speed when we set out, and their harness
being ill adapted to our sleds increased the difficulty. Instead of
hames there were wide wooden yokes, the ends of which passed through
mortices in the ends of the shafts, and were fastened with pins, while,
as there was no belly-bands, the yokes rose on going down hill, bringing
our sleds upon the horses' heels. The Finnish sleds have excessively
long shafts, in order to prevent this. Our road all day was upon the
Muonio River, the main branch of the Tornea, and the boundary between
Sweden and Russia, above the junction. There had been a violent wind
during the night, and the track was completely filled up. The Tornea and
Muonio are both very swift rivers, abounding in dangerous rapids, but
during the winter, rapids and all, they are solid as granite from their
sources to the Bothnian Gulf. We plunged along slowly, hour after hour,
more than half the time clinging to one side or the other, to prevent
our sled from overturning--and yet it upset at least a dozen times
during the day. The scenery was without change: low, black fir forests
on either hand, with the decorative snow blown off them; no villages, or
signs of life, except the deserted huts of the wood-cutters, nor did we
meet but one sled during the whole day. Here and there, on the banks,
were sharp, canoe-like boats, twenty or thirty feet long, turned bottom
upward. The sky was overcast, shutting out the glorious coloring of the
past days. The sun set before one o'clock, and the dull twilight
deepened apace into night. Nothing could be more cheerless and dismal:
we smoked and talked a little, with much silence between, and I began to
think that one more such day would disgust me with the Arctic Zone.

It was four o'clock, and our horses were beginning to stagger, when we
reached a little village called Jokijalka, on the Russian side. The
postilion stopped at a house, or rather a quadrangle of huts, which he
made me comprehend was an inn, adding that it was 4 _polan_ and 3
_belikor_ (a fearfully unintelligible distance!) to the next one. We
entered, and found promise enough in the thin, sallow, sandy-haired, and
most obsequious landlord, and a whole herd of rosy children, to decide
us to stop. We were ushered into the milk-room, which was warm and
carpeted, and had a single narrow bed. I employed my vocabulary with
good effect, the quick-witted children helping me out, and in due time
we got a supper of fried mutton, br