ALFHEIM, 1913 205 



in the neighbourhood, but one must go further north to 

 find these beasts in any numbers. They must have been 

 quite common at one time, as the narrow paths between 

 the lakes and swamps are full of old pitfalls still in 

 excellent preservation dug to capture them. We 

 passed and examined several of these in the course 

 of a delightful walk we all took together one Sunday 

 after tea. Our destination was the lake at the foot 

 of Svart Snuta, the overhanging precipice which we 

 climbed on the occasion of my former visit. Our path 

 started over banks clothed with heather, birch, and 

 different kinds of berries, traversing ground which 

 to a golfer's eye presented great possibilities for the 

 construction of an inland links. At present it would 

 not be easy to get many members for a club, or even 

 to secure a partner for a match, but there is no saying 

 what may happen if the great industrial enterprise at 

 the opening of the valley materialises, and brings a 

 large population. We next passed along a whole 

 chain of lakes, great and small. I counted more than 

 six before we crossed the watershed and reached the 

 large sheet of water opposite to Svart Snuta, where 

 we reclined for a time on the heather and watched a 

 pair of loons fishing under the rocky cliff. 



I have alluded before to the great roots and 

 trunks of huge pines which remain, to prove that at 

 one time an immense forest of these trees must have 

 covered the whole valley ; but although the time I 

 spent at Alfheim gave me on this occasion an ample op- 

 portunity of examining them, I must leave it to wiser 

 heads than mine to account for its total disappearance. 

 I could distinguish many long trunks of trees through 

 the clear water in the shallows at the margin of the 



