MATTHIAS ALEXANDER GASTRIN. 



160 



this peril ; the nights were spent near a large fire kindled in the open air, with- 

 out any shelter against the rain and wind. 



The Iwalo River is, during the greater part of its course, encased between 

 high rocks ; but a few miles before it discharges itself into the large Lake of 

 Enara, its valley improves into a fine grassy plain. Small islands covered with 

 trees divide the waters, which now flow more tranquilly ; soon also traces of 

 culture appear, and the astonished traveller finds in the village of Kyro, not 

 wretched Lapland huts, but well-built houses of Finnish settlers, with green 

 meadows and cornfields. 



The beautiful Lake of Enara, sixty miles long and forty miles broad, is so 

 thickly studded with islands that they have never yet been counted. After the 

 ti-avellers had spent a few days among the Fisher Lapps who sojourn on its 

 borders, they proceeded northward to Utzjoki, the limit of their expedition, and 

 one of the centres of Lapland civilization, as it boasts of a church, which is 

 served by a man of high character and of no little ability. On accepting his 

 charge, this self-denying priest had performed the journey from Tornea in the 

 depth of winter, accompanied by a young wife and a female relation of the lat- 

 ter, fifteen years of age. He had found the parsonage, vacated by his predeces- 

 sor, a wretched building, distant some fifteen miles from the nearest Lapp habi- 

 tation. After estabhshing himself and his family in this dreary tenement, he 

 had returned from a pastoral excursion to find his home destroyed by a fire, from 

 which its inmates had escaped with the loss of all that they possessed. A miser- 

 able hut, built for the temporary shelter of the Lapps who resorted thither for 

 divine service, afforded the family a refuge for the winter. He had since con- 

 trived to build himself another dwelling, in which our party found him, after 

 five years' residence, the father of a family, and the chief of a happy household. 

 Gladly would the travellers have remained some time longer under his hospita- 

 ble roof, but the birds of passage were moving to the south, warning them to 

 follow their example. 



Thus they set out, on August 15, for their homeward voyage, which proved 

 no less difiicult and laborious than the former. At length, after wandering 

 through deserts and swamps — frequently wet to the skin, and often without 

 food for many hours — they arrived at Rowaniemi, where they embarked on the 

 Kemi River. 



" With conflicting feelings," says Castren, " I descended its stream ; for every 

 cataract was not only well-known to me from the days of my earliest childhood, 

 but the cataracts were even the only acquaintances which death had left me in 

 the place of my birth. Along with the mournful impressions which the loss of 

 beloved relations made upon my mind, it was delightful to renew my inter- 

 course with the rapid stream and its waterfalls — those boisterous playfel- 

 lows, which had often brought me into peril when a boy. Kow, as before, it 

 was a pleasant sport to me to be hurried along by their tumultuous waters, 

 and to be wetted by their spray. The boatmen often tried to persuade 

 me to land before passing the most dangerous waterfalls, and declared that 

 they could not be answerable for my safety. But, in spite of all their remon- 

 strances, I remained in the boat, nor had I reason to repent of my boldness, for 



