He was a truly joyous creature, this strayed Hebrew, full of carnal appetites, but revelling in the beauties of this Arctic oasis which we were passing through. He discoursed poetry, time-tables, natural history, and the price of furs all in the same breath. He was full of surprising moods (and I fear a trifle drunk), and he swung his brandy-bottle in one hand, and carried a black umbrella tucked under the other arm. He knew all about our expedition and bubbled with advice: there were no horses procurable even if horses would have been any good; there was a Russian Boundary Commission at work in the neighbourhood, which had mopped up all the horses, and all the boats, and all the available men; the Neiden route to Enare was quite impracticable: our way was to push up the Pasvik Elv, and if we would leave it to him he would see that we got both boats and men, even if he had to impress Russian soldiers for our carriers. He was a most liberal Jew—with promises, and other people’s beer.
Pines were growing by the wayside now, and heath, and delicate shrubs. The road was a real road, metalled and embanked, with wooden bridges over the streams, and stone culverts to carry away the water. Low wooded hills rose on either side, and the notes of cuckoos floated down to us faintly over their tree-tops. The scenery was delicately beautiful. We might have been walking through a park, suitable (as the advertisements say) for a nobleman or country gentleman.
The one drawback to our perfect pleasure were the thickening swarms of mosquitoes. The Jew suffered from them terribly. But even they did not damp his spirits. He slapped the insect pests from his crimson face with a whisk of green leaves, whistled a stirring march, waved the brandy-bottle as a drum major waves his cane, and stepped out finely.
As we went on, higher mountains came into view ahead, violet-tipped on their wooded summits. The road wound stolidly on over bridges, and embankments, and hollows. Lakes appeared round which we had to skirt, and then other lakes with wooded islands, and cascades tinkling down into them from the hills. The Jew struck up the Soldier’s March out of Gounod’s Faust to words of his own to put spirit into the pace, and grew more hot, and slapped at the mosquitoes more busily than ever. He gave us names for all the lakes we passed, and all the rivers, and all the hills, and even went so far in his courtesy as to invent titles for streams that did not negotiate a dozen gallons of water to the hour. The guide mania was strong in him, and he was touching us on a tender place.
Gradually, by failing to notice his remarks, and by skirmishing off the road to hunt for the nests of birds, we contrived to let the festive one draw ahead, and for the next two miles we marched on together in peaceful enjoyment. We had crossed the divide; we were heading down into the beautiful valley of the Pasvik Elv where it joins the Syd Varanger; and we were almost within touch of this mysterious Lapland, which the wise of Vardö had done so much to keep us away from.
But we had not done with the Jew yet. A dip of the road and a sudden turn brought us in view of a gorgeous vista up the wooded Pasvik valley. The silver river sat between two sloping walls of greenery, from which the cuckoos called; and where it forked, a white turreted chapel reared up from beneath an umber cliff. In the distance beyond, the whole river leaped down rocks in a cascade of foaming cream. And there on a bench by the roadside sat our Hebrew incubus waiting for us. He raised the brandy bottle, swigged out the dregs, and quoted Heine. Then “Boris Gleb” said he, and waved the empty flagon towards the pure white tracery of the chapel. And “Russia” quoth he, and flung the bottle towards the rearing wall of trees beyond the river. He slid off on to the turf, and settled himself luxuriously for a doze, and we annexed the bench. We stayed there an hour absorbing the beauties of that scene, and I think speculating not a little on the unknown Lapland which lay beyond. And then the tinkle of a bell roused us. A horse came past, trotting up the road; and after him came a Lapp, with a bridle in his hand, trying to catch the horse.
We got up and moved away. The Jew was still sleeping on the turf under the sunlight. It was the last we ever saw of him, and although we are in his debt for beer and fiction, I do not think we ever want to see him more. A little farther on we came across a big shingle-roofed house with outbuildings, set on a neck of land above the narrows, which commands a prospect up and down the river; and there we found entertainment. It was half-past seven in the morning, so we had supper and went to bed.
We made the most of those two unexpected beds. We did not come across beds again for many a weary mile.
[Deep]-sea Fishing