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was married ; her husband, and their little cdiild.
These, together with another Lap, whose relationship
I could not discover, and two little girls who
attended the rein-deer, made up the total of tiie
family. One of these little girls, who, from lier
appearance, miglit be about thirteen years of
age, said she was two-and-twenty. They were
all, indeed, old and yoimg, of a diminutive size,
the tallest person appearing to me to he under
five feet. When I find it stated, however, in print,
that the average height of the men, by actual
measurement, on this very same spot, was four
feet, and that of the women not above three and
a half, I perhaps ought to doubt my faculty of
judging; and equally so my sense of hearing;
for so far from finding the voice of the Laplander
soft and effeminate, according with the softness of
his language, as is stated by the same authority, it
appeared to me to be precisely the reverse. Their
language itself sounded harsh, and the pronunciation
not unlike that of the Irish market-women one
hears in Covent G ard en ; and they talked so loud
and so rapidly, as to give to a stranger the idea of
their quarrelling. Those I visited spoke the Norse
language, as well as their own. One of the first
questions that the old lady put to me, when I found
her alone at her former habitation, was, whether I
could give her a dram ? Being prepared for an
application of this kind, I had taken a bottle of
brandy purposely for their use (and a little for my
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own,) with which they were all greatly pleased; but
I repented having been so lavish as to put them in
possession of the bottle, when I observed the man
coolly pouring out the whole contents into a bowl,
with the obvious intention of finishingO' it at once:
this the old man and woman would certainly have
done between them, had I not insisted on their putting
part of it back again, and giving the bottle to
one of the little girls to put away. I thought it
right to do so, in order to prevent their getting
tipsy, though I do not know that this would have
happened, as I found they are not unaccustomed
to drink large quantities of spirits with impunity,
whenever it falls in their way.
I can say nothing in favour of this specimen of
the Laps now before me. If the rest be like them,
they must be considered as a filthy, squalid people;
they are, in fact,—
So wither’d, and so wild in their attire,”
th a t they
“ look not like the inhabitants o f the earth,
And yet are on’t.”
They set before me a great quantity of their reindeer
cheese, but it was so nauseous to the palate
th a t I could not bring myself to eat any part of it.
It reminded me of the cheese which is in common
use in Norway, made from goats’ milk, but this was
infinitely stronger, both as to smell and taste. They
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