94 
TRAVELS 
feeing again the river of Alten rolling its pellucid ftream through 
rich meadows, and with a velocity which recalled to our minds 
our paffage from Kautokcino to Koinosjoki. Betwixt Kautokeino 
to the charming diftridl where we had now arrived, a fpace of one 
hundred and twenty Englifh miles, we did not meet with a hu¬ 
man creature, excepting the two Laplanders of Kautokeino, who 
left their nets and followed us, as before-mentioned. 
At the place where w T e now were, we at length fell in with a 
falmon-fiflier, who had come thither w 7 ith his wife. It is fo un- 
ufual and unheard-of a thing to meet with any human being in 
thofe fequeftered regions, that when the woman heard the noile 
we made in the woods, file was affrighted, and wanted to per- 
fuade her hufband to betake himfelf with her to flight, for fear of 
fome wild beafl, or unknowm monfter, coming to devour them. 
When we came up file had not recovered herfelf; however flie 
had become more compofed as fhe had a nearer view of us while 
w e approached. She was young, and the changes of colour in her 
countenance occafioned by fear rendered her the more interefling. 
Perhaps it was the effect of our prefent folitude, and owing to the 
circumftance that we had not enjoyed the pleafure of feeing the 
fair fex for a long time, but I thought that this woman was not 
unworthy of a place in the number of beauties. She had black 
eyes, regular features, and chefnut hair. Whatever was the caufe 
I know not, but I could not help fixing my eyes on her more than 
on any other of the furrounding objects. The fiflier had a flore 
of excellent falmon, and alfo a pot for boiling it. He cut two or 
three 
