CHAPTER XIV 

 ; ,? CASUAL VISITS TO NORWAY 



IT must be confessed that there is something really 

 casual in the use of such a word to head these sketches 

 of my angling visits to Norway, and the excuse is that 

 it is appropriate as a keynote. The punishment in a 

 word fits the crime. Those visits, between 1889 and 

 1905 were only occasional, a makeshift. The proper 

 way to fish Norway is to spend the fishing season there, 

 living amongst the people and the rivers. The casual 

 visitor would always envy him who lived in the Nor- 

 wegian cottage fragrant with its deal boards into 

 which he loved to stick his flies when they had to be 

 dried, or retouched with varnish or whipping, and 

 where somewhere outside he could keep his rods in 

 security and order when they were put together say 

 in June, and kept ready till they were packed up for 

 the voyage home when the season was over. 



The fascination of Norway grew to be very strong 

 amongst anglers and tourists by the sixties of the last 

 century, and continued to grow until all the conditions 

 were violently upset by the catastrophe of the reign 

 of the devil engineered by Germany. The fascination 

 will not be forgotten with the return of peace. It will 

 lay hold of us again, and for the same reasons as before. 

 The ordinary traveller will as before find in the scenery 

 and ways of the people the old fascination of contrast. 



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