158 HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 



for the river to clear and fall before the next " lawful " 

 fishing day. This time at least the Scotch gillie's 

 complaint that the best fishing days were "aye sookit 

 up by the Sabbath " could not reasonably be urged. 



Next morning the magnificent river was indeed a 

 sight to gaze upon with admiration and wonder. A 

 swollen torrent dashed against the stone piers of the 

 cast-iron girder bridge with a violence that made us 

 thankful that they were substantial and solid. The 

 stream widened over every backwater and shingle 

 bed, and the top of a solitary bush indicated the spot 

 where under normal conditions a considerable island 

 stands high above a rapid. The water swept over 

 bushes, and half-way up the stems of alders ; and the 

 fishing platform between the two rocks at Stran pool, 

 usually many feet above the surface, was completely 

 submerged. 



Above more than a mile of the whole river was a 

 foaming mass of white water, while at the bend a little 

 higher up it had completely submerged one rapid, and 

 formed a great lake opposite to Fladvad farm. Down 

 the sides of the mountains, whose tops were white 

 with fresh-fallen snow, hundreds I might almost say 

 thousands of miniature cataracts dashed down scarred 

 channels, while the seven or eight permanent cascades 

 fed by glaciers or snowfields, were swollen into large 

 and conspicuous waterfalls. Of course I immediately 

 set to work to put marks by which to ascertain the rise 

 and fall of the water ; but although there was little 

 rainfall after the morning, the river continued to wax 

 until past two o'clock when only a few inches of the 

 bough, nearly four feet long, which I had stuck into 

 the grass at high-water mark after breakfast, were 



