CASTING FROM ROCKS AND BOATS 175 



higher portions of the river, but in our section we had 

 them in unquestioned abundance. Sometimes they 

 acted as frowning walls for the stream, running deep 

 and dark through narrow gorges ; elsewhere they took 

 the form of great round-headed boulders, varying in 

 size from a coalscuttle to a dwelling-house. At other 

 times they were strewn about miscellaneously, varying 

 in size, angular, and abounding in traps for the unwary ; 

 at a distance they might look innocent as shingle, but 

 the going when you once began to tread amongst them 

 was most fatiguing, and even dangerous. 



Rocks are very well in their place, and as Norway 

 is mostly rock they give a distinctive character to the 

 country. Peeping out, 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 pre- 

 cipitate 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 



