第59章 LETTER X(5)

About eight o'clock in the evening we got under way from Hammerfest;unfortunately the wind almost immediately after fell dead calm,and during the whole night we lay "like a painted ship upon a painted ocean."At six o'clock a little breeze sprang up,and when we came on deck at breakfast time,the schooner was skimming at the rate of five knots an hour over the level lanes of water,which lie between the silver-grey ridges of gneiss and mica slate that hem in the Nordland shore.The distance from Hammerfest to Alten is about forty miles,along a zigzag chain of fiords.It was six o'clock in the evening,and we had already sailed two-and-thirty miles,when it again fell almost calm.Impatient at the unexpected delay,and tempted by the beauty of the evening,--which was indeed most lovely,the moon hanging on one side right opposite to the sun on the other,as in the picture of Joshua's miracle,--Sigurdr,in an evil hour,proposed that we should take a row in the dingy,until the midnight breeze should spring up,and bring the schooner along with it.

Away we went,and so occupied did we become with admiring the rocky precipices beneath which we were gliding,that it was not until the white sails of the motionless schooner had dwindled to a speck,that we became aware of the distance we had come.

Our attention had been further diverted by the spectacle of a tribe of fishes,whose habit it appeared to be--instead of swimming like Christian fishes in a horizontal position beneath the water--to walk upon their hind-legs along its surface.Perceiving a little boat floating on the loch not far from the spot where we had observed this phenomenon,we pulled towards it,and ascertained that the Lapp officer in charge was actually intent on stalking the peripatetic school--to use a technical expression--whose evolutions had so much astonished us.The great object of the sportsman is to judge by their last appearance what part of the water the fish are likely to select for the scene of their next promenade.Directly he has determined this in his own mind,he rows noiselessly to the spot,and,as soon as they show themselves,hooks them with a landing-net into his boat.

By this time it had become a doubtful point whether it would not be as little trouble to row on to Alten as to return to the schooner,so we determined to go on.

Unfortunately we turned down a wrong fiord,and after a long pull,about two o'clock in the morning had the satisfaction of finding ourselves in a cul-de-sac.To add to our discomfort,clouds of mosquitoes with the bodies of behemoths and the stings of dragons,had collected from all quarters of the heavens to make a prey of us.In vain we struggled--strove to knock them down with the oars,--plunged our heads under the water,--smacked our faces with frantic violence;on they came in myriads,until I thought our bleaching bones would alone remain to indicate our fate.At last Sigurdr espied a log but on the shore,where we might at least find some one to put us into the right road again;but on looking in at the open door,we only saw a Lapland gentleman fast asleep.Awaking at our approach he started to his feet,and though nothing could be more gracefully conciliatory than the bow with which I opened the conversation,Iregret to say that after staring wildly round for a few minutes,the aboriginal bolted straight away in the most unpolite manner and left us to our fate.There was nothing for it but patiently to turn back,and try some other opening.This time we were more successful,and about three o'clock A.M.had the satisfaction of landing at one of the wharves attached to the copper mines of Kaafiord.We came upon a lovely scene.It was as light and warm as a summer's noon in England;upon a broad plateau,carved by nature out of the side of the grey limestone,stood a bright shining house in the middle of a plot of rich English-looking garden.On one side lay the narrow fiord,on every other rose an amphitheatre of fir-clad mountains.The door of the house was open,so were many of the windows--even those on the ground-floor,and from the road where we stood we could see the books on the library shelves.A swing and some gymnastic appliances on the lawn told us that there were children.

Altogether,I thought I had never seen such a charming picture of silent comfort and security.Perhaps the barren prospects we had been accustomed to made the little oasis before us look more cheerful than we might otherwise have thought it.