CHAPTER XXI
Leave Karasjok still Travelling Northward.—The River Tana.—River Lapps.—Filthy Dwellings.—On the Way to Nordkyn.—The Most Northern Land in Europe.
ON leaving Karasjok I travelled northward, over the frozen Karasjoki, until I came to a broad stream called the Tana. As we drove on the river I saw here and there solitary farms and strange little hamlets inhabited by river Lapps.
The occupation of the river Lapps is largely salmon catching in summer. These fish are very abundant in the rivers. Many, during the codfish season, engage themselves as sailors on the Arctic Sea. Almost every family has a small farm, stocked with diminutive cows; besides they have sheep and goats. During the summer their reindeer are taken care of by the nomadic Lapps. These reindeer have to go to the mountains near the Arctic Sea, on account of the mosquitoes.
Now travelling was becoming very hard,—not on account of the snow, but because the inhabitants and their dwellings were so dirty.
But I had one comfort. All over that far northern land I felt so safe; it never came into my head that these people would rob me, though they knew I had plenty of money with me, according to their ways of thinking, to pay for reindeer and other travelling expenses; but the Finns and the Lapps are a God-fearing people.
The first day, I came to a place occupied by a single man. The house was so filthy, and vermin apparently so plentiful, that I whispered to my Lapp guide, "Let us go on." The Lapp was so tired that he looked at me with astonishment, and seemed to say: "Are not these comfortable quarters?"
We got into our sleighs, however, and further on we stopped and tied our reindeer together. The Lapp slept in his sleigh covered with a reindeer skin, and I in my bag.
The next day we halted before a farm. It was dark. There we intended to spend the night. The people do not lock their doors, neither do they knock to obtain admittance. So we entered. The family were all in bed. A man lighted a light. Such filth I thought I had never seen. The beds were filled with dirty hay that had been there all winter. The sheepskin blankets with the wool on were almost as black as soot. The people who slept between them were without a particle of clothes. "What a place for vermin!" I whispered to myself.
At this sight, I again said in a low voice to my Lapp, "Let us go on." He replied, "The reindeer are hungry, and we have had no food ourselves for long hours. Let us remain overnight and breakfast here to-morrow."