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Farther out lay the three-masted schooner
Havfruen
. They
had had a good wind from Copenhagen. The first day they
beat to windward, but after they were free of Skagerrak, the
wind blew from the south and southeast. For seven days
they traveled with full sails, and at midnight they dropped
anchor at Tórshavn’s harbor.
Finally, the trunks were unloaded and the passenger turned
to Tóvó. At that, the amusement left the boy’s eyes; the
passenger saw that this laughter prone person was a six year
old who had come out to Vippan to watch. The passenger’s
gaze was friendly, albeit searching. He took an orange from
his coat pocket and handed the boy the odd reddish-yellow
object. Tóvó didn’t know Danish, but he understood
enough to know that an
orange
was something you could
eat.
Manicus and Panum
It had been only two weeks since the newspapers in the
Danish capital had published an account of the measles
epidemic ravaging the Faroe Islands. The article first
appeared in
Fædrelandet
on June 17, 1846, and even though
it was uncredited, one could guess that Dr. Napoleon was
the author; or that, inspired by Dr. Napoleon, it had been
written by Niels C. Winther, or Doffa, as his friends called
him.
Berlingske Tidende
reprinted the article and the news
was deemed so alarming that the Rentekammer