f bends. The morn was hours in dawning, with
the same splendid transitions of colour. The forests were indescribable
in their silence, whiteness, and wonderful variety of snowy adornment.
The weeping birches leaned over the road, and formed white fringed
arches; the firs wore mantles of ermine, and ruffs and tippets of the
softest swan's down. Snow, wind, and frost had worked the most
marvellous transformations in the forms of the forest. Here were
kneeling nuns, with their arms hanging listlessly by their sides, and
the white cowls falling over their faces; there lay a warrior's helmet;
lace curtains, torn and ragged, hung from the points of little Gothic
spires; caverns, lined with sparry incrustations, silver palm-leaves,
doors, loop-holes, arches and arcades were thrown together in a
fantastic confusion and mingled with the more decided forms of the
larger trees, which, even, were trees but in form, so completely were
they wrapped in their dazzling disguise. It was an enchanted land, where
you hardly dared to breathe, lest a breath might break the spell.

There was still little change in the features of the country, except
that it became wilder and more rugged, and the settlements poorer and
further apart. There were low hills on either side, wildernesses of
birch and fir, and floors of level snow over the rivers and marshes. On
approaching Pello, we saw our first reindeer, standing beside a hut. He
was a large, handsome animal; his master, who wore a fur dress, we of
course set down for a Lapp. At the inn a skinny old hag, who knew a
dozen words of Swedish, got us some bread, milk, and raw frozen salmon,
which, with the aid of a great deal of butter, sufficed us for a meal.
Our next stage was to Kardis, sixteen miles, which we made in four
hours. While in the midst of a forest on the Swedish side, we fell in
with a herd of reindeer, attended by half-a-dozen Lapps. They came
tramping along through the snow, about fifty in number, including a
dozen which ran loose. The others were harnessed to _pulks_, the
canoe-shaped reindeer sledges, many of which were filled with stores and
baggage. The Lapps were rather good-looking young fellows, with a
bright, coppery, orange complexion, and were by no means so
ill-favoured, short, and stunted as I had imagined. One of them was,
indeed, really handsome, with his laughing eyes, sparkling teeth, and a
slender, black moustache.

We were obliged to wait a quarter-of-an-hour while