db FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 
termination of these lamine form ledges, which, though 
very narrow, are perfectly firm and safe, affording a reli- 
able foothold without the slightest tendency to slippiness ; 
besides these there is an abundance of similar ledges, 
affording firm fingerhold, which, though but an inch wide, 
give a most comfortable assurance of safety to the climber, 
who, bending the hands claw fashion, clung to them with 
the finger ends. I would rather, under such circumstances, 
have a firm two inch foot ledge, aud one inch of such 
finger hold, than an eighteen inch pathway with nothing 
for the hands. At about half-way | stopped to contem- 
plate the scene, which is magnificent, and its grandeur is 
heightened by the peculiar position from which it is seen. 
‘ Imagine yourself “holding on by your eyelids,” as the 
sailors have it, in the manner just described, to the face of 
a precipice which rises overhead some five hundred or six 
hundred feet, the upper part being, in fact, quite out of 
sight ; then, with great care, and some fear and trembling, 
you turn yourself round, gradually placing your heels on 
‘the former position of your toes, removing your hands, one 
at a time, from your clutching place, and finding a lower 
ledge upon which to rest the wrist-end or heel of the 
hand. Having anchored yourself thus, and keeping your 
back quite flat against the rock (as any leaning forward 
would be fatal), you look in the direction of the upper 
part of the valley, and see far below, and far away, a dark 
chasm, partly hidden by branches of trees; through this 
the river flows, and as it comes nearer reaches a wider 
opening of the gorge, advancing towards the edge of a 
precipice, over which it rolls to a gully of its own cutting, 
and then pitches down an unknown depth, for a white 
cloud hides the bottom of the dark abyss, and rises high 
into the sunshine. This is the perpetual spray—the 
reeking, or “rinken,” from which the name of the fall is 
derived. You may, however, estimate the depth of the 
fall, for, looking down the grey wall to which you are 
clinging, you see that its gully terminates in dark, quiet 
water. This is the same water that a few minutes ago 
