ELK HUNTING 
from bears did they not tell! Their mode of hunting, too, they gloried in: 
the top of a hill, two rifles, two or three bottles of beer, a copious com- 
missariat (including unlimited cigars) and some energetic Norwegians 
to drive the woods, seemed to be the chief essentials of their happiness. 
In the season of 1899 twenty -five cow elk and two young bulls were all 
that fell to the rifles of fifteen German hunters ; but it is only fair to add 
that another German (a genuine sportsman) killed five bulls, two of them 
very good ones. He told me that he got them all on the high ground in 
Sondredalen, above the timber line. 
A pleasant voyage of three days on the “ Tasso ” brings the traveller 
to the pretty little northern town of Trondhjem, where the principal 
sights of the place are Mr Bruhn’s fur store and the cathedral. When I 
visited the latter there were some hundreds of people all listening to a poor 
frightened little girl of fourteen saying her catechism. As I stood in the 
central aisle, the service, I am sorry to say, impressed me less than the 
marvellous salivatory powers of two flaxen-haired Vikings who sat in 
a large pew on my left and distributed their favours with an accuracy of 
aim that could only have been acquired by long and constant practice. 
By and by one of them, a kindly looking old man, caught my eye fixed 
upon him, and with great politeness offered me a seat between himself 
and his friend, but as the situation did not strike me as desirable, I declined 
and fled from the place. 
In Scotland, it would seem, this objectionable habit is not altogether 
unknown. Witness what happened at one of Lord Rosebery’s meetings in 
the north some years ago, as reported in the papers of the day. While the 
audience were sitting spellbound under the influence of his lordship’s 
peroration a drop of moisture, detaching itself from the glass roof of 
the building, fell with a splash on to the bald head of an old Scotch re- 
porter, who, unable to control his feelings, demanded aloud, “ Wha’s that 
sputtin’ ?” The effect was electrical. The audience were so convulsed with 
laughter that it was some time before the noble lord could proceed. 
After landing at Namsos, two days later, my friend, Mr G. E. Lodge, 
and I drove in one day some seventy miles up the beautiful Namsen Valley 
to Fiskum Foss, where there is a magnificent waterfall. Here my hunter, 
Kristian Fiskum, came out to meet me. He introduced me to his wife and 
children and, last but not least, to his excellent elk dog “ Bismark.” 
I had been told that Kristian was the best hunter in the valley, and this 
I found to be correct, for he was not only a first-class man at the dog 
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