126 A RIVER OF NORWAY 



If I have spoken disrespectfully of the trout 

 as "vermin," it is from no lack of apprecia- 

 tion of their merits in their proper place, 

 and under suitable conditions. These lanky 

 hungry pirates of the western salmon rivers 

 are no credit to their kind. It is not only 

 among the forests of the Eastern frontier that 

 fine well-fed specimens are to be found. In 

 the lakes of the great central mountain mass, 

 the Jotunfjeld, a splendid race of trout, silvery, 

 pink-fleshed, more like salmon than trout, 

 are to be killed, or were, twenty years ago. 

 Some of these lakes are at as great an altitude 

 as 4000 feet above the sea, and are girt by glit- 

 tering snow peaks. The scene of the adven- 

 tures of the " Three in Norway " is laid among 

 these surroundings, and on these waters. My 

 visits to that glorious region were made at 

 about the same period as theirs ; now, from 

 what I can learn, trout have diminished as 

 travellers have increased. Again in the wilds 

 of Thelemarken, and on the borders of that 

 great waste, the Hardanger Vidde, I have 

 killed in lake and river a sufficiency of fine 

 yellow trout, free risers, game to the death, 

 fit for a king's table. Probably good sport 



