CHAPTER IV.
Departure from Muonioni/ca, July the firjl— Pxcefjive Heat— Travel
by Night— A Settlement called Pallajoveniÿ— Proper Boundary o f
Lapland—Mijlake o f Travellers and Geographers concerning Lapland—
Face of the Country between Muonionifca and Pallajovenio,.
and thence to Kautoieino— The fmall Rivers i f the Country offer
more Novelty than the greater ones— Difficulties ar'ffing from Jhal-
• low Water— The Rein-deer Mofs ( Lichen rangiferimts, Linn.)
,. covering the whole Surface o f the Ground : Vegetation near it—
Arrival at Lappajervi— Mufquetoes exceedingly troublefome—-Fires
. and Smoke the m fl effeSlual ProteSlion againft them— Some Lapland
Fijhermen— Their Habitations— A Night-paffed with thefe
People, and Accommodation afforded.
T T 7 E iet off from Muonionifca on the fir ft day of July, about
ten o clock at night. The atmofphere was heated to a
degree nearly fuffocating throughout the whole o f the day. The
thermometer of Celfius Ihewed at noon 2Q degrees; at midnight
it fell down to IQ degrees. The water in the rivers and lakes was
clear and limpid, and we fhould gladly have bathed ourfelves, had
we not been deterred from fuch a refolution by the mufquetoes,
who would have devoured us alive, i f we had expofed ourfelves
to
to their fury without the protedlion o f our clothes. W e chofe to
purfue our journey at night, and came to a determination to ob-
ferve the fame rule in future, and take our reft in the day-time, in
order to enjoy that temperature of the air which in the night
feafon is produced .by the obliquity o f the fun’s rays. W e af-
cended the Muonio until we arrived at the little river of Pallojoki,
a t a fmall diftance from which there is a fettlement, or colony,
called Pallajovenio.
This colony is the proper boundary of Lapland towards T o rn e a ;
accordingly it is named in the map Tornea Lapmark : therefore
until you have reached Pallajovenio, you cannot be faid geographically
to have fet. foot in Lapland. The whole o f that vaft
tra il of country which comprehends Lulea, Pitea, and Umea, as
far as Tornea, properly belongs to Weft Bothnia. In this rcfpecl
travellers are greatly miftaken, and fuppofe they have been in
Lapland when they have got as far as T o rn e a; whereas Weft
Bothnia makes an angle more to the north, nearly the diftance of
two hundred and forty miles beyond Tornea. If a perfon, when
in Sweden, wiihes to fee Lapland merely for the credit of having
vifited that country, he has no occafion to go farther than Afele,
which is about an hundred miles at moft diftant from Umea, on
the borders of Angermanland; but if he delires to lee a country
different from any that he has ever, leen, and to contemplate the
manners of a people unlike,, in every particular, to all the inhabitants
of Europe, he muft proceed northwards, and leave behind
him the great towns, and all notions of a civilized ftate of lociety.
Th e