We Enter a Birch Forest.—The Reindeer are Soon Fagged.—Sleep on the Snow.—The Rays of the Sun Melt through the Snow.—Great Difficulty in Travelling.—Meet Herds of Reindeer.—Reindeer Bulls Fight Each Other.
WE entered the birch forest soon after our departure. We had great difficulty in driving among the trees. I was glad our reindeer were not as frisky as in the earlier part of the winter. I could hardly follow the track of Mikel, and sometimes I could not do so at all. I drove sometimes against one tree and then against another, then the boughs of the birch would strike against my face. I had not been five minutes among the birches when I was upset.
At last, losing patience, I shouted to Mikel, "When are we to get out of these birch trees into the open country?" He replied: "We shall reach the river soon."
The snow was not more than three or four or five inches deep at first, but grew gradually deeper as we moved further south. Along the coast of Finmarken the heat of the Gulf Stream prevents it from lying deep on the ground.
That afternoon we reached the Tana river, at a place called Polmak, and sped on over its snow-covered ice.
Seven or eight miles was all that our reindeer could do in an hour, and during the day we had to stop several times to give them rest.
About eleven o'clock we stopped for the night. We spread our bags upon the snow, but we got into one only, for two would have been too warm at this time of the year; and as Mikel and I were ready to disappear in them, I said "Good-night, Mikel," and he replied "Good-night, Paulus."
It snowed during the night, and when we awoke in the morning our bags were covered with it. I did not wonder when I saw this that I had felt so warm during the night.
I was the first to be up. I shook Mikel's bag and shouted to him, "Get up, Mikel," and as his head peeped out of his bag, I said "Good-morning," and he cried "Good-morning, Paulus." Then we took our breakfast. The reindeer, while we were asleep, had dug through the snow to the lichen and fed, and now were quietly resting.
We were soon on the way. As the sun rose higher and higher and its rays grew more powerful, the snow became soft, and the travelling so hard for our reindeer that we had to stop; the thermometer marked 44 degrees in the shade and 80 degrees in the sun. There were sometimes twenty or thirty degrees' difference of temperature during the twenty-four hours, but the change came so slowly, hour after hour, that I did not notice it.