Book Description

In the latter part of this day, July 15th, I set out on my return from the low grounds of Norway. The heat was very powerful as we began to ascend the mountains. When we reached what had seemed to us from below the summit of a hill, we saw just as lofty an eminence before us, and this was the case nine or ten successive times. I had no idea of such mountains before. The elevation of this hill cannot be taken by any geometrical instrument, as the summit is not visible, even at some miles distance. I believe its height must exceed a Swedish mile, but to climb it was worse than going two miles any other way. Had we not frequently met with such abundance of water, we should have been overcome with fatigue. In this ascent I found the little Astragalus (alpinus) with a white flower, and the Little Gentian (Gentiana nivalis). Our clothes, which were wet quite through with perspiration, in consequence of the heat we had encountered in the beginning of our journey, were now frozen stiff upon our backs by the cold. We determined to seek for a Laplander's hut. In order to get at one, we were obliged to descend so steep a hill, that, being unable to walk down it, I lay down on my back and slid along, with the rapidity of an arrow from a bow. I avoided with difficulty the large snow torrents that every now and then came in my way, and which were sometimes within an ell of me. On reaching this hut, I noticed some of the reindeer whose horns were not above half an inch long, the Brom-fly (Oestrus Tarandi) having bitten them while quite tender; for these insects are, in the Norwegian alps, worse than the gnats of Swedish Lapland.