74 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



general journey, and although, we could perhaps 

 have done a little more by travelling at night, it 

 was hardly worth our while. It certainly was sad 

 crawling work, and I suppose old Mountjoy in his 

 best day would have walked up in less time. I 

 reckoned that the expenses of the three and the dog 

 averaged 6s. per day, and the posting came to 

 about Is. 2d. the Swedish mile for each sledge. 

 Altogether the journey up cost us near £25. The 

 horses and sledging were pretty good throughout. 

 Luckily we had no rain, but the cold at times was 

 intense. We had scarcely an incident on the 

 road worth recording, and the scenery through 

 which we passed on the whole journey may be 

 summed up in three words, " Snow and pines. 55 

 We found the posting stations in the north far 

 superior to those in the middle of Sweden, and 

 the living appeared to become better the further 

 north we came. 



I could not help remarking how very few birds 

 of any description we saw on our road up — one 

 Ural owl, one blackcock, and one Siberian jay 

 were all that we shot, and w^e always had a loaded 

 gun ready in the sledge, but neither heard of nor 

 saw a single wolf. 



We got capital quarters in the priest 5 s house 

 at the rate of one rixdaler banco, or Is. 8d. per day 

 for each man. 



