880 FACTS AND INFERENCES, GRAVE AND GAY. 



WATERFALLS. 



Another charming characteristic of Norway is the 

 sparkling abundance of running waters, — its noble rivers 

 and impressive falls forming, perhaps, the finest of its 

 features. Our chief objection to waterfalls in our own 

 country is, that during the summer season of research in 

 that department they generally contain no water. The 

 traveller may be inundated for many a moist and misty 

 week among the mountains, but when he comes to some 

 great rocky chasm famed for its cataract, he seldom sees 

 anything but giay and ghastly crags, silent as death, or 

 shedding a few sad tears in memory of more jovial (Jupiter 

 pluvialis) days and nights gone by. 



"The sounding cataract haunted him like a passion," 

 is the great Laker's account of one who may have carried 

 cascade-hunting to excess, and was morbidly affected 

 thereby. If made the exclusive object of a journey, it 

 seldom fails to produce disappointment, and the mind, 

 keeping itself as it were shut up from other and far finer 

 things which are beautiful upon the mountains and clothe 

 the earth as with a garment, allows itself to be cheated by 

 the indulgent expectancy of that deafening wonder. The 

 cataract is also a very cold place for a pic-nic for any but 

 a party of the most determined teetotallers, and even 

 they frequently feel it too much for them, and sometimes 



