nset of an
unrisen sun spread its roseate glow through the mist, arose some low
mounds, covered with drooping birches, which shone against the soft,
mellow splendor, like sprays of silver embroidered on rose-colored
satin.

Our course, for about fifteen miles, lay alternately upon the stream
(where the ice was sufficiently strong) and the wild plain. Two or three
Lapp tents on the bank exhibited the usual amount of children and dogs,
but we did not think it worth while to extend the circle of our
acquaintance in that direction. At five o'clock, after it had long been
dark, we reached half a dozen huts called Siepe, two Norwegian miles
from Kautokeino. Long Isaac wished to stop here for the night, but we
resolutely set ourselves against him. The principal hut was filthy,
crowded with Lapps, and filled with a disagreeable smell from the warm,
wet poesks hanging on the rafters. In one corner lay the carcases of two
deer-calves which had been killed by wolves. A long bench, a table, and
a rude frame covered with deerskins, and serving as a bed, comprised all
the furniture. The usual buckets of sour milk, with wooden ladles, stood
by the door. No one appeared to have any particular occupation, if we
except the host's wife, who was engaged with an infant in reindeer
breeches. We smoked and deliberated while the deers ate their balls of
moss, and the result was, that a stout yellow-haired Lapp youngster was
engaged to pilot us to Kautokeino.

Siepe stands on a steep bank, down which our track led to the stream
again. As the caravan set off, my deer, which had behaved very well
through the day, suddenly became fractious, sprang off the track,
whirled himself around on his hind legs, as if on a pivot, and turned
the pulk completely over, burying me in the snow. Now, I had come from
Muoniovara, more than a hundred miles, without being once overturned,
and was ambitious to make the whole journey with equal success. I
therefore picked myself up, highly disconcerted, and started afresh. The
very same thing happened a second and a third time, and I don't think I
shall be considered unreasonable for becoming furiously angry. I should
certainly have committed cervicide had any weapon been at hand. I seized
the animal by the horns, shook, cuffed, and kicked him, but all to no
purpose. Long Isaac, who was passing in his pulk, made some remark,
which Anton, with all the gravity and conscientiousness of his new
position of interpreter, i