MOUNTAIN PLATEAUX AND MOUNTAIN RAVINES. 33 
fully added our amen to the previous declarations. : 
‘ We bade farewell to the good old man, and rode down 
the valley of the Maan, through the morning shadow of 
the Gousta. Our boat was in readiness ; and its couch of 
fir boughs in the stern became a pleasant divan of indol- 
ence after our hard horses and rough roads. We reached 
Tinoset by one o'clock, but were obliged to wait until four 
for horses. The only refreshment we got was oaten bread 
and weak spruce beer. Off at last, we took the post road 
to Hitterdal, a smooth excellent highway, through inter- 
minable forests of fir and pine. Towards the close of the 
stage glimpses of a broad, beautiful, and thickly settled 
valley glimmered through the woods, and we found our- 
selves on the edge of a tremendous gully, apparently the 
bed of an extinct river. The banks on both sides were 
composed entirely of gravel and huge rounded pebbles. 
the masses of which we loosened at the top, and sent 
down the sides, gathering as they rolled, until, in a cloud 
of dust, they crashed with a sound like thunder upon the 
loose shingles at the bottom, 200 feet below. It was 
scarcely possible to account for this phenomenon by the 
action of spring torrents from the melted snow. The 
immense banks of gravel which we found to extend for a 
considerable distance along the northern side of the 
valley seemed rather to be a deposit of an ocean flood. 
‘Hitterdal, with its enclosed fields, its harvests, and 
groups of picturesque farm-houses, gave us promise of 
guod quarters for the night; and when our postillions 
stopped at the door of a prosperous-looking establishment 
we congratulated ourselves oa our luck. But—Never 
whistle until you are out of the woods!’ They met with 
sorry welcome, sorry entertainment, and sorry fare. ‘We 
did not ask for coffee in the morning, but as soon as we 
could procure horses, drove away hungry and disgusted 
from Bamble-Kaasa and its respectable inhabitants. We 
passed the beautiful falls of the Tind Elv, drove for more 
than twenty miles over wild piny hills, and then descended 
to Kengsberg, where Fru Hansen comforted us with a 
