LAPLAND, AND LAND OF THE SAMOIDES. 63 
Mr Guillemard and a fellow traveller fixed on Jokkmokk 
as their headquarters, and thence made daily excursions 
into the forest, visiting the neighbouring lake and river in 
quest of trout and grayling. 
‘Between us,’ says he, ‘we had travelled in all the four 
quarters of the globe, and, with eyes for the picturesque, 
were of opiuion that a fairer landscape than that viewed 
from the road a mile or so south-east of this little Lapp 
village, could not be desired even by a Ruskin. <A low 
wooden bridge spans a brawling torrent, eddying in rapids 
through peaty brown pools, and mingling its waters with 
those of the Lilla Lule, which here expands into a broad 
reach, a mile across, studded with two or three islets 
fringed with reeds, and crowned with crests of pine and 
yellow birch. Its waters are of a deep glowing blue, 
reflected from the brilliant sky overhead, and contrasting 
vividly with the flame-colour of the birch leaves and the 
sombre dark green of the pines. To the right is a tiny 
clearing, on which a crop of oats is fast ripening under the 
hot suns of autumn, but this alone gives sign of the handi- 
work of man. From the opposite bank of the river rises a 
steep slope of forest, and each headland and curve of bay 
is thickly covered with pine and fir, and birch and alder, 
which, touched by the sharp frosts of the September nights, 
already warn us of the waning of the year. In the pools 
beneath the bridge, on the placid surface of which the sun 
strikes hotly, we can plainly see a hundred tiny fish hold- 
ing high revel amongst the boulders which form the bed 
of this Devonshire-like trout-stream; but away in the 
great river before us, running in swirling eddies rotind the 
headlands, and wildly tossing tall rainbow-tinted jets of 
spray high into the sunny air amongst the rapids between 
the islands, the speckled trout and grayling have their 
home, and the lordly salmon cruises regardless of fly or 
minnow. Whether seen under the full blaze of noon-tide 
sunshine, or the wondrous brilliance of the Northern 
Lights, this panorama of river and forest scenery never 
failed to charm us. 
