weather
stained, on the pine-clad mountain sides, they claim your admiration;
as a foothold for casting your fly or battling with a fish they are apt
to be a severe trial to the muscles, and in any shape or degree they
are an ever-present source of danger to rod or tackle. Had the water
during our stay in the country attained full proportions I must have
put up my best salmon rod. But I had too much respect for my favourite
steel centre split cane to leave any of its dainty varnish upon the
South Norway granite. The smaller greenheart, therefore, for the third
time gallantly survived its month on a Norway river; but those rocks
have literally chipped the shine from every joint, leaving, I believe
and hope, its constitution, nevertheless, quite sound.

The higher reaches of our beat, as I have intimated, were a succession
of gorges or rapids; but whether precipitate wall, which rendered it
out of the question to fish the water, or comparatively open
boulder-land, you must always look down into it from the excellently
kept road which mostly followed the course of the stream. There were
no footpaths or tracks down to the water, but an adventurous person
might let himself down from crag to crag, and have his rod lowered to
him from above. This part of the Mandal I tried twice, but "Sarcelle,"
who had been accustomed to some such exercise in the mountains of
Italy, tried it later with much perseverance, when the white foaming
water of the rapids had become moderate pools of dark water.

We were often told that they always held salmon, and when the river is
in ordinary volume probably they do so. Very exciting it is to hook a
fish in one of these cauldrons, for the salmon must be held by main
force, and prevented from rushing into the rapid below. With the
strongest tackle, and a firm hold for the hook, it is amazing what a
strain you can put upon rod and fish when the playing must be confined
within a space of 100 yards by 50 yards. As a matter of fact, we did
badly in these rapids; the beat above had the advantage of a number of
long resting pools, and the fish apparently ran past us with scarcely a
halt. They seemed to know that the river was dropping; instinct told
them what the inhabitants were told by memory and eyesight, namely,
that so low a river had been seen but once before in this generation;
and they said, "Let us hasten until the rapids be passed; in beat No.
9, lo, we may rest from our labours, and, f