The cutter pulled round and round the lifebuoy, extending the circle at each revolution, but they could neither see nor hear anything of Bob. At last it occurred to Jimmy that the bear would be certain to swim after the ship instead of going to the buoy, so he returned and picked up the still flaming lifebuoy, and then pulled slowly, with the bowmen looking out ahead, in the direction he expected she would have taken, and, sure enough, half-way back they overtook her and picked her up.

The whole watch were gathered at the gangway when the boat got alongside, to greet

their mascotte, and as she appeared-hoisted up by a rope's end-they broke into a subdued cheer.

Bob was by this time fullgrown, and she was a distinctly awkward customer for a stranger to meet, especially if she were in a bad temper. And as time went on, her fits of moroseness

almost ferocity-grew more frequent. In fact, she became a nuisance in the ship, and Herring could hardly allow her out of his sight. She was greatly attached to her nurse, but when one of her fits was upon her even he could do nothing with her by persuasion -brute force was necessary; Herring was was not a big or particularly powerful man, and he often had to ask for assistance in subduing her. There was much talk as to what was to be done with her, and the general opinion was that she should be sent to the Zoo. But no steps were taken about it.

And then the Egyptian war of 1882 broke out, and the Mediterranean Fleet was ordered to Alexandria, where Nemesis awaited poor Bob, and the problem was solved by a power greater even than the admiral.

When the ship was cleared for action preparatory to bombarding the forts of Alexandria, orders were issued that the bear was to be kept below, and when the bombardment actually commenced, in the early morning of 11th July, she was tied up in the dynamo flat, next door to that set

staff, who undertook to keep an eye on her. Herring, of course, was not available, as he could not be spared from his station in the magazine, and Bob missed him sadly. She had always been unhappy during target practice, not liking the noise and the shock of the guns going off, and she wanted some one to comfort her. As a rule this want was supplied by some one who had nothing particular to do, but on this occasion, the ship being really in action, every one had lots to do, and had to do it.

Resenting this apparent neglect, Bob set to work and chewed through the line which held her and, unobserved, wandered off to find Herring, or some one else who would pay her a little attention. In vain; nobody had any time to spare.

وو

Joyfully but unsuspectingly the bear trotted aft along the quarter-deck, confident that at last she was to receive some sympathy. The sentry waved her back. "No, Bob, no," he cried. "You can't come here. Go- A crash interrupted him, followed by a blinding flash and a roar, as a shell passed through the port bulwarks and burst as it got inboard. The man reeled back under the break of the poop, and fell full length on the deck at the door of the admiral's cabin.

A moment later he sat up, raised his hand to his head, and paused, dazed, for a while. Then he rose slowly to his feet and felt himself all over. He was unhurt. But

They buried poor Bob at sea that night, and all hands, and many officers, assembled at the gangway to witness the ceremony.

AT Suorva we had two alternatives-we might sit down quietly where we were, or we might on the day after the morrow set off in the motorboat up towards the Norwegian frontier to Vaisaluokta, following our original scheme. My

knee voted loudly for the first alternative; the presence of the engineer, a gossipy companionable man, added an inducement. The trip up to Vaisaluokta tempted us only from a sightseeing point of view, as without a guide one could find nothing, nor could we expect to gain much experience of the Lapps different from what we had already. We decided for the quiet, the engineer, and the chance to make a sketch or two.

Jo's bear fantasy on the previous night had not been without some foundation, for in telling it as a joke to the engineer, we gleaned the curious information that the girl whom we had seen departing with the motor-boat was, in fact, on a pilgrimage into the mountains. Her fiancé, a man accustomed to solitary climbing expeditions into Akka and Sarek, had set off two years before, carrying, as usual, a small portable tent and his provisions. He had disap

X.

peared. Lapps despatched to look for him found his tent pitched on the slopes of Akka, with everything apparently intact. The mountain-sides and the glaciers were searched, but no explanation could be found other than the presence of a female bear with cubs. In general, the bears are not counted dangerous except in this very contingency; and it had been suggested that, stumbling by accident upon the bear, he was killed and eaten. The girl was now making a trip to visit the spot where his tent had been found, and to climb herself to the top of Akka.

guns.

