Immediately after that the bogs began, most of them covered with water. Imagine the toil of walking through that for 7 miles! At every step the water reached our knees, even higher if we were unable to step on tussocks. Sometimes the depth was bottonaless and we had to make a diversion round the whole area. Our boots were full of cold water, for there was still frost in the ground in some places. If I had been enduring all this for the sake of some mortal sin, the punishment would still have been harsh – so what can I say in this case? I wished I had never undertaken this journey. Worse still, all the elements were against us, for it was raining and it was windy. I was amazed that I survived that journey, and I was utterly exhausted. After we had searched everywhere in vain for the new Lapp, we sat down, it being 6 o’clock in the morning, wrung out our wet clothes and dried our bodies, though the cold north wind hurt us as much on one side as the fire burned us on the other, while mosquitoes bit us on both sides. Now I had had my fill of travelling. The whole of this Lapp country was bog, which is why I called it the Styx.9 No priest has ever painted Hell so vile that this does not exceed it, no poet described a Styx so foul that this does not eclipse it. I have reached the Styx. We were travelling into wild territory, without knowing whither. The Lapp who lived closest to this place – and he had not visited this district for 20 years – set off to seek out the local Lapp while I rested by the fire. There was nothing I desired more than to be able to travel back down the river, but the route back to the boat filled me with fear for I knew that my body was not made of iron and steel. I wished it had been possible to walk back to the boat, even as much as 60 or 70 miles as long as it was dry road, but there was no chance of that. The Lapps, who are born to hardship as birds are to flight, complained that they had never been in such a bad way, and I commiserated with them.