him iome news more recent than any that he had heard. One
may form an idea of the little communication there is between
thole parts and the reft of Europe from the following circum-
ftance : it was the lQth of July, 1799, and the minifter of Hem-
merfeft had received no intelligence concerning, the great affairs
of nations lince the viftory obtained by the Englilh fleet at Abou-
kir, in Auguft 1798.
We did not receive the fame honours as a t Maaio, becaufe,
perhaps, the merchants at Hammerfeft had neither cannon nor
ammunition. Such is the weaknefs and foolilh vanity of human
nature, that on our departure from this place, we were feniible of
fome dilappointment in not hearing any report of cannon. We
Ihould not have been diipleafed if the lame mark of refpect, or
rather folly, had been ihewn us.
At Alten we found ready to meet us a man whom I had employed
to colleft plants and infefts, and another who had come to entertain
us with his fiddle, and to give us a Ipecimen of the mufic o f
this part of Europe. See Appendix. At this village we remained
feveral days for the purpofe of making the neceffary preparations
for our return to the gulf of Bothnia. During this interval of
repole, we made a lhort excuriion to Tel wig, in order to fee the
Laplanders who came thither from all quarters to fell their fiih.
It is a fmall port or creek of the lea, three miles from Alten,
where there is a village inhabited by fome merchants and a clergyman
: it poffeffes a church.
I lhall not fatigue my reader with a detail o f all the minute cir-
8 cumftances
cumftances of our return acrofs the delert. I lhall conduct him
by rapid marches to Tornea, giving only the outline o f our jo u rney.
In two boats we reafcended the river Alten againft all its
cataradts, and by dint of perfeverance, pulhed farther up than any
one had ever done before. The paffage along this river is as pictu-
refque as the imagination and heart of a painter can delire. Its banks
are fometimes beautifully decked with birch ; at others they prefent
a rugged and horrid afpecl; perpendicular rocks, with here and
there deep chafms and precipices, fearful and inacceflible. In our
progrefs up the river, we met with a cafcade, rulhing perpendicularly
from a rock, which had a ftriking refemblance to the ruins
of the vaulted roof of a majeftic cathedral: at the foot of thefe
rocks is a fmall lake, and all around natural fteps, as if cut in the
ftone, which gives to the whole the appearance of an ancient
temple. Here we law a bear who had come to the river near this
place to flake his thirft, but who had no iooner 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 paffed the night.
Farther onward we were ftruck with two eafcades oppolite to
each other, and both falling from the banks of the fame river,
Alten, which forms itfelf, at a fmall diftance, an infurmountable
cataradl. The proximation of three luch waterfalls is a circum-
ftance perfectly Angular in its kind; at leaft I have never any
where feen or heard of any thing fimilar ; and had I merely beheld
it repreiented in a drawing, it would have appeared to me
the work of fancy, and altogether incredible. Here we made an
effort