JULY 171 



XXVII 



If the Romsdal has any European rival in stupendous, 



reckless erandeur, such is not known to „^ „ „ 



° ' The Valley 



me. Probably nowhere else, except in the ofEuchant- 

 Yosemite Valley, or in the gorges of the °^*'^* 

 Indus above Khalsi in Ladak, shall you find opposing 

 precipices of such height so near together. In Eomsdal 

 at its narrowest there is little question of gradient : there 

 is scarcely room for anything but a sheer plunge of 

 6000 feet from the towering crests of the Troldtinder — 

 the Witch Crags — on the west of the chasm, and from 

 the pinnacle of Romsdalhorn on the east side thereof, 

 if space is to be left for the imperious Rauma to roll its 

 volume to the slumbering fiord. Far aloft, wherever 

 there is a breach in the leagues of battlement, you may 

 catch sight of the selvage of the great snowfield, parent 

 of a thousand cascades : even at midsummer, snow loops 

 every ledge and curtains every slope, down as far as 

 the wooded river-banks; for if summer be bright here, 

 it is passing brief, and one is not suffered to forget the 

 long dark months when neither sun nor moon shines 

 into Romsdal, only the cold stars. 



Here and there, recessed between mountain bastions, 

 is space of level meadow-land, deep with cool verdure, 

 fringed with alder and rowan, birch and bird-cherry, 

 and broidered with crimson orchis, russet sorrel, snowy 

 buckbean, bluebells, purple geranium, lavender scabious, 

 golden ranunculus, and hawkweed. Elsewhere, slopes of 

 d&yris run as a kind of fausse braie along the mighty 

 rock curtain, clad with a gracious woodland, through 

 which avalanches have driven many an avenue. Here 



