162 
WILD NORWAY. 
CHAPTER XI. 
TROUTING IN THE TELEMARK. 
The Telemark lacks in grandeur of scenery as com¬ 
pared with cis-alpine Norway. It is a province of 
pines, akin in character and contour to those of 
Dalsland and Wermland beyond the borders of Sweden. 
Yet the Telemark is instinct with individuality in its 
pastoral people and customs, its stave-kirks and staburs, 
the dwellings of a primitive peasantry, full of local 
colour and characteristics, beyond the average in the 
north. 
But such matters do not concern us here, nor will I 
stay to describe the glories of Gausta-fjeld and the 
Rjukanfos—though the latter impressed me as few of 
the great “show scenes” in Norway have succeeded 
in doing. Perhaps it is the mystery of the unseen 
abyss into which the waterfall hurls itself in a thousand - 
foot leap ; perhaps it was merely the fact that on those 
beetling crags that all but encircle the fall, I made 
a new and notable acquaintance. From every cleft 
clung tufts of wild-flowers—purple aconites, toadflax, 
and campions, ladies’-finger, vetches, and wild geranium, 
with saxifrages, harebells, and the rock-loving cotiledons. 
Over these flitted brilliant butterflies, conspicuous 
