166 SHORT STALKS 



journey. Steaming up the Sound between the ishmds 

 and mainland, we were overtaken at sunset by a 

 dangerous fog, and had to lie to under the island of 

 Smolen, and make up extemporised beds on board, for the 

 ladies. At 4 a.m. the haze lifted sufficiently, and, after 

 watering the engines at a stream which fell over a clift' 

 where the rocks dipped sheer into deep water, so that we 

 could draw up alongside of them, we sailed up the still 

 w^aters of the fjord. I shall not soon forget the lovely 

 Sunday morning wdiich greeted us. The sun shone bril- 

 liantly, and as w^e passed alternately barren cliffs, w^ooded 

 hills, and green valleys, I pointed out to my daughters 

 the scenes of past triumphs or failures. The glassy 

 surfoce of the fjord was broken only by numerous boats 

 loaded with fomily parties, converging from all directions 

 on the little church and the red and yellow homesteads of 

 Kirkesseter. On two previous occasions I had found bears 

 numerous on these hills, and each time either I or my 

 companion had secured one. This year my former hunter, 

 Per Klonglevik, informed me that they had deserted the 

 country, and two days' search confirming his statement, 

 w^e sailed on to Throndhjem. 



I had hired through a Norwegian agency an elk 

 shooting near Levanger, of wdiicli more presently, but, 

 having in the course of these preliminary wanderings 

 encountered a Norweoian who knew the district and orave 

 me an unfavourable impression of it, I changed my plan, 

 and proceeded first towards the Swedish frontier to the 

 south-west of Throndhjem. 



Our first halt w^as at Selbo, at the upper end of the 

 large lake of that name, where we put u}) at the '' Sana- 



