100 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



nial snows. It is curious and interesting to stand 

 on a fell top and mark how clearly each line of 

 vegetation is denned below. To describe the fells 

 themselves would be a waste of time and space. 

 Any one can imagine huge masses of ironstone 

 and shingle of all shapes and sizes, the one tower- 

 ing above the other, the summits of the higher 

 ones covered with snow which never melts. 

 ""Waldi Spiket" is the highest fell close to 

 Quickiock, and I suppose its summit is about 

 4,000 feet above the river, and from the bottom to 

 the very top (for it rises gradually) is just^l| 

 English miles. It is a peculiar- shaped fell. On the 

 one side it rises with a gentle slope, and, though 

 the ascent is very difficult on account of a large 

 bed of boulders and shingle which one has to 

 cross, there is no danger ; but on reaching the 

 top and looking down on the other side, it rises as 

 plumb as a wall, and a slip of the foot would hurl 

 the traveller into an abyss some thousand feet 

 deep. No one, however, who has not seen it, can 

 picture to himself the beauty of the valleys that lie 

 between and at the foot of the fells themselves. 

 Nowhere have I seen so rich a vegetation, or such 

 a profusion of wild flowers as bloom in this 

 so-called wilderness ; and nowhere do the wild 

 flowers appear so beautiful as when we see them 

 in a spot where we least expect to meet with 



