|
Side 80 av 112
If you ever go to Norway, you must be sure to see the Loenvand. You
can set out from the comfortable hotel at Faleide, go up the Indvik
Fjord in a rowboat, cross over a two-mile hill on foot or by
carriage, spend a happy day on the lake, and return to your inn in
time for a late supper. The lake is perhaps the most beautiful in
Norway. Long and narrow, it lies like a priceless emerald of palest
green, hidden and guarded by jealous mountains. It is fed by huge
glaciers, which hang over the shoulders of the hills like ragged
cloaks of ice.
As we row along the shore, trolling in vain for the trout that live
in the ice-cold water, fragments of the tattered cloth-of-silver far
above us, on the opposite side, are loosened by the touch of the
summer sun, and fall from the precipice. They drift downward, at
first, as noiselessly as thistledowns; then they strike the rocks
and come crashing towards the lake with the hollow roar of an
avalanche.
At the head of the lake we find ourselves in an enormous
amphitheatre of mountains. Glaciers are peering down upon us.
Snow-fields glare at us with glistening eyes. Black crags seem to
bend above us with an eternal frown. Streamers of foam float from
the forehead of the hills and the lips of the dark ravines. But
there is a little river of cold, pure water flowing from one of the
rivers of ice, and a pleasant shelter of young trees and bushes
growing among the debris of shattered rocks; and there we build our
camp-fire and eat our lunch.
Hunger is a most impudent appetite. It makes a man forget all the
proprieties. What place is there so lofty, so awful, that he will
not dare to sit down in it and partake of food? Even on the side of
Mount Sinai, the elders of Israel spread their out-of-door table,
"and did eat and drink."
|
