142 SUNDAL 



principle, and allow no tree to grow to full maturity. 

 They know their own business, perhaps, and it may serve 

 their immediate purpose well enough, for the deal of 

 Scandinavian pine certainly ripens early, and may be 

 used profitably thirty years or so before British Scots 

 fir becomes fit for anything but pulp. 



The forests of Sundal clothe ranges of foot-hills, which 

 form a terrace on either flank of the valley, protecting 

 the arable ground and dwellings from dangerous snow 

 avalanches and rock-falls. Only at three or four places 

 does the highroad run along the base of the mountain 

 itself, where sign-posts are erected, with the friendly 

 warning: ' Sne skred! Kjer til!' ('Snow slip! Hurry 

 up ! '). All very well, but nothing is more difficult than to 

 persuade one of these delightful Norse ponies that you 

 are in a hurry. No native is ever pressed for time, except 

 in the hay harvest. In summer, one day melts into 

 another with a scarcely perceptible interval of gloaming ; 

 and in winter there really is nothing to do to-day which 

 cannot be done as well to-morrow or the day after. The 

 doctor, where there is one, is the only individual who 

 occasionally wants, or is wanted, to hasten his pace, so all 

 parties are agreed that a toddle at the rate of five or six 

 English miles an hour is good average speed for a stolk- 

 jc&rre. One does not grumble, so touching is the mutual 

 affection between these pretty, plump, toast-coloured nags 

 and their owners, so gentle the admonition to the traveller, 

 often painted up at the skyds-station : ' Veer god mod 

 hesten ! ' (' Be kind to the horse ! '). 



One of these dangerous places in the road lies just 

 opposite the Stor Foss, a roaring rapid, which sweeps 

 down close to the highway to Opdal and the Dovrefjeld. 



