128 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



will have his way, and for about the fiftieth time 

 in my life I proved the folly of running counter to 

 the advice of the inhabitants of a strange country, 

 who must know their own land better than a 

 foreigner. 



"With the help of my guide I managed to make 

 a pretty good fight through the snow (for the road 

 was quite blocked up, although his instinct found 

 it), and if I had only kept him till I came to the 

 village, I should have been all right ; not that I 

 should have tried to get home then, for it was 

 nearly eight when I left the farmhouse, and I was 

 already getting faint and tired. But after he had 

 followed me about an English mile, he told me 

 if I kept down a long fence till I came to the 

 bottom, and then turned to the right, I must 

 make the village ; so I sent him back. I followed 

 his directions, as I fancied, to the letter, and after 

 I had wandered alone for perhaps an hour, I saw 

 what I took to be a house looming in the distance ; 

 but when I reached it (after a goodish deal of 

 trouble) it proved to be a clump of trees. Al- 

 though much disappointed, I did not despair, for 

 I was as yet tolerably fresh and strong. The 

 worst of it was, the snow was blinding me, the 

 air was so thick that I could not see a hundred 

 yards before me, and all the fences were now 

 buried in the snow-drift. I fired off my gun, I 



