BIBDS MET WITH IN EAST FINMABK. 263 



and pools about seven in number, with two long stretches of 

 deep, still water intervening, till the last rapid is reached, above 

 which is the lake. About a hundred yards from where the river 

 runs out of the lake, the Dunkratelv runs in — this is a raging 

 torrent with one or two small pools at long intervals, and is 

 quite impassable for boats ; at the upper end of the lake the 

 continuation of the Maskejok runs in ; it also is more or less 

 of a torrent, and very shallow, so that boats can only be got up 

 it to the lake beyond with infinite labour, when the river is high. 



In the upper pools of the river are three or four small islets, 

 and in the lake one, all covered with very dense willow scrub 

 four to seven feet in height ; on these an occasional Fieldfare, 

 Eedwing, or Common Sandpiper was seen. 



The hills on either side, rising more or less steeply from the 

 river banks, are nowhere very high, the highest point being about 

 nine hundred feet. Their sides, almost to their summits, are 

 clothed with thick birch woods, which reach right to the very 

 edge of the river, there being only a very few places along the 

 banks which are clear of trees. Where a small stream comes 

 in, transforming the bank into a swamp, the birches give way to 

 willows, which form a tangled and almost impenetrable thicket 

 six to seven feet high, hence walking up the banks of the river 

 is a very laborious means of progression ; all the gravelly points 

 of the river are also clothed with this same scrub. The birches 

 vary in height up to twenty or twenty-five feet, and the only 

 other trees seen were a few small mountain ashes and the willows, 

 though the alder is fairly common near the mouth, where also 

 are the only clear grassy patches, which have been transformed 

 into hay-fields around the one or two small farms. With this 

 exception the valley is quite uninhabited, but the numerous turf 

 huts of all ages and in all stages of decay met with along the 

 banks, show that parties of Finns occasionally visit the river to 

 fish it, while others further away nearer the fjeld are evidently 

 the remains of Fjeld Lapp encampments, as the remains of Rein- 

 deer and Wolves and the shed antlers on the fjeld testify. From 

 the south side of the lake a tolerably well-marked foot-track leads 

 across the fjeld to Polmak, on the Tana ; this is used by parties 

 of Finns with pack-horses, who come to net the lake. That this 

 is a fairly wild region is evidenced by the fact that during our 



