A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden Part 26

We arrived at Sand the same afternoon, and after ransacking the little place from house to house, found the proprietor of the salmon river there. With the good nature and extreme courtesy of his countrymen, the Norwegian gave a.s.sent that we might angle, and not only favoured my two indefatigable friends with a prolonged dissertation on the peculiarities of the Sand salmon, but offered to undertake any duty that might lessen the difficulties and increase the chances of taking a few of these extraordinary fish.

It seems that the time when a salmon has been caught with a fly in the Sand river is completely beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant of the village; nor is the task less difficult to snare this crafty species in a net. On our arrival on the banks, or more properly rocks, of the river, the salmon were thrusting their heads, like the bubbles of a boiling pot, above the water; and leaping from one ledge of rock to a higher, they were striving to make their way, in battalions, up a foss, that was of no great height, but poured down its waters in a compact flood with the din of a larger cataract. Persuaded as we had been of the improbability that success would attend our sport, our spirits became more buoyant as our attendant, by his despairing tone, made our prosperity less likely.

All the most famous fishermen have visited this little river of Sand, and after adopting every mode, all of them have failed to take the fish.

Although the salmon float within sight and reach in the most transparent stream, they will not touch the fly, be it thrown even on their noses.

The only reason that can be given for this notorious fact is, that the salmon, when they leave the sea, are generally gorged, and do not desire, or seek for food until they have travelled some distance up the rivers; for it is equally well ascertained that the farther the first foss is removed from the mouth of a salmon river, the more voracious are the fish. Now, the foss, or fall of the Sand river, is scarcely five hundred feet from the sh.o.r.e of the Fiord, and the water is salt, or, at least, brackish; and salmon are not caught in salt water.

It was certainly most annoying to my two companions, to see thousands of the finest fish gamboling in the crystal water, not far from their feet, and to throw their flies with the acc.u.mulated nicety of four Waltons, absolutely in the teeth of these obstinate creatures, without the semblance of success. I, myself, took R----'s rod, which with weariness of hope he had laid on the ground, and seeing a splendid salmon two feet below the surface of the stream, moving his fins slowly to resist the current and remain stationary, I placed the fly above his head, allowing the bait to sink gradually till it touched the top of his snout. The fish did not, verily, alter the motion of its fins, either more slothfully or quicker; but with perfect indifference permitted me to keep the fly dangling before its eyes as long as I pleased.

To fish, therefore, at Sand was an absurdity; but having heard that the Fiord abounded with seals, and wild fowl of every denomination, we hoisted a square sail on the gig, and turned privateers.

The village of Sand is inclosed on three sides--north, east, and south--by mountains; but before it, to the west, spread the broad waters of the Fiord. The fragrant smell of uncultured flowers, the freshness of the morning air, the serene loveliness of the sky and calm water, on which the mountains with their peaks of snow were distinctly reflected, even to the diminutive waterfall, and the whole solemn, yet sweet character of the scenery, pressed upon me with an indefinite feeling of delight and awe; and, sometimes yielding to the eternal aspirations and impulsive pa.s.sions of the soul, my heart heaved with grat.i.tude, that I had opportunity, health, and youth to see and feel with ardour the infinity of G.o.d's good creation; and, then, I would relapse into the humility of man's condition, the recollection of his trivial existence; and the combination of excessive beauty filled my mind with sadness.

Arming ourselves with two guns and a rifle, we scoured the Fiord for many miles round. No sooner did we fire at one seal that rose on the gig's bow, than another would poke his rat-like head above the water, at the stern, and a third and fourth on either beam. The report of our guns was incessant; and the mult.i.tudes of crows, wild geese, ducks, eagles, and gulls that croaked, and screamed, and whirled about above our heads, to hear the echoes rattling among their silent fastnesses, were incalculable.

Our seal-hunts, however, were most entertaining, and the excitement relaxed not for an instant. The seal dives as soon as it is fired at, or alarmed; but cannot remain for a prolonged period under water, nature making it compulsory that the animal should ascend to the surface for respiration. Having selected a particular seal, that appeared nearly as large as a sheep, we were determined, by dint of perseverance, to hunt it down. We divided our force in such a manner, that, rise where the animal would, one of us must immediately see it; for R---- took the starboard side of the gig, P---- went to port, and I stood at the stern, while the two sailors, one being a crack shot, kept watch a-head. None of us spoke; for the seal is as quick of hearing as of sight, and timid to a proverb; but it was arranged, that, whoever saw it first was to fire. We kept the boat broadside on, that is to say, her bow and stern faced either sh.o.r.e, and her two sides swept, up and down, the entire length of the Fiord. Regardless of myriads of gulls that flew close round our heads, screaming angrily, we abated not in attention to the water; and watched with straining eyes for the score of bubbles that usually precede the rising of a seal; and the water being brilliant and smooth as a looking-gla.s.s, they could not escape notice.

