production of Norrland, where the short summers are
frequently insufficient to mature the grain crops. The inns were all
comfortable buildings, with very fair accommodations for travellers. We
had bad luck with horses this day, however, two or three travellers
having been in advance and had the pick. On one stage our baggage-sled
was driven by a _poike_ of not more than ten years old--a darling
fellow, with a face as round, fresh and sweet as a damask rose, the
bluest of eyes, and a cloud of silky golden hair. His successor was a
tall, lazy lout, who stopped so frequently to talk with the drivers of
sleds behind us, that we lost all patience, drove past and pushed ahead
in the darkness, trusting our horse to find the way. His horse followed,
leaving him in the lurch, and we gave him a long-winded chase astern
before we allowed him to overtake us. This so exasperated him that we
had no trouble the rest of the way. _Mem._--If you wish to travel with
speed, make your postilion angry.

At Hornas they gave us a supper of ale and cold pig's feet, admirable
beds, and were only deficient in the matter of water for washing. We
awoke with headaches, on account of gas from the tight Russian stove.
The temperature, at starting, was 22 deg. below zero--colder than either of
us had ever before known. We were a little curious, at first, to know
how we should endure it, but, to our delight, found ourselves quite warm
and comfortable. The air was still, dry, and delicious to inhale. My
nose occasionally required friction, and my beard and moustache became a
solid mass of ice, frozen together so that I could scarcely open my
mouth, and firmly fastened to my fur collar. We travelled forty-nine
miles, and were twelve hours on the way, yet felt no inconvenience from
the temperature.

By this time it was almost wholly a journey by night, dawn and twilight,
for full day there was none. The sun rose at ten and set at two. We
skimmed along, over the black, fir-clothed hills, and across the
pleasant little valleys, in the long, gray, slowly-gathering daybreak:
then, heavy snow-clouds hid half the brief day, and the long, long,
dusky evening glow settled into night. The sleighing was superb, the
snow pure as ivory, hard as marble, and beautifully crisp and smooth.
Our sleds glided over it without effort, the runners making music as
they flew. With every day the country grew wilder, blacker and more
rugged, with no change in the general character