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The Squashed version of
A Tour in Lapland
by
Carl Linnaeus
1811

I: A WANDERING SCIENTIST

Having been appointed by the Royal Academy of Sciences to travel through Lapland for the purpose of investigating the three kingdoms of nature in that country, I prepared my wearing apparel and other necessaries for the journey.

I carried a small leather bag, half an ell in length, but somewhat less in breadth, furnished on one side with hooks and eyes, so that it could be opened and shut at pleasure. This bag contained one shirt, two pairs of false sleeves, two half shirts, an inkstand, pen case, microscope and spying glass, a gauze cap to protect me occasionally from the gnats, a comb, my journal and a parcel of paper stitched together for drying plants, both in folio; my manuscript ornithology, Flora Uplandica, and Characters generici. I wore a hanger at my side, and carried a small fowling-piece, as well as a stick, graduated for the purpose of measuring.

I set out alone from the city of Upsal on Friday, May 22, 1732, at eleven o'clock, being at that time within half a day of twenty-five years of age.

At this season nature wore her most cheerful and delightful aspect, and Flora celebrated her nuptials with Phoebus. The winter corn was half a foot in height and the barley had just shot out its blade. The birch, the elm and the aspen tree began to put forth their leaves. A number of mares with their colts were grazing everywhere near the road.

I remarked the great length of the colts' legs, which, according to the common opinion, are as long at their birth as they will ever be. I noticed young kids, under whose chin, at the beginning of the throat, was a pair of tubercles, like those seen in pigs, about an inch long, and clothed with a few scattered hairs. Of their use I am ignorant.

The forest abounded with the yellow anemone (Anemone ranunculoides), which many people consider as differing from that genus. One would suppose they had never seen an anemone at all. Here, also, grew hepatica and wood sorrel.

Their blossoms were all closed. Who has endowed plants with intelligence to shut themselves up at the approach of rain? Even when the weather changes in a moment from sunshine to rain they immediately close.

Near the great river Linsnan I found blood-red stones. On rubbing them I found the red colour external and distinct from the stone; in fact, it was a red byssus.

At Enänger the people seemed somewhat larger in stature than in other places, especially the men. I inquired whether the children are kept longer at the breast than is usual with us, and was answered in the affirmative. They are allowed that nourishment more than twice as long as in other places. I have a notion that Adam and Eve were giants, and that mankind from one generation to another, owing to poverty and other causes, has diminished in size. Hence, perhaps, the diminutive stature of the Laplanders.

The old tradition that the inhabitants of Helsingland never have the ague is untrue, since I heard of many cases.

Between the post-house of Iggsund and Hudwiksvall a violet-coloured clay is found in abundance, forming a regular stratum. I observed it likewise in a hill, the strata of which consisted of two or three fingers' breadths of common vegetable mould, then from four to six inches of barren sand, next about a span of the violet clay, and, lastly, barren sand.

The clay contained small and delicately smooth white bivalve shells, quite entire, as well as some larger brown ones, of which great quantities are to be found near the waterside. I am, therefore, convinced that all these valleys and marshes have formerly been under water and that the highest hills only then rose above it.

At this spot. grows the Anemone hepatica with a purple flower; a variety so very rare in other places that I should almost be of the opinion of the gardeners, who believe the colours of particular earths may be communicated to flowers.

On May 21 I found at Natra some fields cultivated in an extraordinary manner. After the field has lain fallow three or four years, it is sown with one part rye and two parts barley, mixed together. The barley ripens, and is reaped. The rye, meantime, goes into leaf, but shoots up no stem, since it is smothered by the barley. After the barley has been reaped, however, the rye grows and ripens the following year, producing an abundant crop.

II: LAPLAND CUSTOMS

The Laplanders of Lycksele prepare a kind of curd or cheese from the milk of the reindeer and the leaves of sorrel. They boil these leaves in a copper vessel, adding one-third part water, stirring it continually with a ladle that it may not burn, and adding fresh leaves from time to time till the whole acquires the consistence of a syrup. This takes six or seven hours, after which it is set by to cool, and is then mixed with the milk and preserved for use from autumn till the ensuing summer in wooden vessels, or in the first stomach of the reindeer. It is stored either in the caves of the mountains or in holes dug in the ground, lest it should be attacked by the mountain mice.

