66 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA, 
ing under our feet. Hence a gradual descent through 
thick birch shrubbery leads us to Anajaur, a lake some 
four miles round, embosomed in forest, and famous for the 
size of its pike, which, however, are but seldom disturbed 
by the drag-nets of the Ligga farmer. Having crossed 
this in a crazy boat, an hour’s walk through spruce forest 
brings us to the tiny clearing we seek. 
‘Ligga is a small farm inhabited by a hardy Swede, 
who has cleared away some twenty acres of forest on a 
plateau about five hundred feet above the Stora Lule 
river, which, having left at its junction with the Lilla Lule 
at Posi-forssen, we now strike some forty miles nearer its 
source, The farm-house consists of the customary weather- 
board building of two rooms, and is prettily placed close to 
the bank of a mountain stream rushing down in cascades 
to join the big river at the foot of the mountain slope. 
One of these rooms is allotted to us, and in this we sling 
our hammocks, and, in spite of the cold, for chinks are 
numerous in the walls, and it is freezing hard outside, pass 
a fairly comfortable night. The ground is sparkling with 
hoar-frost when we turn out next morning, and, greatly to 
the amusement of a couple of Lapps, the labourers at the 
farm, proceed to make our ablutions in a big pool.of the 
torrent. A hearty breakfast of Chicago beef, biscuits, and 
coffee—the latter always excellent in Scandinavia—and at -- 
nine we start for the falls. This part of the country is 
almost uninhabited—we are deep in the recesses of the 
forest primeval, with a plethora of the beauties of nature 
round us, rendered doubly beautiful by the aspect of all- 
pervading repose and solitude. Save at Ligga we see not 
a single human being in the course of our seventy mile 
walk. We are on higher ground this second day, and some 
of the firs and spruces are of noble dimensions, but the 
under-growth is scantier, owing to the more exposed nature 
of the country and the shallowness of the soil. Every- 
where huge boulders lie in picturesque confusion, and the 
gnarled roots of the trees twist and curl here and there 
-seeking in vain for sufficient depth of soil to cover them. 
