30. _Veronica serpyllifolia_, upright, with a blue flower. (_V.
alpina._)
The lofty mountains, piled one upon another, showed no signs of volcanic
fire, but were covered with stones, all of a fissile kind, and by that
means easily distinguishable. From the snow, which lay so plentifully on
these mountains as to cover half the ground, water was continually
running down in streams like so many springs, or like rivers cut through
the deep snow, for the refreshment of travellers. We found it very good.
The little alpine variety of the Ptarmigan (_Tetrao Lagopus_) was now
accompanied by its young. I caught one of these, upon which the hen ran
so close to me, that I could easily have taken her also. She kept
continually jumping round and round me; but I thought it a pity to
deprive the tender brood of their mother, neither would my compassion
for the mother allow me long to detain her offspring, which I restored
to her in safety.
After having walked four or five miles in the course of the night, I
went to sleep in the morning in one of the cottages of the country.
_July 7._
The inhabitants, sixteen in number, lay there all naked. They washed
themselves by rubbing the body downwards, not upwards. They washed their
dishes with their fingers, squirting water out of their mouths upon the
spoon, and then poured into them boiled reindeer's milk, which was as
thick as common milk mixed with eggs, and had a strong flavour. Some
thousands of reindeer came home in the morning, which were milked by the
men as well as the women, who kneeled down on one knee.
From the top of the head of some of these reindeer I took out the
maggots which trouble them so much. I observed here in plenty the large
fly with a yellow neck, and yellow segments of the body, (_Oestrus
Tarandi_,) which probably is the same insect (in a perfect state), as I
judge by the length of the legs.
My hosts gave me _missen_ to eat; that is, whey, after the curd is
separated from it, coagulated by boiling, which renders it very firm.
Its flavour was good, but the washing of the spoon took away my
appetite, as the master of the house wiped it dry with his fingers,
whilst his wife cleaned the bowl, in which milk had been, in a similar
manner, licking her finger after every stroke.
I also tasted some _jumo_, which they mixed with reindeer's milk, but it
did not please me.
This day I gathered the following plants. (The numbers are continued
from _p. 291_.)
31. _Saxifraga_ with a tuberous root, a simple stem flowering at the
summit, and bulbs in the bosoms of the leaves. (_S. cernua._) This has
much resemblance to the common Saxifrage, (_S. granulata_,) but bears
only one flower at the top of the stem, which is pendulous before it
opens. The petals and stamens are white. In the bosom of each leaf are
about ten naked anther-like little heads (or buds), which grow out into
embryos of future plants. It inhabits watery places.
32. A very small _Juncus_, with a _spatha_ of two leaves, enclosing two
seeds; (rather capsules, but Linnaeus wrote seeds, because it appears by
the manuscript that he took the plant at first for a _Carex_.) This is
one of the smallest of grasses, bearing a solitary spike, one floret of
which has an upright glume, (or leaf of the _spatha_,) the other a
reflexed one. The petals are whitish. Pistil snow-white. Stamens six.
(This can be no other than _Juncus biglumis_, see _Engl. Bot. t. 898_,
omitted in Linnaeus's own edition of Fl. Lapp. and supposed to have been
first found by the celebrated Dr. Montin in 1749.)
33. _Carex_ with several black loose pendulous spikes, one of which is
male, two or three female. (_C. saxatilis._)
34. _Draba_ with a yellow flower. (_D. alpina._) Pod like the
rye-flower. (_D. verna_, see _p. 5_.)
35. _Salix_ creeping under ground, with elegant roundish-oval, rugged,
rigid leaves. (_S. reticulata._) Male and female.
36. _Salix_ with oblong, obtuse, slightly serrated leaves. (_S. n. 367,
Fl. Lapp.?_) In marshy places.
The Willows often grow to the height of a man in moist places, or on
islands in the rivers, but in elevated situations no tree is more than a
foot high; nor is there any plant, except the dwarf birch (_Betula
nana_) and the Willows, that affords the inhabitants any wood.
[Illustration]
37. A very small _Pedicularis_, with the aspect of the _Sceptrum
Carolinum_. The fruit is curved. (_P. flammea._) This very elegant
little plant so exactly represents the _Sceptrum Carolinum_, plentiful
here in moist places, one might take it for a representation of that in
miniature. The leaves are brownish, pinnate; their segments imbricated.
Flowers four, five, or more, at the top of the stem. Calyx like that of
_Sceptrum Carolinum_. Petal with an erect upper lip, which is narrow,
compressed, and brownish; the lower lip horizontal, three-cleft,
saffron-coloured, like all the rest of the flower. Root like skirrets.
38. _Saxifraga_ with oblong, acute, thickish leaves, rough with rigid
hairs at the edges. (_S. aizoides._) It had not yet flowered, but I
afterwards found the blossoms, which were yellow, with a large, flat
calyx, in five ovate segments. Petals five, small, ovate, yellow
besprinkled with orange. Embryo yellow, two-horned. Stigmas orbicular,
flat, whitish. Stamens awlshaped, five of them very short.
39. _Juncoides capitulis psyllii_, with loose heads of flowers. (_Juncus
campestris._) Also another with conglomerated heads. (_J. campestris
[beta]_. _Fl. Lapp. t. 10. f. 2._ Certainly a distinct species.)
The birds I saw were Snow-buntings (_Emberiza nivalis_); Green Plovers
in great plenty, (_Charadrius pluvialis,_) called by the Laplanders
_Hutti_; and Wheat-ears. (_Motacilla Oenanthe._)
The Laplanders of this neighbourhood do not often take the diversion of
shooting. They are seldom masters of a fowling-piece; and when not
occupied in following or attending the reindeer, they remain in idleness
for whole days together, feeding on nothing but milk, and the dishes
prepared from it.
I satisfied myself here that the crackling noise made by the reindeer
does not originate in the hoof, nor in the lowermost joint of the foot.
The women of this neighbourhood smoke tobacco as well as the men. Every
body learns to smoke about the age of twelve or fifteen.
Whenever I gave my host about an ell of twisted tobacco, I was sure to
obtain in return a cheese of double its value.
The large-flowered _Cerastium_ (_C. alpinum_) was here every where in
abundance, and the prickly _Lycopodium_. (_L. Selaginoides?_).
The neighbouring mountain abounded with a very black fissile aluminous
stone.
The surface of the snow appeared to have a vibratory motion, like water
slightly agitated, or like a large white sail swelled by the wind.
All the inhabitants of this neighbourhood wore garments made of reindeer
skins.
_July 8._
The plants I found this day were the following.