CASUAL VISITS TO NORWAY 163 



The right-minded salmon fisher will always give first 

 place to casting from the bank, with or without waders. 

 On some rivers such casting is from rocks or boulders, 

 and the work here is of the hardest, since it means 

 severe scrambling and slipping to pass from pool to 

 pool. It is, besides, a hazardous foothold that you get 

 now and then. The remembrance of half an hour in 

 such a position has given me the shivers many a time 

 since. There tumbled over stupendous rocks up- 

 heaving masses of pure white foam, true type of the 

 great foss of the Norwegian river in all its thunder and 

 impetuous onrush. They poured into a rock-hollowed 

 basin of churning foam and smoking spray. It was a 

 turbulent oval pool, roaring and racing on either 

 side, and narrowing somewhat at the tail, where it 

 leaped a barrier of boulders and became a succession of 

 rapids. The middle of this pool was, however, com- 

 paratively tranquil, very deep, and more like an eddy 

 than a stream. This was the lie of the salmon, and 

 there was said to be always one there. To fish this 

 maelstrom you waded across a platform of shallow 

 paved with slippery boulders bushel basket size, and 

 stood in rough water about a foot deep on a narrow 

 ledge of rock protruding a yard or so into the pool. 

 It was deep enough beneath to drown an elephant ; 

 the din of that roaring foss and the swirl of the waters 

 bordered on vertigo and deafness. But there it was 

 to take or leave. 



Taken with good heart, after a thorough testing of 

 tackle (the motto being " Hold on for dear life "), the 

 big Butcher faile'd to attract, and I floundered ashore 

 and sat on a rock before trying again with a Wilkinson. 

 That trial succeeded, for the line was rushed out and 

 across some twenty yards. The butt of the rod was 

 then sternly presented, and thereafter no line of more 