IN Angermanland the people eat sour milk prepared in the following manner. After the milk is turned, and the curd taken out, the whey is put into a vessel, where it remains till it becomes sour. Immediately after the making of cheese, fresh whey is poured lukewarm on the former sour whey. This is repeated several times, care being always taken that the fresh whey be lukewarm. This prepared milk is esteemed a great dainty by the country people. Sometimes it is eaten along with fresh milk. Intermittent fevers would not be so rare here as they are if they could be produced by acid diet, for then this food must infallibly occasion them.

In Westbothland one of the peasants had shot a young beaver, which fell under my examination. It was a foot and a half long, exclusive of the tail, which was a palm in length and two inches and a half in breadth. The hairs on the back were longer than the rest; the external ones brownish black, the inner pale brown; the belly clothed with short, dark-brown fur; body depressed; ears obtuse, clothed with fine short hairs and destitute of any accessory lobe; snout blunt, with round nostrils; upper lip cloven as far as the nostrils; lower vary short; the whiskers black, long and stout; eyebrow of three bristles like the whiskers over each eye; neck, none. The fur of the belly was distinguished from that of the sides by a line on each side, in which the skin was visible. Feet clothed with very short hairs, quite different from those of the body. A fleshy integument invested the whole body.

There were two cutting teeth in each jaw, of which the upper pair were the shortest, and notched at the summit like steps; the lower and larger pair were sloped off obliquely-grinders very far remote from the fore teeth, which is characteristic of the animal, four on each side; hind feet webbed, but fore feet with separate claws; tail flat, oblong, obtuse, with a reticulated naked surface.

At Lycksele was a woman supposed to have a brood of frogs in her stomach, owing to drinking water containing frogs' spawn. She thought she could feel three of them, and that she and those beside her could hear them croak. Her uneasiness was alleviated by drinking brandy. Salt had no effect in killing the frogs, and even nux vomica, which had cured another case of the same kind, was useless. I advised her to try tar, but she had already tried it in vain.

The Lycksele Laplanders are subject, when compelled to drink the warm sea water, to allem, or colic, for which they use soot, snuff, salt and other remedies. They also suffer from asthma, epilepsy, pleurisy and rheumatism. Fever and small-pox are rare. They cure coughs by sulphur laid on burning fungus.

On June 3, being lost amid marshes, I sent a man to obtain a guide. About two in the afternoon he returned, accompanied by an extraordinary creature. I can scarce believe that any practical description of a fury could come up to the idea which this Lapland fair one excited. It might well be imagined she was really of Stygian origin. Her stature was very diminutive; her face of the darkest brown, from the effects of smoke; her eyes dark and sparkling; her eyebrows black. Her patchy-coloured hair hung loose about her head, and she wore a flat red cap.

Though a fury in appearance, she addressed me with pity and reserve. I inquired how far it was to Sorsele. "That we do not know," replied she; "but in the present state of the roads it is at least seven days' journey, as my husband has told me." I was exhausted and famishing. How I longed to meet once more people who feed on spoon-meat! I inquired of the woman if she could give me food. She replied that she could give me only fish, but finding the fish full of maggots, I could not touch it. On arriving at her hut, however, I perceived three cheeses, and succeeded in buying the smallest. Then I returned through the marshes the way I came.

I remarked that all the women hereabouts feed their infants by means of a horn; nor do they take the trouble of boiling the milk, so that no wonder the children have worms. I could not help being astonished that these peasants did not suckle their children.

Near the road I saw the under-jaw of a horse, having six fore teeth, much worn and blunted; two canine teeth; and at a distance from the latter twelve grinders, six on each side. If I knew how many teeth, and of what peculiar form, as well as how many udders and where situated, each animal has, I should perhaps be able to contrive a most natural methodical arrangement of quadrupeds.

(This observation seems to record the first idea of the Linnaean system of the order of the mammalia.)

Ill: IGNORANCE INCORRIGIBLE

On June 18 the people brought me a peasant's child, supposed to have cataract; I concluded that it was not cataract; but noticing that the eyeballs rolled upwards when the child was spoken to, I asked the mother whether, when she was with child, she had seen anybody turn their eyes in that manner. She replied that she had attended her mother, or mother-in-law, who was supposed to be dying, whose eyes rolled in a similar fashion. This was the cause of the infant's misfortune.

At Lulea I was informed of a disease of cattle so pestilential that though the animals were flayed even before they were cold, whenever their blood had come in contact with the human body it had caused gangrenous spots and sores. Some persons had both their hands swelled, and one his face, in consequence of the blood coming upon it. Many people had lost their lives by the disease, insomuch that nobody would now venture to flay any more of the cattle, but contrived to bury them whole.

