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make two sorts of it, one colourless, and the other
of a yellowish tin t; but whether it was owing to the
quality of the milk, or coloured with some ingredient,
I could not learn. Cheese, they told me, was
literally the only solid food they had to live upon
at this time; and judging from the manner in which
I was thanked for a small quantity of dried beef,
and a piece of gammel ost, the remnants of my
stock of provisions, I could readily believe what
they told me. My servant, who was himself addicted
to chewing tobacco, gave some rolls of it to
the Laplanders, who seemed delighted beyond
measure at the acquisition of such an unlooked-for
luxury.
The custom of shaking hands on receiving any
benefit, as a token of their gratitude, appears to be
observed by the Laplanders, in the same manner
as among the Norwegians and Swedes.
Having fully satisfied my curiosity, and being
thoroughly drenched with rain, I was not sorry to
take my leave of these poor creatures; for, with all
their apparent gaiety, occasioned no doubt by the
visit of a stranger, and the exhilarating effects of a
good dram of brandy, it was melancholy to reflect
upon their apparently wretched state of existence;
but it seemed to confii’m what Dr. Johnson has
said, that existence is a blessing, under any circumstances
: in point of fact, we are not competent
to judge of what others feel, who are placed wholly
under different circumstances from ourselves in
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every stage of life. Here, at least, their excessive
cheerfulness, and apparent content, seemed to
contradict any idea of real suffering; for, during
the whole period of my stay, one incessant noise of
chattering and laughing was kept up among them.
The daughter seemed an industrious girl : she was
makino- herself a dress of rein-deer skin, and did
not allow herself to be interrupted by our visit, but
continued her work, occasionally looking up, talking,
and joining in the laugh. How they get
over the winter I can form no id e a ; the mountain
on which they have fixed their abode for that
season appears, by Forsell’s map, to be 4080 feet
high. Tile reason of their preference for these
elevated situations is on account of their being
most congenial with the nature and habits of their
rein-deer, who are not only creatures of an arctic
climate, but find here, in the greatest abundance,
the moss that constitutes the chief article of their
food— the lichen rancjiferinus—and on the good
condition of these animals the Laplanders must
depend for their existence ;—■
“ Their rein-deer form their riches. These their tents,
Their rohes, their beds, and all their homely wealth
Siipjily, their wholesome fare, and cheerful cups.”
I now descended the mountain, and between
three and four o’clock in the afternoon again
reached Myhrmoe, after an absence of more than
twelve hours, eleven of which were spent on horseback,
mostly amidst heavy rain and mist. The