A REINDEER EIDE THROUGH LAPLAND. 41 



produced a bottle, marked " fine old port," with an 

 almost antediluvian date, and proceeded forthwith to 

 distribute the nectar unsparingly among us travellers. 

 Never shall I forget that awful mixture. Thinking 

 to escape a second supply, I urged him to fill the 

 glass there was only one up to the brim every 

 time, but no ! He was not going to act as a com- 

 mon peasant, but would do what Norwegian etiquette 

 demands viz., only fill it half full ; so there was 

 nothing left but to swallow the medicinal decoction 

 with as good a grace as possible, and to pray for no evil 

 results. To have refused to take the wine would have 

 been deemed as great an affront to the Lapp as to refuse 

 bread and salt from a Russian, or betel from a Burmese. 

 After the departure of the good Karasjokians, we 

 made for terra firma, and pushed rapidly on, every 

 one exhilarated by the glorious sunshine and the 

 magnificent scenery around. At Karasjok itself, and 

 for a considerable distance down the river, the terrain 

 rises in terraces, very regularly and singularly formed, 

 rather abruptly from the water's edge, and the whole 

 formation seems indubitably to indicate that the 

 surface-level of the river had, on two or three occa- 

 sions, suddenly been lowered. Not being a geologist, 

 I was unable to determine the nature or period of 

 these revolutions ; but I feel convinced that a scien- 

 tific man would find a boundless field for his researches 

 in that district in the north of Norway lying between 

 Alten Fjord and the Tana river inclusive. 



