to form a passage wide enough for the schooner, until she could get into the channel, so opportunely reopened by the steamer. Armed with hatchets and handspikes, we heartily set to work. The ice was exceedingly rough on the surface, and its solid thickness was about five or six inches. The first thing done was to track out a road, about twenty-five feet in width, and in a line with the direction our anchors lay in. "This road was marked out by handspikes set on end ; and then we cut in strait lines completely through the ice, from handspike to handspike. The cold was extreme, but the labour kept one's body in a fine glow, though hands and feet suffered much from the spurting of the cold water. When we had cut a complete way of about the length of the schooner—say sixty feet, we next divided this detached sheet into two parallel portions ; and then cutting them up into transverse sections of from six to ten feet square, we dragged them by main force, with boat-hooks, under the firm adjoining ice, as to completely clear the channel. This was not altogether child's play, and both caution and dexterity were requisite to avoid accidents ; for the ice we stood on, when thus dissected, quivered and cracked ominously. Our next task was to get on board again, and heave away at the pawl windlass, to draw the vessel ahead. I here gave forth the English h-e-a-v-e-h-o-h ! '
• With full lungs, and never worked with a heartier will in my life, for I dearly love to hear the cheery click-click-click of the falling pawl. This heaving proved, however, heart-dragging work; for the ice clung so to the schooner's
• A Voyage from Leith to Lapland; or Pictures of Scandinavia in 1560. By Wil- lianiBurtoa. In two volumes. Published by Bentley. sides and bows, that some times seven or eight of us could hardly spring a single pawl without reiterated efforts. We had a great length of the cables out, and heaved first on one anchor then on the other' we brought the bows chock up to the firm ice. Then we resumed our hatchets, and cut the channel another ship's length. This time, as I was stepping, handspike in hand, over a weak portion of ice, it gave way, and I was immersed to the middle in a moment. I opened not my lips, but very quietly spread out my arms till the mate came up and dragged me from my gratuitous bath. Then I laughed at my own plight, and shaking myself well, clambered on board the vessel, shifted my garments, and in ten minutes was chopping away again, blithe as ever. This was happily the only little misadventure which befel us."
Mr. Hurton has the fluency of the poetical temperament, as well as its vivid perception of natural beauty and the qualities of things. This sometimes leads him into rhapsody, after the manner of his friend Hans Andersen, and induces him to choose subjects or ex- pand them in the way of bookmakers. The public know the life of Andersen from his own writings, the career and character of Thordswalden from various sources ; and the chapters on those subjects might have been dispensed with. The manner of describ- ing some modes of Danish manners in a feigned dialogue between the writer and an English mamma and daughters, is forced and artificial : in a better known capital than Copenhagen, and with a less buoyant style than Mr. Hurton's, the topographical description might have become tedious. The fault of overdoing, however, be- longs to the first volume. When the traveller reaches Norway, all is rapid, varied, vigorous, and fresh. The sledge-drive from Drobak to Christiania has the interest of Ainsworth's ride of Dick Turpin to York, with newer imagery. Here is part of it. " We did not go by the usual Christiania road, because the state of the snow and ice was favourable to a more direct, albeit adventurous route ; so we struck off across fields, and over hills, and through plantations, where nothing but the most dexterous management saved us from being upset every minute ; for the sledge whirled madly between the trees, so that every now and then it was thrown on its beam-ends, as a sailor would say, and thus dragged along for many yards. At times the underwood closed upon us so that we were almost torn from our seats—the next moment, perhaps, we shot down a steep rugged declivity and emerged on a level free from shrubs —and no marvel, for it was a lake !"
