FOREST SCENES. 21 



* A turn in the road brought us in view of a scene of 

 desolation on a magnificent scale. Fire had done its work 

 of devastation, and, running up the tangled banks of a 

 wild ravine, had penetrated far into the vast recesses of 

 the forest. The jagged and charred stems of the pines, 

 snapped asunder at various heights the blackened and 

 calcined rocks trie screen of shrivelled spray that hung 

 withered from the half-burnt trees at the line where the 

 conflagration had stayed its devouring course, formed a 

 spectacle among the most striking that can be conceived. 

 The scene of wreck enabled us to form some faint idea of 

 what it must have been when the conflagration was at the 

 height of its fury, passing in its conquering strength from 

 tree to tree, spreading through the tangled branches, 

 climbing in wreaths of flame the tall stems, till it over- 

 topped the highest summits amidst volumes of smoke 

 and jets of sparks, and the crackling and roaring of the 

 destroying element, and the crash of falling trees, as one 

 after another came to the ground.' 



With one other sketch of forest scenery I close. It is one 

 from the vicinity of Hurungerne, and is of Skagastols-Tind, 

 the highest mountain in Norway, reaching a height of 7670 

 English feet, situated in the Koldedal, or Cold Valley : 

 * It was a snowy walk of ten or twelve miles to Koldedal, 

 into which we slid from the fjeld at a frightful velocity 

 down a snow-drift. Some fine tinds [corresponding to the 

 aiguilles of Swiss scenery pointed rocks projecting to a 

 great height] rise over Koldedal. The view from the foot 

 of the first descent was inconceivably grand. The clouds 

 occasionally concealed the whole horizon, and then, break- 

 ing, revealed the jagged peaks of Hurungerne rising above 

 them in wild, fantastic confusion, and Skagastols-Tind. 

 Beneath, a bell-shaped snowy valley penetrated into the 

 mountains, and was closed by a vast glacier. Almost all 

 the points were black and bare, rising like aiguilles from 

 the masses of snow which overspread the lower ranges of 

 the fjelds; the summits themselves, though they are from 



