JULY m 



full of surging bubbles like the ebullitions of millions of soda- 

 water bottles from the bottom, clear, swift, and transparent 

 at the tail.' 



Here Mr. Davenport was writing of the great pool below 

 Aarnlioe foss, but only one epithet was amiss if applied 

 to the pool of Tofte before me 'black.' There was 

 nothing approaching blackness: all was colour, delicate 

 or intense. The deepest hues came from submerged 

 rocks in mid-channel, which showed a soft purple through 

 the superb sea-green depths. Clear, swift, and cold, the 

 mighty river swept round the base of the towering Roms- 

 dalhorn so clear, that in the comparatively smooth water 

 near the sides you might see every boulder, nay, every 

 pebble and sand-rib, on the bottom, fifteen feet below 

 so swift, that it seemed scarcely fit resting-ground for 

 any living creature so cold, that, even on this sultry 

 June evening, one could not envy the animal whose nose 

 should be exposed to such a torrent flowing directly out 

 of glaciers and off snow-fields. Yes, it was indeed a 

 melting evening in this high- walled gorge, whither, at 

 midsummer, night cometh not at all and into which the 

 sun pours for eight hours with radiance and heat intensi- 

 fied many-fold by radiation from leagues of bare cliff. 

 It was only the approach of the Sabbath which justified 

 putting a fly over the stream so early on such a broiling 

 afternoon; for although the envious Troldtinder had 

 shut the orb of day from sight at four o'clock, his radiance 

 was still reflected with intense power from the upper half 

 of the Horn, and angling is usually suspended till such 

 time as 40,000 cabs and 10,000 carriages are bearing their 

 freight to the myriad dinner- tables of London, and the 

 Government Whips are exhausting all the arts of blan- 



