2$ FORESTRY or NORWAY. 



termination of these laminse form ledges, which, though 

 very narrow, are perfectly firm and safe, affording a reli- 

 able foothold without the slightest tendency to slippiness ; 

 besides these there is an abundance of similar ledges, 

 affording firm fingerhold, which, though but an inch wide, 

 give a most comfortable assurance of safety to the climber, 

 who, bending the hands claw fashion, clung to them with 

 the finger ends. I would rather, under such circumstances, 

 have a firm two inch foot ledge, and one inch of such 

 finger hold, than an eighteen inch pathway with nothing 

 for the hands. At about half-way I stopped to contem- 

 plate the scene, which is magnificent, and its grandeur is 

 heightened by the peculiar position from which it is seen. 

 ' Imagine yourself " holding on by your eyelids," as the 

 sailors have it, in the manner just described, to the face of 

 a precipice which rises overhead some five hundred or six 

 hundred feet, the upper part being, in fact, quite out of 

 sight ; then, with great care, and some fear and trembling, 

 you turn yourself round, gradually placing your heels on 

 the former position of your toes, removing your hands, one 

 at a time, from your clutching place, and finding a lower 

 ledge upon which to rest the wrist-end or heel of the 

 hand. Having anchored yourself thus, and keeping your 

 back quite flat against the rock (as any leaning forward 

 would be fatal), you look in the direction of the upper 

 part of the valley, and see lar below, and far away, a dark 

 chasm, partly hidden by branches of trees ; through this 

 the river flows, and as it comes nearer reaches a wider 

 opening of the gorge, advancing towards the edge of a 

 precipice, over which it rolls to a gully of its own cutting, 

 and then pitches down an unknown depth, for a white 

 cloud hides the bottom of the dark abyss, and rises high 

 into the sunshine. This is the perpetual spray the 

 reeking, or " rinken," from which the name of the fall is 

 derived. You may, however, estimate the depth of the 

 fall, for, looking down the grey wall to which you are 

 clinging, you see that its gully terminates in dark, quiet 

 water. This is the same water that a few minutes ago 



