R. P. HORNBY'S DIARY. 103 



must have thought us mad to give so much 

 wealth for useless egg shells. 



As far as we could judge this was July ist, 

 but we had been getting hopelessly lost as to 

 the days, for the sun never set and it was 

 hard to know always where the north was. Now 

 that we were getting near the sea, we were 

 getting more and more anxious to hurry on and 

 catch the earliest steamer from Skibotten, 

 which only ran twice a week, so we had but a 

 few hours' rest and then started again for Kenio- 

 vuopio, Peter Johann's home. We kept on 

 steadily till we got to Vittangi, the home of the 

 Graffers who were the other family of famous 

 boatmen on the river ; one of them came on with 

 us in order to help us across the lake behind 

 Peter Johann's home, and to pick up some 

 ponies which were at another hut north of 

 Keniovuopio. The going was terrible after we 

 passed Vittangi, and it was impossible for Dan 

 and myself to go in the boat at all. We towed 

 till we came to an impassable rapid, where we 

 had to unload the boat and carry the luggage 

 half a mile over the swamps. We spent 

 several hours at this game as we had to 

 make three or four journeys each, whilst the 

 mosquitoes had a glorious feed on our unpro- 

 tected faces. We then had to get the empty 



