JUNE 143 



At the top of this foss is one of the grandest salmon-pools 

 you ever beheld, even in your dreams. A fine stream 

 rushes in at the top, with the effervescence of ten million 

 soda-water bottles per minute. It spreads into a tossing 

 expanse of green water, in the depths whereof loom 

 mighty boulders, fallen from the face of Hoaasnibba 

 above; then the river collects itself, glassy and smooth, 

 ere it bursts into the fresh fury of the foss. Many a good 

 fish has regained freedom in that resistless ' tail,' for no 

 boat can follow down that gorge, and live. A superb 

 salmon-pool, in truth, and one, you will say, that deserves 

 a title of some dignity. It might be known as the Bear 

 Pool, for sometimes of a morning you may find the foot- 

 prints of Bruin in the sand, where he has slaked his thirst 

 during the night ; or the Sne-skred Pool, for it lies in the 

 path of frequent avalanches ; but, in fact, it is known by 

 a curiously trivial name. Fifty years ago and more a 

 certain English lord (who still lives to contribute to the 

 happiness of his friends) used to come to Sundal each 

 summer for salmon-fishing. 1 One day he dropped his 

 pipe among the rocks beside this pool, as anybody might 

 easily do. A few days later he found it again, which was 

 not such a matter of course. The incident impressed 

 itself upon the minds of those inhabiting a valley where 

 incidents are rare, wherefore men call the place Piba Pool 

 to this day, after the English lord's pipe. 



Two or three miles further down the river is signal 

 memorial of the puissance of an avalanche. It is not the 

 falling material itself that the dwellers in this dale have 

 learnt to dread; that, of course, must obliterate every 

 creature and structure in its path ; but the foot-hills, as 



1 The present Earl of Leicester, born in 1822. 



