THE HIGHLANDS OF THE SWEDISH DIVIDE. 269 
sight but bleak barrens, rocks, and that boiling, tearing 
flood. Eain and sleet, driving on a westerly gale, 
dashed horizontally in onr faces, and we realized the 
meaning of the word “ benighted.” 
After council held, we decided on trying half-a-mile 
higher; then, failing to find a ford, to retreat to the 
shelter of the woods below before it grew quite dark. 
Could prospects be gloomier ? It was black-dark 
ere we regained the woods. Soaked through from top 
to toe, benumbed with cold, without a bite of food or a 
drop of grog, we had no resource but to weather out 
that bitter night beneath the pines. x4nd this within 
sight of the Arctic circle ! 
One shred of luck befell. We chanced on the ruins 
of a Lapp hut—a bee-hive shaped wigwam of branches, 
without roof, and into which rain poured in torrents. 
Fortunately we carried a small hunting-hatchet, with 
which we cut down a silver-birch or two, and, by 
lighting the shreds of bark, soon had a big blaze in the 
centre of the hut. Two hours’ work were needed to 
provide a supply of birch-logs sufficient to keep the fire 
going all night; another hour was spent trying to dry 
some part at least of our soaking raiment. But clothes 
in a wringing condition, we found, cannot be so dried, 
and in sheer weariness we rolled over asleep around the 
fire, curled beneath the wet garments. 
Daybreak brought no relief. After a solid night’s 
rain, the rivers ran higher than ever, and even had it 
been possible to cross the minor stream (which had 
stopped us last night), the main Luru, we knew, would 
now be utterly impassable, even by boat. Our only 
resource was to fall back on our base, twenty-eight 
