86 A RIVER OF NORWAY 



faithful Anders is to row us up the still water 

 to the great pool below Alvaer Fos. The 

 rest of the party are taking a holiday, and 

 will meet us by the Fos, and we shall picnic 

 in the woods. As we row up, we trail our 

 flies behind, she a cast of trout flies, I a Jock 

 Scot. The river trout take them with a reck- 

 less indiscrimination, but to-day they are not 

 rising very well. So we have leisure to admire 

 the scene ; unlike the angler I have somewhere 

 read of, who, being asked what he thought of 

 the view, indignantly replied that he had 

 come to Norway to fish, not to look at 

 scenery. And very lovely it is. On one 

 side the wooded hills come to the water's 

 edge, with here and there a grassy glade. 

 On the other, we look across the vale to the 

 hills which separate us from the Sogne Fjord, 

 still bearing great drifts of last winter's snows. 

 Behind us are the steep and rugged rocks of 

 Furenaes apparently barring the end of the 

 valley, and, towering above all, the great mass 

 of the Stor Hest. No salmon disturbs our 

 contemplation of these beauties, and at length 

 we come in sight of the great foaming rapid 

 of Alvaer Fos. 



