126 HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 



of a month's play. We fished early and late, and 

 did a little climbing and a good deal of walking on 

 the surrounding mountains. Personally I was never 

 any good at mountaineering ; I always had a bad head 

 for precipices, and can hardly bear to look down a 

 sheer height even when standing on perfectly safe 

 ground. I remember and confess that on one of these 

 expeditions I left my companion and his guide to finish 

 their scramble above the snow-line without me, and 

 waited their return idly sitting on the slope, and 

 contentedly watching with a glass two diminutive 

 figures fishing the beloved stream below. 



All good things must come to an end, so after a 

 sojourn at Aak which passed with lightning rapidity, 

 we had to turn our faces South and traverse once 

 more, in the reverse direction, the valleys of the 

 Romsdal and Gulbrandsda-1. We dawdled along the 

 rivers, reluctant to leave them, and had more success 

 with the trout rod than upon our way out. I re- 

 member that we caught a good many nice brown 

 trout soon after we had got beyond that fall of the 

 Rauma to which I have alluded, beyond which no 

 salmon or sea-trout could pass, and that we had fair 

 sport at other stages of the journey. We sold our 

 carrioles at Christiania, the difference of price amount- 

 ing to merely a few dollars, which represented the hire 

 of the vehicles. The whole trip was extraordinarily 

 cheap, posting and the cost of lodging and food being 

 even more moderate than it is now. We spent a 

 night at Christiania, and visited the theatre, where I 

 remember that I was fortunate enough to find the com- 

 pany acting in their own language a familiar English 

 farce, " Little Toddlekins," and was therefore able to 



