romance. On one hand you see a grove of trees rise from a plain, smooth and level as the walks of a garden, and at such easy distances, as neither to embarrass the walks, nor the prospect of the lake that washes the foot of the mountain: on the other you have apartments of different sizes, that seem cut by art in the rocks, and to want only a regular roof to complete them. The rocks themselves are so perpendicular, so high, and so smooth, that you would take them for the walls of an unfinished palace, rather than for the work of nature. From this height we saw those vapours rise from the lake, which the people of the country call Haltios, and deem the guardian spirits of the mountains. We had been frightened with stories of bears haunting this place, but saw none; indeed it seemed rather a place of resort for fairies and genii than for those savage animals. Having completed our observations, we left Niemi, repassed the three lakes, and got back to Turtula. We afterwards departed from thence, and set out for Horrilakero, entering the Tenglio with four boats. Its cataracts are troublesome, rather from the lowness of the water, and the great number of stones, than the rapidity of the stream. As we sailed along I was surprised to see, upon the banks of this river, roses of as lively a red as any in our gardens. We completed our observations at Horrilakero on the 17th of August, and the next day went to OswerTornea, where our whole company was now assembled. But afterwards going up to Avasaxa, to take the angles that must connect the base, which we had fixed on the bank of the river, with our triangles, we saw Horrilakero all in flames. This is an accident not uncommon in these woods, where there is no living during the summer without smoke, and where the moss and firs are so combustible, that a fire once kindled will spread over some thousand acres; and the smoke of these fires have sometimes retarded our observations as much as the thickness of the air. As this fire on Horrilakero had been, doubtless, occasioned by our not taking sufficient care to extinguish those we had kindled there, we dispatched thirty men to cut off its communication with the neighbouring woods: but three days after, when we had finished our observations at Avasaxa, Horrilakero was still burning; we saw it involved in a cloud of smoke, and the flames, which had made their way downwards, were ravaging all the forest below. By the 9th of September, when we had passed sixty-three days in these deserts, we had finished as complete a set of triangles as we could have wished for; and an undertaking begun in a manner at random, without knowing whether it was at all practicable, had turned out so much better than expectation, that it looked as if the placing of these mountains had been at our disposal. We had built two observatories upon Kittis; in the one was a quadrant of two foot radius, a clock of Mr. Graham's, and an instrument, which we owed to the same gentleman, consisting of a telescope moveable about a horizontal axis, which was to determine the direction of our triangles with respect to the meridian: the other observatory, which was much larger, was built so near the first, that the voice of him who counted the pendulum's vibrations, could be distinctly heard from one to the other; an admirable sector, also made by Mr. Graham, took up almost the whole room. What difficulty we had in carrying up so many instruments to the top of the mountain, I shall not mention; it is sufficient that we carried them up. CHAP. II. The dreadful hardships they suffered from the severity of the weather, and the beauty of the northern lights in a Lapland winter. WE had some ice on the 29th of September, and snow on the 21st; some parts of the river were also frozen. On the 1st of November it began to freeze harder, and on the morning of the 2d the river was quite frozen up. The ice, which thawed no more, was presently covered over with snow; and this vast body of water, but a few days before full of swans and other water-fowl, was now one immense plain of ice and snow. Our work was now in a manner completed; we had only to measure our base, which was no more than surveying the distance between the two signals we had erected last summer: but this was to be done upon the ice of a river in Lapland, at the distance of above three leagues, in a country where the cold was growing every day more intense. On the 21st of December this work was begun. In this season the sun but just showed itself above the horizon towards noon; but the long twilights, the whiteness of the snow, and the meteors continually blazing in the sky, furnished us light enough to work four or five hours every day. We lodged at the house of the curate of Oswer-Tornea, and at eleven in the forenoon began our survey, and attended by so great an equipage, that the Laplanders, drawn by the novelty of the sight, came down from the neighbouring moun : tains. We separated into two bands, each of which carried four rods of fir, each thirty feet long. I shall say nothing of the fatigues and dangers of this operation. Judge what it must be to walk in snow two feet deep, with heavy poles in our hands, which we were obliged to be continually laying on the snow, and lifting again; in a cold so extreme, that, whenever we would taste a little brandy, the only thing that could be kept liquid, our tongues and lips froze to the cup, and came away bloody: in a cold, that congealed the fingers of some of us, and threatened us with still more dismal accidents. While the extremities of our bodies were thus freezing, the rest, through excessive toil, was bathed in sweat. Brandy did not quench our thirst; we must have recourse to deep wells dug through the ice, which were shut almost as soon as opened, and from which the water would scarcely be conveyed unfrozen to our lips; thus were we forced to run the hazard of the dangerous contrast which ice-water might produce in our heated bodies. Our work, however, advanced apace, for six days labour brought it to within about 500 toises, where we had not been able to plant our stakes soon enough: three of the gentlemen therefore undertook this office, while the abbé Outhier and I went upon a pretty extraordinary adventure. We had last summer omitted an observation of small moment; this was, taking the height of an object that we made use of in measuring on the top of Avasaxa; and to perform this, I undertook to go with a quadrant to the top of the mountain, so scrupulously careful were we that nothing should be wanting to the perfection of the work. Imagine a very high mountain, full of rocks, that lie hid in a prodigious quantity of snow, as well as their cavities, wherein you may sink through a crust of snow as into an abyss, and the undertaking will scarce appear possible. Yet there are two ways of performing it; one by walking, or rather sliding along upon two straight boards, eight feet in length, which the Finlanders and Laplanders use to keep them from sinking into the snow; but this way of walking requires long practice: the other is by trusting yourself to a rein-deer used to such journeys. The machine drawn by these animals is here a kind of boat, scarce large enough to hold the half of one's body. As this travelling in the snow is a kind of navigation, that the vessel may suffer the less resistance in its course, it has a sharp head, and a narrow keel, like an ordinary boat; and on this keel it tumbles so from side to side, that if a man does not take good care to balance himself, it will be every moment in danger of oversetting. It is fixed by thongs to the collar of the rein-deer, who, as soon as he finds himself on a firm, beaten road, runs with incredible fury. If you would stop him, it is to little purpose to pull a sort of rein that is tied to his horns; wild and unmanageable, it will only make him change his track, or perhaps turn upon you, and revenge himself by kicking. If this happens to a Laplander, he turns the boat over him, and uses it as a buckler against the attacks of the rein-deer; but as we were strangers to this address, we might have been killed before we could put ourselves in such a posture of defence. We had nothing to defend us with but a little stick each of us held in his hand, by way of rudder, to steer our course, and keep clear of the trunks of trees. In this manner was I to climb Avasaxa, accompanied |