Suorva lies in the national park of Stora Sjöfallet. There are three such parks in Lapland-Abisko, Sarek, and this one. In these no wild animals may be killed, nor may the settlers even keep dogs or Only the Lapps are allowed to follow their usual habits, but even they may not injure the animals. It follows that in the winter-for during some period the sun does not rise at all over the hills at Suorva-the wolves will come down into the village, and bears are to be seen shuffling along the ledges behind the settlement.

At the moment when we had come into Suorva, behind Svakko's heels, we had been surprised to see a reindeer run from under the roof of a smithy shop. The engineer now told us that this reindeer had a peculiar liking for Suorva. "Each spring it will follow the herd as far as this place, but farther it won't go. The deer stays here all the summer until the herd passes through Suorva again, when it rejoins the Lapps and goes back to the winter pasturages with them."

The engineer was a grizzled practical man of about fifty, who, having knocked about the world, had not been hearthardened in the process. Here only on a voyage of inspection from the greater works at Porjus, he was living in the hotel, and gave us his company and some interesting information. We told him of our hunt for Scårpa, and learned that a party of Lapps moving southwards were even now encamped on the shores of the lower lake, half-way to Stora Sjöfallet, or the great lake fall. On the morrow the engineer was sending a motor-boat down for letters, and he said that if we liked we could travel down with the boat, land amongst the Lapps to ask for news of Scarpa, and be picked

"There are parts here," he said, "only equalled in my rather wide experience by some of the valleys of the Himalayas. I expect you'll have some fun hunting for Scârpa yet."

He spoke good English, having knocked about for some years in English ships; and although we now could chat in ordinary Swedish quite clearly, he was glad of the opportunity to exercise both his memory and his ability. We had been told, on coming to Sweden, that English and German would carry us through. Needless to say, this is a mistaken notion.

On the morrow we set out in the long rowing-boat fitted with an outboard motor, a boat half employed by the works and half by the Swedish touring club. Though we kept a smart watch, no Lapp fire was to be seen. Evidently they were moving on, and were now travelling invisibly through the birch groves which matted the banks from the lake's edge to the foot of the tall cliffs, over which numberless thin waterfalls spouted from the melting glaciers and snowfields above. On the lake at the top of Stora Sjöfallet one had a curious view; a long line of rocks was breached in two wide spaces, across which the water cut a straight horizon up against the sky. From the

boat it seemed as though the world itself had here been suddenly broken off short. After we had landed, I went slowly over the rocks to the lip of the fall, the greatest waterfall in Sweden. The water drops in a springing arch of solid green for about 130 feet on a total width of over a third of a mile. The fall is divided into two parts; the southern side, being the deepest and narrowest, is the more impressive of the two.

Jo had declined to go rockclambering, and had been picking cloud berries for immediate consumption. But now, getting tired of my prolonged absence, she tried to make her way back to the boat. A nice flat field promising a short cut, she walked over it, to find herself in a bog, as if she had not already had enough experience of such things. Having scrambled to safety on a tussock, she was compelled to wait in considerable discomfort till the engineer's assistant, coming back with the post-bag, could find a few planks to rescue her. I, coming back to the same spot, was similarly deceived, and in turn was bogged.

We had arrived back at Suorva, and were having lunch, when the engineer bustling in exclaimed

"Well, you missed the Lapps this morning. But you are in luck. Some families of Lapps are just coming down from the mountains in boats. They have to make a portage here. You'll just be in time to see them."

Our mountain Lapps of two days before might own nothing which could not be carried on the reindeer's back. These families now rowing down the Suorva lake travelled somewhat more luxuriously. Coming from the district of Vaisa, westward towards the sources of the Luleälv river, they could transport their material in boats while their reindeer, less heavily laden, made their way by paths known only to the Lapp along the ledges and cliffs and through the birchwoods of the shore.

Already the first boat had paddled in to the little jetty of the electric works, and the Lapps were disembarking their material. Women and children scrambled ashore, babies in the peculiar Lapp cradles were handed up, dogs were kicked out, and goats, with the agility of their kind, sprang from the boats, and at once wandered off in search of food. The goat is still almost a recent addition to Lapp farming. In the winter-time they cannot follow the reindeer herds, but have to be protected from the cold, and foddered in huts. The Lapps are fond of goat's milk. Miss Nordström has a poignant description of the spring-time and of the Lapp first orgy of coffee with goat's milk, after the long winter during which nothing better than soured and frozen reindeer milk has been procurable. She admits herself to drinking thirty-two cups, her little Lapp maid drank forty, but the Lapps themselves did not stop till