THE LAND OF FJELD AND FJORD. 
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hundreds of yards, at about fifty shillings apiece; 
and with these my Norsk friends 44 brown ” the herds, 
44 pumping in lead ” as far as they can see. The result 
is suicidal. In a few years there will be no herds to 
4 4 brown/’ no meat for the pot, no kroner for the crown. 
The reindeer, it should here be added, is a really 
fine sporting beast. His habits and habitat (as fully 
explained later) place him quite in the first rank of 
European big game. In her herds of wild reindeer, 
Norway possesses an extremely valuable property, one 
which deserves (and will amply repay) more care, fore¬ 
thought, and protection than it now receives. 
Another feature of the high fjeld deserves passing 
note. The nomad Lapps keep ever trending southward, 
and the advent of their tame herds is notice to quit 
to wild deer. Whether these half-human vagrants 
enjoy prescriptive rights of free pasturage over all the 
length and breadth of the roof of Norway or to encamp 
at their own (not sweet) will, are questions beyond 
my knowledge. But a reluctance to resent Lapp intru¬ 
sion is evident among Norsk bonders —however much 
they dislike it. Conceivably such fly-away savages 
might, if provoked, prove awkward neighbours in a 
pastoral country; still, the latitude allowed them seems 
curious to outsiders. I remember the chief of a Lapp 
tribe explaining to me that 44 he and his forefathers had 
occupied the land long before the Norwegians came 
there, or a crown of Norway had existed.” This (in 
Nordre Trondhjem s Amt) was certainly untrue ; but 
nothing a Lapp says is ever true. 
