ALFHEIM, 1913 207 



heather for good luck. The ladies also gathered some of 

 the brilliant leaves of the wild geranium for table de- 

 coration. Although the autumn tints were not yet at 

 their finest, the hillsides were already a blaze of colour. 

 The lakes along which we passed in our walk 

 looked very tempting, and I made up my mind to 

 spend most of my remaining time in exploring them. 

 I started the next day for the farthest, the one below 

 Svart Snuta, taking my lunch with me. It was not. 

 a first-rate fishing day, there was too much mist 

 hanging in the clefts of the hills, and the trout in 

 the big lake refused to rise. After lunch I tried a 

 small loch quite close to the first, and found it full 

 of trout, which rose to every cast. I got a dozen 

 in less than an hour, all about the same size, some- 

 thing just under half a pound, and then moved on to 

 try the next loch in the hope of finding something 

 bigger. I had excellent sport in this loch, which was 

 bounded on the west by a wall of rock some ten feet 

 high, which went down sheer into deep water, from 

 which feature we christened it "cliff lake." Here 

 the fish I caught averaged about a pound, and I got 

 ten of them in a short time. They were splendid 

 fighters, and when I laboriously clambered down the 

 only place where the edge of the water was accessible, 

 and tried to get them into the net, they nearly always 

 made a second dash for liberty. They were as good 

 for the table as they were sporting, and their flesh 

 cut as red as that of a salmon. Although I sampled 

 all the lakes I could reach, I made that one my 

 favourite haunt, and always hoped to beguile some 

 monster from its depths, as I felt sure that it held far 

 bigger fish than any I caught. 



