THE HIGHLANDS OF THE SWEDISH DIVIDE. 243 
and in that we succeeded. No English sportsman had 
ever before invaded the solitudes of Muru. We had left 
behind those hunter s horrors—population, cultivation, 
and so forth ; but in passing beyond the line where 
even the hardy Norseman, inured to unequal strife, 
ceases to wrestle with impossible odds, we found our¬ 
selves confronted with a new and unexpected terror—* 
the Lapp. These savages wander at will over the North 
Scandinavian backwoods and highlands, pasturing their 
herds of deer regardless of private rights or property, 
and innocent of the nature or existence of law. I do 
not infer that they deliberately break the laws. They 
are many degrees too low down the scale for that. 
The mere propinquity of these nomads would not 
have injured our prospects but for the combination of 
another circumstance—an early snowfall. Already, in 
the first days of September, the heights of Hartkjolens 
lay white as Soracte. The snow drove the Lapps and 
their deer—and with the deer, their ever-attendant 
wolves-—earlier than wont from the hills into the lower 
forest. Their advent was notice to quit to the solitude- 
loving elk, which moved off into denser woods beyond. 
Our first morning in Nordli the wind blew strongly 
towards our best ground. Accordingly, to gain the 
leeward, we proceeded together down-wind to the base 
of the big hills, twelve miles distant, there separating 
and swinging back in wide circuits to left and right 
respectively. Before that preliminary walk was com¬ 
pleted, the key-note had been struck. First our dogs, 
Jeta and Jagt , took a scent which, on crossing some 
peat-hags, was seen to belong to three reindeer , going 
at speed. Following from curiosity for half a mile, we 
