400 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



air, all bespake the well-bred Englishman. I 

 could have picked them out of a thousand foreign 

 youths as sons of the old country, as well as if 

 their native land had been written on their fore- 

 heads. We soon got into conversation, for there 

 was nothing of that haughty pride about them 

 which too often characterizes the travelling Briton. 

 There was no nonsense about these three 

 young fellows, and there was a refreshing and 

 truly English welcome conveyed in the quiet, half- 

 knowing nod, and "How are you, old fellow, this 

 morning ?" when we met at the breakfast-table. 

 The greeting was, perhaps, not quite so demon- 

 strative as when two foreigners meet, but it was 

 equally sincere. " I wonder," once asked a foreign 

 lady of me, "whether there was ever a really 

 polite Englishman." " Certainly not, in your 

 acceptation of the term," I answered ; "for we 

 generally mean what we say." 



It seems that these young travellers had been 

 by sea coastwise right up to the Alten, near the 

 North Cape, and come down on foot all the way 

 to Tornea, through the very wilds of Lapland, 

 without an interpreter, and not knowing a word 

 of the language. I thought I had done great 

 things getting up as far as Quickiock, and yet 

 these three seemed to make nothing of their travel; 

 and I could not help admiring the quiet, unassum- 



