We continued, and in a short time we came to a large lake—Ringdalsvand, and my guide invited me to take a pair of oars, and he himself took the other pair. We rowed steadily on in a light breeze, which gave to the lake an intense blue colour reflected from, the sky. On every side were towering cliffs and snow-topped mountains, whose steep bases were clothed with fragments of forest which had escaped destructive avalanches. Not a sign of human habitation presented itself; only wild Nature, sublime and grand in the extreme, surrounded us.
After about two hours of hard rowing, we pull up the boat on a pebbly strand at our destination, near to the head of the lake. We are now just beneath the magnificent falls of Skjæggedal, which leap from the top of huge cliffs and send immense volumes of spray to a considerable distance; while on the gauzy vapour, which rises up from huge cauldrons at its foot, the arc of a brilliant rainbow is formed in the sunshine of mid-day. The very earth around seems to vibrate through the deafening roar from this mighty waterfall. To hold a conversation with the guide is quite impossible, unless I shout at the very height of my voice, and a feeling of deafness remained for a considerable time after leaving the place.
After sketching the falls, my paper being quite drenched by the fine spray which filled the air, my guide joined me in an impromptu cold lunch on the sunny strand.
In returning, the foss was in sight during an hour's rowing, until, passing along the base of a huge crag, at a bend of the lake, it quickly disappeared from view.
In this immediate neighbourhood are other waterfalls, the most graceful of which rejoice in the name Tyssestrengene, and their waters also descend into this Ringdalsvand. These beautiful falls are not so imposing as those we have just left, but they are very picturesque. They plunge down some 500 feet of quite perpendicular cliff, in slender, graceful streams, which are seen to creep through a natural bridge of glacier ice at the sky-line.
Other noted waterfalls in the Hardanger district are Vöringfos, Laatefos, and Espelandsfos; each one of these has quite a distinct character of its own, derived from more or less romantic surroundings.
The constant erosion caused by the mighty power of water, cutting into the mountain masses of conglomerate and granite, has been the means of forming the deep, narrow cañons and fjords, and, in conjunction with moving glaciers, has been Nature's chisel, by which has been shaped the present picturesque beauty of the scenery.