the number ihe intended. She is defrauded o f her eggs as before,
and continues repeating the fame procefs four or five times, when
the man, who has by this time gathered perhaps a fcore o f eggs
from the fame neft, fuffers her to lay the laft for the increafe o f
her family. As foon as the eggs are hatched, the mother takes the
chicks gently in her bill, carries and lays them down at the foot
o f the tree, where ihe teaches them the way to the river, in which
they inftantly fwim with an aftoniihing facility.
From Kardis to Kengis is a diftance o f fifteen miles, which is
aceompliihed with great fatigue, on account o f continued catarafts
and the violent current o f the river. Befides the danger o f the
water-falls, we were much molefted by a Ipecies o f gnat, a cir-
cumftance which, in companlon o f what we were to experience
afterwards, perhaps does not deferve to be noticed in this place.
Our fervants began to murmur and complain o f the excefs o f
their hardfhips, o f the extravagance o f our travels: they thought
it extremely foohih to fuffer~ and hazard fo much in a country
where one does not meet with any o f the enjoyments o f life, not
even with a bottle o f wine, or fo much as an alehouie : in ihort
they made us underliand that the country contained nothing in
the fmalleft degree interefting to them, and that their only wifli
was to return. W e endeavoured to conduct ourfelves like good
officers; but though we fet them an example o f perfeit fobriety,
and ihared with them the fame bread and dried meat, as well'as
the fame trouble and hardlhips, it was impoffible to recal them to
good humour; nor could they ever forget that they were ftill
about
about four hundred Engliih miles from the laft ftage o f our intended
progrefs in the North.
Our arrival at Kengis, however, conciliated them a little. W e
met here an infpeftor o f the mines, who received us with much
civility, and fupplied us with a plentiful board and lodging. The
objeft o f this gentleman’s refidence in this country was to encourage
and promote the ereftion o f founderies, o f which he had conceived
the moft fanguine hopes, but which had been abandoned
and refumed at different times, according to the profpefts o f the
adventurers. He had invited fettlers from the North, formed a
fpecies o f colony, opened a new branch o f traffic, and within thefe
few years had benefited this part o f Lapland by the produce of
the mines. He lived here happily enough, having, at a confider-
able expence, been able to procure himfelf all the conveniencies
o f life. He had turned fome land in the vicinity o f his houfe into
meadow ground, and planted an eminence hard by with Italian
poplars, which feemed aftonifhed to find themfelves in thofe hyperborean
regions. When Maupertuis paffed by Kengis on his way
to the heart o f Lapland, in order to vifit a ftone with fome perhaps
accidental impreffion upon it, which he chufes to denominate the
moft ancient infcription jn the univerfe, there feems to have been
no infpeilor o f founderies here, as he then lived at the houfe o f a
clergyman. He calls Kengis a miferable place.* We were not
tempted to vifit this monument; the people of the country feemed
to have no tradition concerning it, nor did our curiofity lie greatly
*. See Maupertuis’s Travels, from page 179 to 209.
in