Up came a sleek head not twenty yards from me, and down it went again, just in time before my rifle ball struck the eddying water; and at the same instant both barrels of R----'s gun, discharged one after another, made the drum of my ear ring.

"Two of them," he murmured. P---- and the sailor fired almost immediately; but the seals were too quick for them. As fast as we could load, these creatures kept rising around us; and they only seemed to dive in order to spread the tidings below amongst their friends, for they increased in numbers at each emersion. After firing a great quant.i.ty of shot and powder to little purpose, we were making up our minds to attack a rock covered with gulls, when a large seal rose within reach of our oars, but sunk again the moment it discovered our propinquity. In a few minutes afterwards, it bounced, head first, to the top of the water, five-and-twenty or thirty yards from the boat; and R---- and I having granted P---- the preference of first shot, he gave the seal's full face the fuller benefit of a double charge of duck-shot.

We never saw the seal again, although we loitered about the spot for an hour in the hope of finding its carca.s.s. The c.o.c.kswain persuaded us that the seal was dead to a certainty; but that P---- had stowed such a locker of shot in its head, it was too heavy to float.

The rock, moving like a huge living ma.s.s, being so thickly covered with gulls, now attracted our attention; but we did not purpose to destroy them for the mere sake of slaughter; for R---- had bought a couple of young eagles a few days before, and it was necessary to procure food for them.

"Let's pull to the rock," observed R----, "and see what we can do there."

"I a.s.sent," said P----; "but we had better pull round to leeward, and take them by surprise. What do you say, c.o.c.kswain?"

"Yes, your Honour," replied the man, "we shall never be able to near them as we pull now. Give the rock a wide berth, and get under the lee, as your honour says."

"Pull away, then," said R----, to the two sailors; "but don't make a row with your oars in the water."

The c.o.c.kswain kept his eye on the rock, and, every now and then, hinted to me the course I should steer; for I had taken the tiller.

"Port a little, your Honour," he said, in a voice hardly above a whisper. The gig obeyed her helm instantly. We gradually came near to the rock; and pa.s.sing abreast of it, we could see the gulls basking in the hot sun; some, standing on one leg, having the other drawn up under the wing, and looking apathetically at us, while others arranged the feathers of their tails, or b.r.e.a.s.t.s, with their bills, much after the same fas.h.i.+on as ducks do, when they have been swimming in ponds, or dabbling in puddles.

"Put your helm to starboard, your Honour," said the c.o.c.kswain to me in a quiet voice, "and bring her head right round."

I did as desired; and the men pulling noiselessly, the boat glided towards the rock, like a needle to a magnet. The gulls had all cl.u.s.tered to windward, and not one could be seen to leeward.

"I have no shot," I observed to R----, who sat just before me; "but only b.a.l.l.s."

"Never mind--they will do," R---- replied; "more credit to you if you kill any."

Letting the tiller ropes loose, I allowed the boat to choose its own course, and began to ram down my bullets. I tried two at a time. With a slight grating, the keel of the gig touched a sunken piece of land, and almost at the same time, its weigh was stopped entirely by the stem coming in gentle contact with the main rock.

Like so many cats, we now crawled, without a sound, from the boat; and P---- being the first to step on the rock, slipped back into the water.

The gurgling of the water as it ran over the tops of his jack-boots, and the floundering P---- made to recover himself, alarmed two gulls, and they flew, screaming, into the air. We crouched to the bare rock; and these two sentinels, not distinguis.h.i.+ng us from the colour of their roosting place, took a few gyrations, and then re-perched themselves on the rock. Aided by R---- and me, and the two sailors, P---- was got out of the water; but it was no easy matter to accomplish this, for his jack-boots had filled, to the brim, with water, and added considerably to his natural weight.

We now stood fairly on the rock, prepared to encounter any given, or ungiven quant.i.ty of birds or beasts.

"I say," observed R---- to me, in a low tone, "take a stone, or piece of moss, or mud, or anything, and shy it amongst them--just for a start."

The c.o.c.kswain, who was close behind me, had overheard R----, and being more active than I, picked up a small pebble; and by way of giving warning to R---- and P----, said, under his breath,

"Helm's a-lee, your Honour."

The clicking of their triggers answered the signal; and the missile stone was tossed over the highest part of the rock in the midst of the placid gulls. With the shrill screams of a thousand imps they darted into the air.

