182 THE VALLEY OF ENCHANTMENT 



Tostern bent to his oars and shot after him ; then, poising 

 his craft with her nose to the stream, allowed her to glide 

 swiftly down after the fleeting fish through a hundred and 

 fifty yards of tossing rapids, till we floated upon the even 

 surface of the next pool, Langholmen. 



The battle was nearly won now: I could see my fish 

 under the lucid wave — a pale-bluish phantom — and now 

 the pale-blue turned to gleaming silver as he floated upon 

 his side on the surface, beaten, and allowed me to tow 

 him within reach of a sharp point and a steady hand, 

 and at five minutes to six we weighed my first Norway 

 salmon — 21 lb. 



Let not the fisher fagged with unfruitful toil in some 

 Scottish stream imagine that it is always this simple venio 

 — video — vinco business in Norwegian waters. Salmon in 

 Scandinavia, as in Scotia, are just the same capricious, 

 inconstant, unaccountable creatures; subject to similar 

 simultaneous moods of inertness, of indifference to all 

 lures, or, again, of watchful curiosity, ready to seize the 

 first thing moving near them. As a rule, the fisherman 

 is like the sun-dial — horas non nv/merat nisi serenas. 

 He is discreetly silent about the countless hours he 

 squanders vainly flogging the flood. 



Let me give as examples my experience of two typical 

 days in the present year of grace 1900. The first was on 

 the last day of February, in that region of Scotland which 

 partakes more of Scandinavian character that any other, 

 and was actually part of the kingdom of Norway till the 

 end of the twelfth century — the counties of Caithness and 

 Sutherland. There the people, though infused with a 

 measure of Celtic recklessness and Saxon gruffness, are 

 mainly of Scandinavian blood and temperament; there 



