“The place where we got something to eat.”
“Ah, I remember, sour milk, wasn’t it, and that dog-biscuit stuff? And the natives came to see us off.”...
We were talking half seriously too. All those early stages of our expedition seemed so distant and nebulous. We had lived a good many years in those last few weeks.
From all that toil and starvation and strain this river-journey came as a delightful revel. The paddles cheeped against the gunwales, and the water trickled musically. Cuckoos called to us from behind the woods. We took our eyes from one beautiful picture on the shore, only to drink in the pleasures of the next. And then the Finns would take their paddles out of the water altogether, and we would drift down the stream and bask in the sweet, warm silence.
The river would widen out into a still lagoon, walled in by mysterious pines, a dancing-place for dragon-flies, and we would drowse off almost into forgetfulness. And then of a sudden the lagoon would empty over a fall into a narrow gut, and the canoe would leap upon the backs of sleek brown waves, and frisk through spray, and grate over shoals, and shave black-fanged rocks by a hand’s-breadth. It was work which required the skilful navigator. Once, after we had gone ashore to boil up the kettles for a meal, the Finns changed about when we got on board again, and Nilas at the steering paddle took us down the next rapids and half filled the canoe with water before she reached their foot. We had to pull ashore again to bale after this, not because our own sodden properties would have hurt in the water, but because of some goods of the Squire’s which he was taking as cargo. He, canny man, had a bale of hides which he wanted to exchange for money in Kittila, and by getting them down in our hired canoe he was saving a journey.
Other streams joined us as the canoe paddled on, and the river grew in bigness and use. Hay barns became quite frequent on the banks, on spots where some distant farmer came to cut the rich grasses, and dry them on wooden racks and rails, Norwegian fashion, till they turned into scented hay. This would be sheltered in the rude houses of logs against autumn rains, and in the winter months, when the river was ice, he could come with sledge and reindeer and drag the hay home to his farm across the frozen surface.
Nilas paddled and the Squire steered. There was high ground ahead, and always on our left-hand side was a great wooded bulk of mountain. The river scenery changed like the setting of a play: we shot down noisy rapids with the speed of a running fish; we paddled across leisurely lagoons; we saved journeys round wide bends by forcing the canoe through narrow “cut-offs,” like those one meets with on the Mississippi; but always close above us the mountain remained, grand and vast and immovable. On the hills ahead there were snow patches. On our mountain there were none. From the waters where its feet were bathed, to the billowy clouds which cooled its head, trees covered it like a rentless garment, and nowhere was its naked side exposed.
Nilas put leather gloves over his fingers and paddled on, and the Squire steered tirelessly. The scenery grew wilder as we drew nearer to Kittila, and flights of small duck whirred past us down the stream. The grass was gone from the banks, and the river was hemmed in by arid bluffs, and walls of rock, and lines of tumbled boulders. The trees were sterner in shape and colour, and grew into thicker and more gloomy forests.
Then abruptly it changed again. The forests disappeared. A natural clearing began, and man had taken advantage of the gap to set up a farm.