FOUNTAIN PLATEAUX AND MOUNTAIN RAVINES. 3o 



fully added our amen to the previous declarations. . . . 



' We bade farewell to the good old man, and rode down 

 the valley of the Maan, through the morning shadow of 

 the Gousta. Our boat was in readiness ; and its couch of 

 fir boughs in the stern became a pleasant divan of indol- 

 ence after our hard horses and rough roads. We reached 

 Tinoset by one o'clock, but were obliged to wait until four 

 for horses. The only refreshment we got was oaten bread 

 and weak spruce beer. Off at last, we took the post road 

 to Hitterdal, a smooth excellent highway, through inter- 

 minable forests of fir and pine. Towards the close of the 

 stage glimpses of a broad, beautiful, and thickly settled 

 valley glimmered through the woods, and we found our- 

 selves on the edge of a tremendous gully, apparently the 

 bed of an extinct river. The banks on both sides were 

 composed entirely of gravel and huge rounded pebbles 

 the masses of which we loosened at the top, and sent 

 down the sides, gathering as they rolled, until, in a cloud 

 of dust, they crashed with a sound like thunder upon the 

 loose shingles at the bottom, 200 feet below. It was 

 scarcely possible to account for this phenomenon by the 

 action of spring torrents from the melted snow. The 

 immense banks of gravel which we found to extend for a 

 considerable distance along the northern side of the 

 valley seemed rather to be a deposit of an ocean flood. 



' Hitterdal, with its enclosed fields, its harvests, and 

 groups of picturesque farm-houses, gave us promise of 

 good quarters for the night; and when our postillions 

 stopped at the door of a prosperous-looking establishment 

 we congratulated ourselves on our luck. But Never 

 whistle until you are out of the woods ! ' They met with 

 sorry welcome, sorry entertainment, and sorry fare. ' We 

 did not ask for coffee in the morning, but as soon as we 

 could procure horses, drove away hungry and disgusted 

 from Bamble-Kaasa and its respectable inhabitants. We 

 passed the beautiful falls of the Tind Elv, drove for more 

 than twenty miles over wild piny hills, and then descended 

 to Kcngsberg, where Fru Hansen comforted us with a, 



