220 HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 



a very narrow escape for his life when a baby of 

 eighteen months old. He and his cousin Inga had 

 been left in a girl's charge in a light hand-cart just 

 above the rocky slope overlooking Hammeren, and she 

 began playing with the cart, which overpowered her 

 and rolled away down the slope, eventually pitching 

 right over a precipice. The girl Inga jumped or fell 

 out before the most dangerous point had been reached, 

 but the baby was carried down with the cart, and by 

 great good fortune lodged on the right side of a large 

 rock, while the empty cart went right over the brow, 

 and was brought up actually in the river half a mile 

 farther down. The unhappy mother witnessed the 

 awful peril from above, but the child mercifully escaped 

 with only slight injuries. 



In about half an hour we reached the boat-house 

 at this end of Stor Vand, a most lovely lake some one 

 and a half miles long, fenced on one side by a great 

 barrier of almost perpendicular granite rock seamed 

 with waterfalls, and on the other by an easier slope 

 of birch-clad hill. We trailed a minnow behind the 

 boat as we rowed along, but the fish were not in a 

 taking humour, and only one bright-spotted trout of 

 about a pound took the lure, and he managed to escape 

 just as he was being brought to the boat side. The 

 level of the lake was so unusually low that we had 

 some difficulty in launching our boat, and getting 

 it out into open water through a narrow channel 

 between great submerged boulders. A squirrel 

 gambolled along the path at the bottom, jumping over 

 the stones and low birch trees, but I saw little or no 

 bird life. At about one o'clock we reached the end 

 of Stor Vand, and landed in a lovely wooded glade 



