SALMON-FISHING. 61 



and bewildered by the eccentricities which stupendous 

 and impossible Nature has erected all around us, at 

 the door of a clean, pine-built, white-painted house, 

 in the midst of what looks like the happy valley of 

 Rasselas ; surrounded by bright green meadows, 

 walled in by frowning impracticable precipices 2,000 

 feet high at their lowest elevation, and over 4,000 at 

 their highest, at the top of which, opposite the 

 windows to the south-west, even as exclusive mortals 

 garnish their walls with broken bottles, so Nature 

 appears to have wished to throw difficulties in the 

 way of some gigantic trespasser by placing a fearful 

 chevaux-de-frise of strange, sharp, jagged, uncouth 

 and fantastic peaks, which baffle all description in 

 their dreamy grotesqueness. These are called by 

 the natives " Troll tinderne," i.e. " witch peaks/' or 

 " sorcerers' seats." A stone dropped from the top 

 would touch nothing for 1,500 feet, and thence to 

 the bottom would lose but little velocity, so near the 

 perpendicular is the rest of the descent. Below the 

 steepest portion is a long stony slope having the 



