we
took our leave of the encampment. A strong south wind had arisen, but
did not dissipate the fog, and for two hours we had a renewal of our
past experiences, in thumping over hard ridges and ploughing through
seas of snow. Our track was singularly devious, sometimes doubling
directly back upon itself without any apparent cause. At last, when a
faint presentiment of dawn began to glimmer through the fog, the Lapp
halted and announced that he had lost the way. Bidding us remain where
we were, he struck off into the snow and was soon lost to sight.
Scarcely a quarter of an hour had elapsed, however, before we heard his
cries at a considerable distance. Following, as we best could, across a
plain nearly a mile in diameter, we found him at last in a narrow dell
between two hills. The ground now sloped rapidly northward, and I saw
that we had crossed the water-shed, and that the plain behind us must be
the lake Jedeckejaure, which, according to Von Buch, is 1370 feet above
the sea.

On emerging from the dell we found a gentle slope before us, covered
with hard ice, down which our pulks flew like the wind. This brought us
to another lake, followed by a similar slope, and so we descended the
icy terraces, until, in a little more than an hour, some covered
haystacks gave evidence of human habitation, and we drew up at the huts
of Eitajarvi, in Norway. An old man, who had been watching our approach,
immediately climbed upon the roof and removed a board from the chimney,
after which he ushered us into a bare, cold room, and kindled a roaring
fire on the hearth. Anton unpacked our provisions, and our hunger was so
desperate, after fasting for twenty hours, that we could scarcely wait
for the bread to thaw and the coffee to boil. We set out again at noon,
down the frozen bed of a stream which drains the lakes, but had not
proceeded far before both deers and pulks began to break through the
ice, probably on account of springs under it. After being almost
swamped, we managed to get up the steep snow-bank and took to the plain
again, making our own road over ridge and through hollow. The caravan
was soon stopped, that the pulks might be turned bottom upwards and the
ice scraped off, which, like the barnacles on a ship's hull, impeded
their progress through the snow. The broad plain we were traversing
stretched away to the north without a break or spot of color to relieve
its ghastly whiteness; but toward the south-west, where the su