A REINDEER RIDE THROUGH LAPLAND. 47 



decided to save the corner, and cut straight across the 

 tongue of land which juts out into the river, or rather 

 round which the river makes a bend, just at the falls. 

 However, these are not of much consequence, but are 

 the rendezvous of large quantities of the salmon with 

 Avhich the river abounds. Our way took us down an 

 extremely steep hill the worst we had as yet en- 

 countered as there were two very large stones right 

 in the centre of the descent. Just as we had antici- 

 pated, the deer, taking fright at the large black rocks 

 sticking out of the snow, suddenly swerved to the 

 side with the result of capsizing almost all of us, and 

 jumbling us up in a terrible muddle. Deer and 

 icapoos, men and poolk, all were wildly mingled 

 together. Here a rein entangled round some one's 

 leg ; there a poolTc lying on the top of another poor 

 individual, who, his hands not being free, could not 

 possibly extricate himself without assistance. Add to 

 this the darkness, the strange guttural oaths of the 

 Lapps, and the grunt or bleat of the deer, with now 

 and then an execration in blunt Norwegian, and you 

 can form a faint idea of the scene. As for me, never 

 before was I in such danger, the rein having wound 

 itself round and round my neck, and threatening 

 every moment to strangle me if the deer should try to 

 break away. Move I did not dare to, as I well knew 

 that the slightest tug at the " ribbon " would cause 

 the animal to rush wildly away, in which case I would 

 have been dragged down the rest of the hill by the 



