hod of
travelling. While I acknowledge the Providential disposition of things
which has given the reindeer to the Lapp, I cannot avoid thanking Heaven
that I am not a Lapp, and that I shall never travel again with reindeer.

The aberrations of our deer obliged us to take a very sinuous course.
Sometimes we headed north, and sometimes south, and the way seemed so
long that I mistrusted the quality of our guide; but at last a light
shone ahead. It was the hut of Eitajarvi. A lot of pulks lay in front of
it, and the old Finn stood already with a fir torch, waiting to light us
in. On arriving, Anton was greeted by his sister Caroline, who had come
thus far from Muoniovara, on her way to visit some relatives at
Altengaard. She was in company with some Finns, who had left Lippajarvi
the day previous, but losing their way in the storm, had wandered about
for twenty-four hours, exposed to its full violence. Think of an
American girl of eighteen sitting in an open pulk, with the thermometer
at zero, a furious wind and blinding snow beating upon her, and neither
rest nor food for a day! There are few who would survive twelve hours,
yet Caroline was as fresh, lively, and cheerful as ever, and
immediately set about cooking our supper. We found a fire in the cold
guest's room, the place swept and cleaned, and a good bed of deerskins
in one corner. The temperature had sunk to 12 deg. below zero, and the wind
blew through wide cracks in the floor, but between the fire and the
reciprocal warmth of our bodies we secured a comfortable sleep--a thing
of the first consequence in such a climate.

Our deer started well in the morning, and the Lapp guide knew his way
perfectly. The wind had blown so strongly that the track was cleared
rather than filled, and we slipped up the long slopes at a rapid rate. I
recognised the narrow valley where we first struck the northern streams,
and the snowy plain beyond, where our first Lapp guide lost his way. By
this time it was beginning to grow lighter, showing us the dreary wastes
of table-land which we had before crossed in the fog. North of us was a
plain of unbroken snow, extending to a level line on the horizon, where
it met the dark violet sky. Were the colour changed, it would have
perfectly represented the sandy plateaus of the Nubian Desert, in so
many particulars does the extreme North imitate the extreme South. But
the sun, which never deserts the desert, had not yet returned to these
solitud