220 
JOURNEY TO BORGAFIORD. 
pearance of being a solid mass, and of having 
suffered no change; but not so with a heap of 
rocks, broken, indeed, yet still of immense size, 
which, piled one over another to a great height on 
our left, seemed to have been at a distant period 
thrown out in a melted state from a volcano, and 
to be still suffered to remain a monument of some 
dreadful eruption. Their texture was in parts 
solid, in other parts porous, their color a brownish 
black, and throughout speckled with innumerable 
small white pieces of quartz, which, on a close 
inspection, had a very pretty appearance. From 
the dismally barren scene before us, we soon 
came to a little plain, where the Bartsia alpina 
in full flower made amends for the absence of 
more abundant and varied vegetation; but hence 
to the margin of the water was a dreary scene of 
abrupt precipices, rugged hills, and rocky stream¬ 
lets. A river, at the head of Hval-fiord, in dis¬ 
charging its waters over the perpendicular face of 
a rock, formed a fine cascade, just beneath which, 
and exposed to the full effect of its tremendous 
roar, we had to ford the stream, after which, for a 
few miles, we travelled along by the north side of 
the lake, among heaps of fragments that had fallen 
from the steep hills, till, about ten o’clock, we had 
once more the satisfaction of seeing a green spot, 
which had induced a peasant and his family, after 
