THROUGH LAPLAND. 
JI 9 
cumRances of our return acrofs the defert. I fhall conduct him 
by rapid marches to Tornea, giving only the outline of our jour¬ 
ney. In two boats we reafcended the river Alten againft all its 
catarads, and by dint of perfeverance, pufhed farther up than any 
one had ever done before. The paflage along this river is as pictu- 
refque as the imagination and heart of a painter can defire. Its banks 
are fometimes beautifully decked with birch ; at others they prefent 
a rugged and horrid afpedi ; perpendicular rocks, with here and 
there deep chafms and precipices, fearful and inacceffible. In our 
progrefs up the river, we met with a cafcade, rufhing perpendi¬ 
cularly from a rock, which had a Rriking rcfemblance to the ruins 
of the vaulted roof of a majeRic cathedral: at the foot of thefe 
rocks is a fmall lake, and all around natural Reps, as if cut in the 
Rone, which gives to the whole the appearance of an ancient 
temple. Here we faw a bear who had come to the river near this 
place to flake his thirfl, but who had no fooner fpied us than he 
made off to the woods. A fox too came to drink at the fame place, 
which was in front of our tent where we had pafled the night. 
Farther onward we were Rruck with two cafcades oppofite to 
each other, and both falling from the banks of the fame river, 
Alten, which forms itfelf, at a fmall diflance, an infurmountable 
cataradl. The proximation of three fuch waterfalls is a circum- 
Rance perfectly Angular in its kind ; at leaR I have never any¬ 
where feen or heard of any thing Amilar ; and had I merely be¬ 
held it reprefented in a drawing, it would have appeared to me 
the work of fancy, and altogether incredible. Here we made an 
effort 
