CHAPTER III. 
MOUNTAIN PLATEAUX AND MOUNTAIN RAVINES. 
AmonosT the export timber ports of Norway, Avendal, 
Drammen, Christiania, and Fredrickshold, an important 
place is held by Drammen, the harbour of which is always 
crowded with tiers of shipping, with huge piles of timber 
on the wharfs, and vast rafts of timber afloat upon its 
waters. From this port some 110,000 tons of timber are 
annually shipped to England, Holland, and France. 
After reaching Christiania my first excursion, I have said, 
was towards Drammen. There M. du Challu had been 
before me; and instead of telling here of what I saw, 
beyond stating that I greatly admired the trim cottages and 
well kept fields through which the train passed on leaving 
the capital, I would take my readers further in the wake 
of M. du Challu, in the journey which he made through 
Drammen and Konsberg to the west coast. Of which he 
has left an account, in which he tells with pleasure of the 
peculiar costume and habits of the Saetersdal, and of the 
Lemarken, of which there are two divisions. He tells of a 
drive of twenty miles from Konsberg, which brought him 
to a forest on a plateau 1700 feet above the level of the 
sea, whence descending a ravine through a dark wood, he 
found suddenly burst into sight the farm of Bolkesko, 
1240 feet above the level of the sea, of which he writes :— 
‘I know of no farm in Norway so picturesquely situated, 
and none with such peculiarly superb landscape. It was 
nestled among fir-clad hills, whose dark colour contrasted 
with the green meadows and fields which they surround. 
The place was partly hemmed in by barren mountains, on 
which were patches of snow. Here in a steep valley two 
lakes apparently overlapping each other are noticed: the 
