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Morally, as well as physically, there is safety in light and danger in darkness; and yet give me the darkness and the danger! Let the patrolling sun go off his beat for awhile, and show a little confidence in my ability to behave properly, rather than worry me with his sleepless vigilance. I have described the smells of Hammerfest, which are its principal characteristic.
The desolate hills of Qvalö surmounted by the pointed peak of the Tjuve Fjeld, or "Thief Mountain," so called because it steals so much of the winter sunshine, announced our approach to Hammerfest, and towards nine o'clock in the evening we were at anchor in the little harbour.
Adams could not get over his astonishment, though he had preached the Norse doctrine all his life against the stupid and beer-swilling Saxon boors whom Freeman loved, and who, to the despair of science, produced Shakespeare. Mere contact with Norway started voyages of thought, and, under their illusions, he took the mail steamer to the north, and on September 14, reached Hammerfest.
I would go with the steamer along the coast to Hammerfest, buy a little vehicle and a good horse there, and then travel pleasantly, and without annoyance, through the whole country. But for a family who wished to travel in a comfortable covered carriage, it would be incalculably dear, and in many parts impossible, on account of the bad roads.
Upon his return to the port of Hammerfest, Captain Carlsen met with a Dutchman, Mr. Lister Kay, who purchased the Barentz relics, and forwarded them to the authorities of the Netherlands.
We next came to Hammerfest, in 70° 40' north latitude, the most northern town in the world. In its commodious port were English, French, Russian, German, Swedish, and Norwegian vessels. Hundreds of fishing boats were there also, waiting for favorable winds to continue their voyage. Steamers were going and coming from the south. The population was about three thousand souls.
A Hammerfest merchant, who has made frequent voyages to Spitzbergen, told me that in the latitude of 80° he never knew certainly whether it was day or night, and the cook was the only person on board who could tell him. At first the nocturnal sunshine strikes you as being wonderfully convenient.
At best, a week in these dim Northern seas, without means of speech, within the Arctic circle, at the equinox, lent itself to gravity if not to gloom; but only a week before, breakfasting in the restaurant at Stockholm, his eye had caught, across, the neighboring table, a headline in a Swedish newspaper, announcing an attempt on the life of President McKinley, and from Stockholm to Trondhjem, and so up the coast to Hammerfest, day after day the news came, telling of the President's condition, and the doings and sayings of Hay and Roosevelt, until at last a little journal was cried on reaching some dim haven, announcing the President's death a few hours before.
After passing the most northern point of Europe, the coast falls away to the south-east, so that on the second night we were again in the latitude of Hammerfest, but still within the sphere of perpetual sunshine.
"I think you must be wrong, Britta. It is impossible that there should be people who are always idle. I do not know what great ladies are like." "I do!" And Britta nodded her curly head sagaciously. "There was a girl from Hammerfest who went to Christiania to seek service she was handy at her needle, and a fine spinner, and a great lady took her right away from Norway to London.
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