sea in on that land,
he knew not which. He then sailed along the coast due
south, as far as he could sail in five days. There lay a
great river up in that land; they then turned in that
river, because they durst not sail on up the river on
account of hostility; because all that country was
inhabited on the other side of the river. He had not
before met with any land that was inhabited since he left
his own home; but all the way he had waste land on his
right, except some fishermen, fowlers, and hunters, all of
whom were Fins: and he had constantly a wide sea to the
left. The Beormas had well cultivated their country, but
they (Othere and his companions) did not dare to enter it.
And the Terfinna[23] land was all waste, except where
hunters, fishers, or fowlers had taken up their quarters.

"The Beormas told him many particulars both of their own
land and of other lands lying around them; but he knew not
what was true because he did not see it himself. It seemed
to him that the Fins and the Beormas spoke nearly the same
language. He went thither chiefly, in addition to seeing
the country, on account of the walruses,[24] because they
have very noble bones in their teeth, of which the
travellers brought some to the king; and their hides are
very good for ship-ropes. These whales are much less than
other whales, not being longer than seven ells. But in his
own country is the best whale-hunting. There they are
eight-and-forty ells long, and the largest are fifty ells
long. Of these he said he and five others had killed sixty
in two days.[25] He was a very wealthy man in those
possessions in which their wealth consists, that is, in
wild deer. He had at the time he came to the king, six
hundred unsold tame deer. These deer they call rein-deer,
of which there were six decoy rein-deer, which are very
valuable among the Fins, because they catch the wild
rein-deer with them.

"He was one of the first men in that country, yet he had
not more than twenty horned cattle, twenty sheep and
twenty swine, and the little that he ploughed he ploughed
with horses. But their wealth consists mostly in the rent
paid them by the Fins. That rent is in skins of animals
and birds' feathers, and whalebone, and in ship-ropes made
of whales'[26] hides, and of seals'. Every one pays