TROUT IN NOR IV A V. 15 



of three-quarters of a pound, not a large one certainly, but 

 his capture was vastly interesting. I gave the lad a 

 dozen fish as he came back, and carried home thirty-two. 

 During the evening I got two together, twice over. 



Vinje we found to be a wretched place, beautiful as is 

 its situation. The station is a dirty little hovel with two 

 rooms only, the upper one reached by a ladder from the 

 bare ground, which is the kitchen floor. There was 

 nothing in the house to eat, and no milk to drink, so we 

 had to go to bed supperless. The beds were merely 

 boxes of straw covered by a blanket and a sheet, but 

 I never slept a sweeter sleep than there. As soon as we 

 awoke we began to think of breakfast, and I went down 

 our ladder to see what was stirring. The fire was burning 

 on a sort of stithy, like a blacksmith's but somewhat 

 lower ; there were no bars, and a big iron pot was sus- 

 pended from the chimney, containing a teapot — this is 

 the way they brew their tea. Another pan was on the fire 

 with milk in it (we had sent a lad up to the mountains to 

 buy us some), and the old woman and her daughter 

 were devouring one of our fish which had been fried in a 

 third pan. They were busily at work, both eating off the 

 same plate and without the aid of spoon, fork, or knife. 

 We are told that fingers were made before forks, and 

 these two were evidently in a pre-fork age, diving their 

 fingers into the dish as occasion required. When I stepped 

 off the ladder the woman left her feeding and taking hold 

 of the frying pan, in which the fish were spluttering, 

 turned them over with a wooden spoon. Then, finding 

 the .spoon rather dirty, she licked it clean and imme- 