"About half-way between Driibak and Christiania we descended a roman- tic fir-clad mountain gorge leading down to a bend of the Christiania fiord, over the frozen bosom of which the residue of our journey would lie. It was difficult to judge where the shelving shore ended and the fiord commenced, for ice and snow covered both so that the eye could barely distinguish the difference between terra firma and the vast sheet of very deep salt water :
and this, the reader will recollect, was in April!" *
"Trot—trot—trot went the snorting quadruped ; jingle—jingle—jingle went the 'bells' ; creak—creak—creak went the snow, as onward we rushed. There were numerous other sledges abroad, and a long dark string of them were racing behind us. Shouts, jeers, and laughter rang through the clear air as one outstripped the other—only to be overtaken in turn. Onward ! the April sun shines with unclouded brilliancy, and for miles there is one glistening level surface, enclosed on either side by towering ranges of hills, fringed from summit to base with snow-laden firs and pines. Onward ! through the shrewdly biting but exhilarating air, that seemeth pure as though this were the first hour it ever floated o'er mother earth. Onward ! my heart longs for the first glimpse of fair Christiania. Onward ! there are no turn- pikes here—but ah ! there is something far more difficult to bilk than a turn- pike ! A huge split in the ice extends directly athwart the fiord, and the opposite edge has sunk out of sight for a breadth of many feet. Der Fanden! who would have expected this ? Many sledges are already brought to a pre- mature standstill as well as ours, and others are joining us every minute. The drivers dismount and survey the yawning chasm, but no narrower part can be discerned than that where the main track thus abruptly terminates. The sturdy Norsemen look blank, and growl forth sundry eloquent maledic- tions on the treachery of the ice—second only, in their estimation, to that of woman : but all the objurgation in the Norse vocabulary will not throw a bridge over the gap, and it is too wide for even a race-horse to leap—leaving men and sledges out of the question. Some long sticks are procured, and it is found that the sunk portion of ice is only about breast deep below the sur- face of the congealed water,. and gradually shelves upward to the sound sheet beyond ; but the question is, whether that submerged section will not dis- appear altogether beneath the weight of a horse and sledge, leaving nothing but salt water between them and a bottom, Heaven only knows how many hundred fathoms down below ! A spirited young Norwegian loses patience, and vows he will dash across at all risks. Stand aside, comrades! Faint heart never won fair lady ! The adventurer backs his light sledge to gain a fair start—utters a cheering cry to his sagacious horse—and forward the latter bounds, giving a spring on the edge of the chasm sufficiently to carry him half over. A moment the sledge surges and floats helplessly, while the horse flounders and struggles to get a footing. A lash from his driver's whip and an urging cheer from the interested spectators of the experiment follow. Another anxious moment, and hurra! horse, sledge, and driver, are all safe on the firm ice. The practicability of the thing being thus proven, I urge my old driver on in turn, and we are soon by the side of the daring pioneer.
Mr. Hurton's mode of proceeding naturally introduced him to the people of the country, and to characters among the people. This is a scene on his voyage from Bergen to Tromso.
"The Bergette Marie in one respect resembled an emigrant ship, for we had almost a dozen families aboard, returning to their native Nordland. They were all of the lower classes, and it was amusing to notice the compo- sure with which some of them exercised their calling as shoemakers, &c., on deck in fine weather. Some of the men had leather breeches and leather jackets, and all were very decently although thriftily clad. The women wore ample petticoats of dark blue cloth and jackets of a similar material, with jaunty rows of buttons, and a nice white shirt-collar turned over. Two or three of the girls were very pretty, and looked extremely interesting in this simple attire. Their cheerful yet modest and becoming behaviour was highly agreeable. I often wished for English needles, scissors, and such trifles to present them with, for no gifts are more acceptable in the North. The stout, rosy children were dressed in precisely the same fashion as their mothers. These Nordlanders, although evidently very poor, had nothing about them of that sordid, grinding destitution, to be seen in similar classes in Britain. They had enough for their humble wants, and were ever cheer- ful and contented. They carried their provisions in chests, and lived on dried fish, potatoes, rye-bread, butter, coffee, and milk I frequently enjoyed the astonishment which my presence appeared to excite among them ; and at times understood their whispered speculations as to who I could be, and what extraordinary motive induced me to share their rude voyage. One and all of mtheemdelibecahakvedlituetoNsars"tToensi:iwtihil frank respectantod thseevritziosfrtoqinumenytIpoy_awv.pait.d The men slept among the crew on the goods under the loose decks, but the women and children shared the glare cabin, and honest Yarcub treated them with a constant kindness and consideration, that warmed my heart and won theirs."
Numerous were the rough but kind-hearted mariners our adven- turer made friends with. Among the most remarkable, was the captain on the voyage from Tromso to Hammerfest.
"Skipper Heggeliind was quite an original. Ho was a huge, brawny, rough-looking fellow, but a good ship-mate, and one the more liked the longer he was known. He chewed leaf tobacco in quantities that would have sufficed for an English ship's crew. He said that he was one of a family of twelve children, and that his father died at the age of eighty-seven, and his mother was now eighty-five, and still 'meget frisk,' (very lively). He was a most voluble talker, and perpetually interrupted himself by such expressions as saa! Nei, Men !' every third word. He rave a dolorous
account of the awful coat of indulging in the luxury of shaving at Tromso;for he said that there was bat one barber, a Schleswiger, who charged him ten specie dollars (two pounds five shillings) a year, or eight skillings (three- pence halfpenny) for a single shave. The only, volume he had in the cabin was a Norwegian translation of The Arabian Nights—of all books in the world the last I should have expected to find in the possession of such a man as Heggeliind. It was an ancient thick blackletter copy, very much thumbed, and the skipper's especial delight, as I soon found. He used to stretch himself on a locker night after night, and listen to me reading it aloud to him (for I could read Norwegian far better than speak it), and his bursts of hoarse laughter at the adventures of Aladdin,' frequently shook the cabin."
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