THROUGH LAPLAND. 
95 
three of his filli into flices, and treated our whole caravan with a 
difh of his falmon, prepared in the manner of foup and bouillie, 
feafoned with fome herbs and fait, and a handful of oatmeal, which 
he took out of a bag that feemed to form not the lealt important 
article of his wealth. Having neither plate, fork, nor fpoon, we 
were obliged to fupply the place of thefe w ith pieces of the bark 
of the birch-tree, and we made an excellent dinner. 
This falmon-filher’s boat was of great ufe in tranfporting us 
over a river that obftrudted our way to Alten, where w 7 e were de- 
firous of arriving as quickly as poffible, in order to put an end to 
a fatiguing journey of nearly forty miles through the mountains. 
We were landed from the boat in a wood, the paths or tradls of 
which gave us to underftand that we had now come to a country 
inhabited by men. We enquired every inftant of our guides who 
went before us, where w'as Alten-Gaard ? how many miles we 
had travelled, and how many we had yet to go ? Every moment 
we expected to be at our journey’s end, and our knees began to 
tremble, unable any longer to fupport us, as we purfued our wind¬ 
ing road through this foreft; when, to our extreme mortification 
as well as furprife, we difcovered that the labyrinthical tradl we 
followed had milled us ; and after an hour’s walking we perceived 
that we were exactly at the fame fpot where we had landed from 
the filherman’s boat.* Amidft this defolation, we could not help 
* Nel bofco Ferrau molto fi avvolfe 
E ritrovoffi alfin onde fi tolfe. Ariosto. 
“ Long through the devious wilds the Spaniard paft, 
“ And to the river’s banks returned at laft: 
“ The place again the wandering warrior view’d, 
“ Where late he dropt his cafque amid the flood. 
