THE UPPER RIVER 75 



some places deep, not less, I should say, than 

 six feet. In spite of Lars' endeavours to hold 

 him back, Captain K. took to the river and 

 followed the fish. Lars, it is reported, knelt 

 down and said his^ prayers, thinking the angler 

 must he drowned. How he managed it I 

 cannot tell; swimming through deep holes in 

 a tearing rapid, burdened with a salmon rod 

 and with a big fish ahead, sounds an impossible 

 undertaking; but he got safely down, and in 

 the end killed the fish, which weighed 26 lb., 

 just above the bridge in Os Pool, nearly two 

 miles below. Truly, a valiant man. 



Looking upwards from this stream, we see, 

 half a mile above, the white foam of a Ml, 

 known to Norwegians as Rekavik, to us as 

 Second Fos. Below it is a big circular basin, 

 different parts of which are fishable according 

 to the state of the river. But where the river 

 emerges from this basin, as it were in the neck 

 of the bottle, close to some trees on the left 

 bank, is the surest cast. I think we kill more 

 fish here than in any other pool of the upper 

 water. It is to this point that many fish 

 run as soon as they have ascended the ladder 

 at Osen. Doubtless their upward course is 