"Blaze away, your Honours," shouted the c.o.c.kswain, and mounting to the top of the rock, endeavoured with an oar, which he handled like a flail, to knock down every gull that came within reach. We all three fired at the same instant, and some dozen gulls made a summerset in the air, and with flapping wings and dangling legs, fell into the water. Those that were not killed outright, screeched piteously as they floated on the water. Their unscathed companions, with all the affection and courage of the brute creation, hovered over their fallen kinsfolk, and descending close to them, strove to bear them away with their beaks. Each time we fired, the shock appeared to drive the gulls at a distance from us, as a discharge of heavy artillery might cause a regiment of soldiers to swerve backwards; but, as soon as the powder cleared away, these pugnacious birds returned to the vicinity of the rock, screaming loudly; and some of them were audacious enough to pounce upon our caps, and wreak their vengeance by giving us one or two hearty pecks. The c.o.c.kswain, working like a telegraph with his swinging oar, generally contrived to pick off these skirmishers.

"Load, your Honours, load," exclaimed the sporting c.o.c.kswain;--"here they come again."

And a whole shoal of gulls, like a troop of Arab cavalry, came, flying with the speed of a whirlwind, to the attack. As soon as they were within gun-shot, R---- and P---- gave the van the contents of two tolerably good charges of large duck-shot, and I sent a couple of bullets, making the third brace, right into a small division of the approaching mult.i.tude. The surface of the water now appeared like a field of turnips that had forced their bulky white bodies above the earth, so thickly was it strewn with disabled and defunct gulls.

"Had those gulls not better be picked up?" said R----, while loading his gun, to the c.o.c.kswain.

"No, my Lord; let them be," replied the c.o.c.kswain with as much excitement in his face and manner, as if we had been bombarding a strong citadel. "As long as there's one on the water, the others will always come back; it's their love for one and t'other, my Lord."

A bevy of wild ducks now scoured the sky to windward, and quacking all together, whirled round about in the air, and describing each circle smaller and lower than the preceding one, approached the rock.

"Keep your weather eye up, your Honour," exclaimed the c.o.c.kswain from his commanding point to P----, who had not seen the advancing ducks; "keep your weather eye up. Here they come; here's provender, your Honour."

His remembrance, no doubt, returned to the eagles on board, and which, by the bye, had been committed to his care. But the ducks kept a pretty good elevation, being more timid, or wary than the gulls; and my rifle now came into play. I took a random shot at the entire group just as it was making a masterly evolution; and a drake, evidently the general commanding, having ceased his quacking, and tumbling in tee-totum style to the water, sufficiently proved how correctly I had, for the first time, done my duty. The uproar of furious gulls and routed ducks was never heard in these silent Fiords since the Flood to such a clamorous extent; and I would not venture to say that the echoes were not as surprisingly loud as the cries of the birds themselves. Urged on by the entreaties and gesticulations of the warlike c.o.c.kswain, the slaughter lasted for an hour; but seeing that we had killed an ample quant.i.ty to feed the eagles for some days, and remembering that powder and shot could not be bought among the mountains of Norway, we retreated from the rock, and getting into the boat, began to gather our game. This occupied some little time; and after collecting a decent boatful, we lighted our meerschaums, and floated homewards.

We might have proceeded nearly half way, when P---- suddenly dropped the pipe from his mouth, and seizing his gun, fired it towards the sh.o.r.e, from which we were not twenty feet, without uttering a word.

"Be quick--load!" he said, at last, to both of us, ramming down his own charge as fast as he could. "Here's a seal."

"Where?" I asked,--"where?"

"Why, there," and he fired without any other explanation a second time at the, apparently, bare rock.

"I see him, and here goes," said R----, and taking a deliberate aim, fired also. "Missed him," he murmured.

I just caught a glimpse of the seal's flat tail, as the animal slided from the rocky sh.o.r.e into the water.

"We have him," said P----, with brightened eyes, "if we act properly."

"There he is!" shouted one of the sailors, with a set of lungs that might be needful in a gale, as the seal rose about ten feet from the spot where it first sank.

"Don't make such a confounded row; you'd frighten the devil!" said R----, to the seafaring Stentor.

"Beg pardon, my Lord," replied the man, in a low voice, and touching his hat with a sheepish look.

"Keep the boat broadside on," observed R---- to the c.o.c.kswain.

R---- had scarcely spoken, when the water bubbled a little, and the seal's black snout, with dilating nostrils, rose close under the gig's gunwale. The water whirled in eddies, and his tail, as he turned, appearing slightly above the surface, showed me that the seal had seen us, and dived again.