CONTRARIES OF WEATHER AND SPORT 197 



the rolling of thunder in the hills day after day, and the 

 surcharged atmosphere have had an undoubted influ- 

 ence in sulkifying the fish, and there is a worse thing 

 than that. 



This worse thing is the modest pine log of commerce. 

 Driving, last Sunday, from Christiansand over the hills 

 and down into the Mandal Valley, a distance of twenty- 

 eight miles through most beautifully typical South 

 Norway scenery, in which, with the towering moun- 

 tains of rock timbered with dark sentinels to the very 

 skyline, alternate verdant, peaceful, prosperous, valleys 

 glowing with wild flowers, in which the bonny hare- 

 bell is more assertive by the waysides, I was much 

 interested in the cut timber strewing the half-dried 

 river bed whose course we followed. The logs are of 

 no great size, mere sticks of pine, averaging a foot 

 diameter and in lengths varying between twelve and 

 forty feet. It was obvious that these spars, like the 

 anglers, were waiting for a spate. How nice it would 

 be for the hardy, honest natives engaged in this all- 

 important lumber industry if these prepared sticks, 

 each well ear-marked for recognition leagues perchance 

 down-stream, were swept offhand to market. 



My sentiments changed somewhat yesterday and the 

 two previous days. I may explain that there was a 

 violent thunderstorm on Monday night, and the Mandal 

 river, a noble type of the rocky Norwegian salmon 

 stream, rose, perhaps, a couple of feet in the wider 

 portions, and considerably more where the bed con- 

 tracted. Even such an addition to the volume of 

 water gave these logs a friendly lift, and brought them 

 tumbling and grinding along in hundreds without the 

 aid of man ; but on Thursday they appeared in endless 

 battalions, for by this time the timbermen had been 

 ordered out in force to give a friendly shove to the 



