THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN REVIEW 
287 
The Statue of Holberg Looking Out Over the Harbor 
in His Native City 
capable and energetic and quite as domineering as any man. There was 
life and bustle everywhere, and no one was above lending a hand wher¬ 
ever it was needed. In especially busy seasons one might see wealthy 
and prominent citizens rolling barrels on the docks and hoisting bales 
into the warehouses. They were not particularly polite to strangers, 
but this was not from haughtiness. It was simply because they were too 
busy to observe the polite forms that were otherwise in use. Time is 
money, was their watchword. Work went on with vim and zest, often 
spiced with a merry jest and with a stream of witticisms that might be 
stinging enough to the poor victim. 
Hand in hand with trade went shipping. It was then as now 
the chief factor in the prosperity of the city, and seafaring men were 
held in high esteem. A merchant’s son would often be sent to the school 
of navigation and then to sea for a few years until he had attained his 
twentieth year, when he would come home to enter his father’s business. 
The merchant marine of Bergen in the years 1692 to 1698 consisted of 
146 ships—quite a large number for those days—and the ships sailed 
strange seas and brought home a breath from the great outside world, 
which could not but color the life of the city. 
It was inevitable that a community of this kind should become pre- 
