tery and parafitical praife are but little in faihion, and confe-
quently we did not fufpcct the parfon of diflimulation, or that he
was not perfectly fatisfied as to the good qualities he afcribcd to
th a t beverage.
I fhall now lay before the reader what information I was able
to colled, refpeding this village and the manners of its inhabitants.
The population of the whole parilh confifts of four hundred
fouls, difperfed over a furface of nearly two hundred fquare
miles. The inhabitants are all of them Finlandifli emigrants, who
came and fettled here, and who confequently fpeak the language ,
o f Finland. All travellers who have vifited this country have
named the people Laplanders; and I have in fome degree conformed
myfelf, in the courfe of this work, to the fame prejudice,
but I have diftinguiihed them by the appellation of Finlandiih
Laplanders, or in other words, Finlanders fettled in Lapland.
Their habits and manner of life are nearly the fame with thofe
of the natives o f Finland ; and, indeed, there is no difference but
what is produced by climate and their topographical fituation. It
it very remarkable, however, that the Finlanders fettled here,
like the paftoral Laplanders, know nothing either of poetry and
mufic, or mufical inftruments. Surrounded with lakes and rivers
abounding in filh, they take little concern in agriculture, but depend
chiefly for fubfiftence on the precarious reiouree of fiihing,
or on the Hill more uncertain fruits of the chaie. The qualities,
as among all favage nations, in the higheft eftimation in the male
fex, are bodily ftrength and adivity. They enjoy the appetite of
love,
love, but have little experience of the fighs and tender emotions
of that paflion. The people have a gloomy and ferious deportment
s the youth of both fexes remain in the company o f each
other without the leaft of that playful gaiety which is fo becoming
in their years. I never once obferved a young man dired a
fmile of complaifance towards a young woman. It is a pretty
general cuftom, however, for the youth of both fexes to deep together,
and what is ftill more extraordinary, without producing Da
ny decifive evidence of too much familiarity. The father charges
himfelf w ith the marriage of his child; and the union of the
parties is a contrad rather dictated by family convenience than
by any prediledion for each other. At the fame time there have
been inftances of jealouly, and even o f madneis occafioned by
this paflion. There was a woman, it feems, ftill alive, who became
infane from love, and who in her frenzy killed her own
daughter. She is faid to have entertained a violent fufpicion of
a woman, whom ihc iuppofed had engaged the a lie cl ions of her
huiband. W e find contradidions in the charader of every pedple
on earth, and this is a ftriking example in corroboration of that
obfervation. There is not an inftance of either robbery or murder
known in this country; but Cafes of filicide have happened :
people have drowned themfelves, or made attempts upon their
lives in one ihape or another. Such excefles are there attributed
neither to want nor tó the paflion of love, but to madneis, occafioned
by fome natural caufe, or to violent depreflion and lo wnefs
o f ipirift.
D 2 The