TROUT-FISHING IN SWEDISH LAPLAND. 63 



land only to find another precisely similar beyond it ; 

 but the mosquitoes turned all this voluptuous quie- 

 tude into unbearable suffering. 



At about twelve o'clock in the arctic midnight-day 

 we roused a good couple from their sheepskin beds at 

 the little farm of Hogheeden, having at length reached 

 an habitation of human beings, such as it was. They 

 were "poor but honest," and bore well-marked Lapp 

 characteristics on their ugly but good-natured and 

 homely features. Next day this man and his wife 

 rowed me down to Arjeploug, pulling all day as hard 

 as they could. 



I angled on the way down for three hours with 

 spoon bait and phantom ; but as the fish are only to 

 be got in shallow water and in certain places, nothing 

 came of it. 



About midnight we reached Arjeploug, the chief 

 town of the province, which boasts a church and post- 

 office, a wind-swept collection of Lapp hovels and 

 red log-houses. The Lapps were away on their usual 

 summer peregrinations. Their huts lay scattered in 

 chaotic confusion, as though stranded by a receding 

 flood. Many of them lay almost upon their sides on 

 the rocks, built like boxes, and not fastened in any 

 manner to the soil, probably for purposes of transport. 



After some delay, and a great deal of hammering on 

 wooden doors, one of the most aristocratic families 

 woke up, and were kind enough to admit me, and 

 put me up in two really nicely furnished guest 

 rooms. The other two rooms in the house were 



