r Matarengi, forty miles
off. The doctor's wife, a buxom, motherly lady, who seemed to feel quite
an interest in our undertaking, and was as kind and obliging as such
women always are, procured for us a supply of _fladbrod_ made of rye,
and delightfully crisp and hard--and this was the substance of our
preparations. Reindeer mittens were not to be found, nor a reindeer
skin to cover our feet, so we relied, as before, on plenty of hay and my
Scotch plaid. We might, perhaps, have had better success in Tornea, but
I knew no one there who would be likely to assist us, and we did not
even visit the old place. We had taken the precaution of getting the
Russian _vise_, together with a small stock of roubles, at Stockholm,
but found that it was quite unnecessary. No passport is required for
entering Tornea, or travelling on the Russian side of the frontier.

Trusting to luck, which is about the best plan after all, we started
from Haparanda at noon, on the 5th of January. The day was magnificent,
the sky cloudless, and resplendent as polished steel, and the mercury
31 deg. below zero. The sun, scarcely more than the breadth of his disc
above the horizon, shed a faint orange light over the broad, level
snow-plains, and the bluish-white hemisphere of the Bothnian Gulf,
visible beyond Tornea. The air was perfectly still, and exquisitely cold
and bracing, despite the sharp grip it took upon my nose and ears. These
Arctic days, short as they are, have a majesty of their own--a splendor,
subdued though it be; a breadth and permanence of hue, imparted alike to
the sky and to the snowy earth, as if tinted glass was held before your
eyes. I find myself at a loss how to describe these effects, or the
impression they produce upon the traveller's mood. Certainly, it is the
very reverse of that depression which accompanies the Polar night, and
which even the absence of any real daylight might be considered
sufficient to produce.

Our road was well beaten, but narrow, and we had great difficulty in
passing the many hay and wood teams which met us, on account of the
depth of the loose snow on either side. We had several violent overturns
at such times, one of which occasioned us the loss of our beloved
pipe--a loss which rendered Braisted disconsolate for the rest of the
day. We had but one between us, and the bereavement was not slight. Soon
after leaving Haparanda, we passed a small white obelisk, with the words
"Russian Frontier" upon it.