I had never seen. The beds
were filled with dirty hay that had been there all winter. The sheepskin
blankets with the wool on were almost as black as soot. The people who
slept between them were without a particle of clothes. "What a place for
vermin!" I whispered to myself.

At this sight, I again said in a low voice to my Lapp, "Let us go on."
He replied, "The reindeer are hungry, and we have had no food ourselves
for long hours. Let us remain overnight and breakfast here to-morrow."

In the mean time the owner of the place got up, put on a long dirty
woolen shirt, and went with us into the next room, which was clean. I
gave a sigh of relief. The wooden bed had no hay, no sheepskin blankets.
The man got for me a clean reindeer skin which he said had just come out
of the open air, where it had been for several days.

To my consternation my Lapp guide offered to sleep alongside of me, and
added, "We shall be warmer if we sleep together." I was in a dilemma. I
did not want to offend him, but I told him that I always slept by
myself. Then the owner of the place spread another reindeer skin on the
floor, and my guide slept upon it.

The next morning we breakfasted on dried reindeer meat, hard bread, and
milk. After bidding our host good-bye, and thanking him for his
hospitality, we continued our journey, arriving towards noon at a farm
owned by a river Lapp. The farm had three buildings; only the wife and
daughter were at home. The husband was cod fishing in the Arctic Sea.
The wife told me she had been a sailor before she was married, and
engaged in cod fishing.

There were on this farm three diminutive cows, an ox of the size of the
cows, nine sheep, and they owned besides quite a number of reindeer. The
cows were getting smaller and smaller as I went north. In the little
dwelling-house was a small room for a stranger; reindeer skins made the
mattress. My guide and I ate together. We had excellent coffee, smoked
reindeer meat, and milk.

Further on we stopped awhile at a little farm owned by a woman and her
daughter. The mother and daughter worked as if they were men; they
fished for salmon in the river in summer, mowed hay, collected reindeer
moss to feed their cows, went after wood. A faithful dog was their
companion. At some seasons the daughter descended the river, and engaged
herself as one of the crew on board of a fishing boat on the Arctic
Ocean.

Resuming our journey we passed the church hamlet of Utsjo