On June 30 I arrived at Jockmock, where the curate and schoolmaster tormented me with their consummate and most incorrigible ignorance. I could not but wonder that so much pride and ambition, such scandalous want of information, with such incorrigible stupidity, could exist in persons of their profession, who are commonly expected to be men of knowledge. No man will deny the propriety of such people as these being placed as far as possible from civilized society.

The learned curate began his conversation by remarking how the clouds as they strike the mountains carry away stones, trees and cattle. I ventured to suggest that such accidents were rather to be attributed to the force of the wind, since the clouds could not of themselves carry away anything. He laughed at me, saying surely I had never seen any clouds. It seemed to me that he could never have been anywhere but in the clouds.

I explained that when the weather is foggy I walk in clouds, and that when the cloud is condensed it rains. At all such reasoning, being above his comprehension, he only laughed with a sardonic smile. Still less was he satisfied with my explanation how watery bubbles may be lifted into the air. He insisted that the clouds were solid bodies, reinforced his assertion with a text in Scripture, and laughed at my ignorance.

He next condescended to inform me that a phlegm is always to be found on the mountains where the clouds have touched them. I told him that the phlegm was a vegetable called nostoc, and he thereupon concluded that too much learning had turned my brain and, fully persuaded of his own complete knowledge of nature, was pleased to be very facetious at my expense. Finally he graciously advised me to pay some regard to the opinions of people skilled in these abstruse matters, and not to expose myself on my return by publishing such preposterous opinions.

Meantime the pedagogue lamented that people should bestow so much attention upon temporal vanities and consequently, alas, neglect their spiritual good; and he remarked that many a man had been ruined by too great application to study.

Both these wise men concurred in one thing: they could not conceal their wonder that the Royal Academy should have appointed a mere student for the purposes for which I was sent when there were men like themselves in the country.

The common method of the Laplanders for joining broken earthenware is to tie the fragments together with a thread and boil the whole in fresh milk, which acts as a cement.

The Laplanders are particularly swiftfooted because: they wear no heels to their half-boots; they are accustomed to run from their infancy, and habitually exercise their muscles; their muscles are not stiffened by labour; they eat animal food, and do not overeat; they are of small stature. They are healthy because they breathe pure air and drink pure water, eat their food cold and thoroughly cooked, never overload their stomachs, and have a tranquil mind.

IV: A LAPLAND MARRIAGE

All-the Laplanders are blear-eyed, owing to the sharp wind, the glare on the snow, fogs and smoke. Yet I never met any people who lead such easy, happy lives as the Laplanders. In summer they have two meals of milk a day, and when they have milked their reindeer or made cheese, they resign themselves to indolent tranquillity, not knowing what to do next.

When a Laplander wishes to marry he goes with all his nearest relatives to the hut of the young woman. He himself remains outside; but the others, laden with provisions and presents, enter and begin negotiations. When they are all seated the young man's father presents some brandy to the young woman's father, and being asked the reason of the gift, replies: "I am come hither with a good intention, and I pray God it may prosper." He then declares his errand, and if his suit is favourably received, the friends of the lover place the presents- usually utensils and silver coins- on a reindeer skin before the father and the mother of the prospective bride, and the father, or the mother, of the lover apportions the money to the young woman and her parents. If the presents are considered satisfactory, the daughter is sent for.

When the bride enters the hut her father asks her whether she is satisfied with what he has done. To which she replies that she submits herself to the disposal of her father. The mother then lays in the bride's lap the sum apportioned for her. If it proves less than she expected, she shows her dissatisfaction by various gestures and signs of refusal.

When such pecuniary matters are finally arranged the father and mother of the bridegroom present him and his bride with a cup of brandy, of which they partake together, and then all the company shake hands. Afterwards they take off their hats, and one of the company makes an oration, praying for God's blessing upon the couple.

Then the provisions, which generally consist of several cheeses and a piece of meat dried and salted, are brought forward, and the company sit down to feast.
The bride and bridegroom are placed together and are given the best of the provisions.

The dinner being over, the whole company shake hands, return thanks for the entertainment and retire to bed. Next morning they all feed on the remainder of the feast. The marriage ceremony is performed after the company has departed.

About one o'clock on the afternoon of October 10, I returned safe to Upsal.