Besides This They Had
Milk, Butter, And Cheese Given Them, And Whey For Drink.
Sometimes they met
with better inns, where they could procure meat and beer.
They met with a
kind and hearty welcome, and most hospitable reception wherever they went.
There are but few dwellings in Norway, and they often arrived at the places
where they were to stop in the night, or time of repose, though broad
daylight. On these occasions, their guide, knowing the customs of the
country, opened the door of the house without ceremony, in which they found
a table surrounded by benches covered with leathern cushions, stuffed with
feathers, which served them for mattresses. As nothing was locked up, they
took such victuals as they could find, and then went to rest. Sometimes the
masters of the houses in which they stopt would come in and find them
asleep, and be much amazed till the guide acquainted them with their story,
on which their astonishment became mingled with compassion, and they would
give the travellers every thing necessary without taking any remuneration;
by which means these twelve persons, with the three horses, did not spend
more than the four guilders they had received at Drontheim, during their
journey of fifty-three days.
On the road they met with horrid barren mountains and vallies, and with a
great number of animals like roes[1], besides abundance of fowls, such as
hasel-hens, and heath-cocks, which were as white as snow, and pheasants the
size of a goose[2]. In St Olave's church at Drontheim, they saw the skin of
a white bear, which was fourteen feet and a half long; and they observed
other birds, such as gerfalcons, goss-hawks[3], and several other kinds of
hawks, to be much whiter than in other places, on account of the coldness
of the country.
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