us some fresh hay, a quilt and a sheepskin
coverlet, and we soon forgot both our hunger and our frozen blood.

In the morning coffee was brought to us, and as nothing else was to be
had, we drank four cups apiece. The landlord asked half a _rigs_ (13
cents) for our entertainment, and was overcome with gratitude when I
gave him double the sum. We had the same sledges as the previous night,
but new postilions and excellent horses. The temperature had risen to 5 deg.
below zero, with a cloudy sky and a light snow falling. We got off at
eight o'clock, found a track partly broken, and went on at a merry trot
up the river. We took sometimes one bank and sometimes the other, until,
after passing the rapid of Eyanpaika (which was frozen solid, although
large masses of transparent ice lay piled like rocks on either side), we
kept the Swedish bank. We were in excellent spirits, in the hope of
reaching Muonioniska before dark, but the steady trot of our horses
brought us out of the woods by noon, and we saw before us the long,
scattering village, a mile or two distant, across the river. To our
left, on a gentle slope, stood a red, two-story building, surrounded by
out-houses, with a few humbler habitations in its vicinity. This was
Muoniovara, on the Swedish side--the end of our Finnish journey.

CHAPTER IX.

LIFE IN LAPLAND.

As we drove up to the red two-story house, a short man with dark
whiskers and a commercial air came forward to meet us. I accosted him in
Swedish, asking him whether the house was an inn. He replied in the
negative, adding that the only inn was in Muonioniska, on the Russian
side, a mile or more distant. I then asked for the residence of Mr.
Wolley, the English naturalist, whose name had been mentioned to me by
Prof. Retzius and the botanist Hartman. He thereupon called to some one
across the court, and presently appeared a tall, slender man dressed in
the universal gray suit which travelling Englishmen wear, from the
Equator to the Poles. He came up with extended hand, on hearing his own
language; a few words sufficed for explanation, and he devoted himself
to our interests with the cordiality of an old acquaintance. He lived
with the Swede, Herr Forstrom, who was the merchant of the place; but
the wife of the latter had just been confined, and there was no room in
his house. Mr. Wolley proposed at first to send to the inn in
Muonioniska, and engage a room, but afterwards arranged with a Norsk