part in fummer, and efface the traces o f thofe melancholy im-
preffions which his exaggerated defcription may have left on the
imagination o f the reader.
The town o f Tornea contains a population o f fcarcely fix hundred
fouls. T he houfes are almoft entirely o f a fingle ftory,
though high enough to exclude the moifture o f the fnow in winter.
T he merchants o f Tornea inhabit the fouthern part o f the
town, which they have been at pains to embelliili, and render as
agreeable as poffible: they have made a public walk, laid out
gardens, planted fome trees, and have ftudied by their induftry to
compenfate for the defeds o f nature. The obfcure days o f winter
are counterbalanced by the almoft continual prefence o f the
fun in fummer, and their 48 degrees o f cold, to which the mercury
falls in one fealon, are exchanged for 27 o f heat, to which
it rifes in the other ; for thefe are the two extremes o f the thermometer
that have been obferved in Tornea.*
The town is almoft entirely encircled by the river Tornea,
which fpreads itfelf here in a majeftic ftream. T he oppofite
banks prefent a number o f cottages and farm houfes, which the
river, when quiet and undifturbed, reflects from its pellucid waters.
Northward you fee a fmall elevation, on the top o f which ftand
feveral wind-mills, and lower down to the north-eaft are fome
meadow grounds and. cultivated fields. It is commonly from one
o f thofe wind-mills that travellers view the fun at midnight in
* See De la Motraye’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 288. He was in Tornea Igth May,
4 7 1 8 , and found all the town deilroyed by the Mufcovites.
the month of June; but the place moft particularly calculated
for enjoying this fpedacle, is the church o f Lower Torneâ, fituated
on the ifle Biorkôn, about a mile from the town. Befides feeing
the fun entirely above the horizon at this point o f view, the eye
commands the environs o f Tornea, the two mountains Bakamo
and Korpekila, and the town itfelf, which is built upon the little
ifland, or rather peninfula, o f Swenfar. T he houfes, and the
church with its fteeplé, being refkded from the fmooth furface
o f thé river, afford a very pleating pidure.
Merchant ihips, that' fail up the gulf o f Bothnia, may come
almoft clofe to the town ; and indeed, anciently, Torneâ was
famed for its excellent harbour. T he fand, which the fea carries
into the northern parts o f the gulf, feems to threaten ruin in the
courfe o f time to the trade o f this province : for it appears to me
certain, almoft to demonftratlon, that the ports o f Tornea, Uleâ-.
borg, and fome other places in the northern quarter o f the gulf,
lofe in depth o f water every year.
This town was founded in confequence o f an order o f Charles
IX. when he paffed through this province in the year 1Ô02. T he
articles o f their export trade are butter, tallow, falted and dried
meat, falted and fmoked falmon, ftrdmingen, which are a ipecies o f
fmall herrings,* planks, and timber for building, tar, {kins o f rein
deer, foxes, wolves, ermines, and o f other animals belonging to the
country, with a vaft quantity o f birds. T he articles they import
* Clupea harengus minor ; membras veterum.