Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/313

Rh and pools about seven in number, with two long stretches of deep, still water intervening, till the last rapid is reached, above which is the lake. About a hundred yards from where the river runs out of the lake, the Dunkratelv runs in—this is a raging torrent with one or two small pools at long intervals, and is quite impassable for boats; at the upper end of the lake the continuation of the Maskejok runs in; it also is more or less of a torrent, and very shallow, so that boats can only be got up it to the lake beyond with infinite labour, when the river is high.

In the upper pools of the river are three or four small islets, and in the lake one, all covered with very dense willow scrub four to seven feet in height; on these an occasional Fieldfare, Redwing, or Common Sandpiper was seen.

The hills on either side, rising more or less steeply from the river banks, are nowhere very high, the highest point being about nine hundred feet. Their sides, almost to their summits, are clothed with thick birch woods, which reach right to the very edge of the river, there being only a very few places along the banks which are clear of trees. Where a small stream comes in, transforming the bank into a swamp, the birches give way to willows, which form a tangled and almost impenetrable thicket six to seven feet high, hence walking up the banks of the river is a very laborious means of progression; all the gravelly points of the river are also clothed with this same scrub. The birches vary in height up to twenty or twenty-five feet, and the only other trees seen were a few small mountain ashes and the willows, though the alder is fairly common near the mouth, where also are the only clear grassy patches, which have been transformed into hay-fields around the one or two small farms. With this exception the valley is quite uninhabited, but the numerous turf huts of all ages and in all stages of decay met with along the banks, show that parties of Finns occasionally visit the river to fish it, while others further away nearer the fjeld are evidently the remains of Fjeld Lapp encampments, as the remains of Reindeer and Wolves and the shed antlers on the fjeld testify. From the south side of the lake a tolerably well-marked foot-track leads across the fjeld to Polmak, on the Tana; this is used by parties of Finns with pack-horses, who come to net the lake. That this is a fairly wild region is evidenced by the fact that during our