Torrence slept soundly until 10:30 o’clock when, as the twilight had
deepened into gloom, I thought it best to call him, and went below to
sleep myself. The night was quickly passed, as there was little of it,
and in the watches we rounded the headlands of the Sogne, the Geiranger,
and the Romsdal fiords, and then steering a little more to the east with
the trend of the coast, made for the great bay of Trondhjem, which we
reached about the middle of the afternoon. Skirting the opening of the
fiord, Torrence asked if I thought it worth while to pay a visit to this
historic city of the Norwegians—Trondhjem being one of their most
important and beautiful towns. If we concluded to go, he said it would
be best, in order not to attract attention, to land upon one of the
lonely island hilltops near the town, and thence make our way by foot
and boat. We talked the matter over, but finally decided to let all
towns alone, it being possible that the authorities held orders for our
detention, as they had in Hull.
"We are quite safe where we are," said Torrence, "and when we stop, let
it be away from people."
Having decided to stick to the air ship, we went directly on past the
mouth of the bay without entering it. The town itself is a number of
miles further up the fiord.
We now headed straight for the North Cape, which we reached in about
five days from London. We passed the Lofoten isles, the Vest fiord,
Tromsoe, Hammerfest, and other points of beauty and interest along this
marvelous coast, without stopping at any of them, and landed upon the
northernmost point of Europe without accident. On this desolate
headland we decided to make our first landing, to overhaul the
machinery, stretch our legs, and have a general pow-wow on Mother Earth
before proceeding further.
An elevated plain, lopped off at one end by a wall of granite, hundreds
of feet high, and overlooking the sea, stood ready to receive us. No
human habitation is visible, but thousands of pigeons living in the
crannies of the cliff were frightened at our approach, and flew about
wildly in all directions. Above this plain we halted, and then slowly
began our descent.
At the water level on the east is a steamboat landing, where the Olaff
Kyrre stops once or twice during the summer for the benefit of tourists
who find their way to the top by a winding path cut in the face of the
wall. Thence to the northern cliff is a level walk of over a mile across
this plain, along which a wire is stretched to guide those who happen to
be caught in a fog, which at times is very dense and sudden.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account