458 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and not ungraceful figure, though with full waists and large hands 

 and feet. The older women look worn, but never have the haggish 

 and almost brutalized look which is not uncommon in old women in 

 other countries who have led hard, out-door lives. The general expres- 

 sion of countenance is somewhat pathetic, though they seem contented 

 with their strange, solitary, and joyless life ; and we could never get 

 any of them to confess that they would care to change it, nor even to 

 complain of what, as it appeared to us, must be the terrible monotony 

 and hardship of the long, dark winter. In looking at these settlements 

 and considering the nature of the life we seemed to understand more 

 clearly the position and circumstances of the immigrants who are grad- 

 ually pushing farther and farther along the shores of the great rivers 

 of the American Continent, and carrying into the solitudes of the im- 

 mense forests of the West the proofs of Anglo-Saxon courage, endur- 

 ance, and pertinacity. 



At some of the stations we saw specimens of the original inhabit- 

 ants of the lands within the arctic circle, in the persons of Lapp men 

 and women of uncertain age, about four feet high, and dressed in 

 skins, with blue conical caps on their heads. In Norway it is said 

 that the Lapps are looked upon and treated as an inferior race, the 

 pariahs of the North; but in Swedish Lapland there is no appearance 

 of such distinctions. The comfort and even safety of the settlers de- 

 pend so much on their good relations with their neighbors that they 

 have remained on terms of equality and friendship. Intermarriages 

 are not uncommon, and many of the present settlers show signs of the 

 mixture of the races. 



The population of Swedish Lapland is said to include 4,000 per- 

 sons of true Lapp race, and in some districts this number is increasing. 

 The children born in the mountains die fast, but those who remain in 

 the villages are healthy. Provision is made for their instruction, and 

 in common with the children of the Swedes they all learn to read and 

 write, though, judging by the absence of books at the settlements, 

 they reap little advantage from their instruction. The Lapps were 

 converted to Lutheranism some hundred years ago, and are said to be 

 strict religionists. At the present time some kind of revival is going 

 on among them, a faint reflex of the Moody and Sankey movement in 

 this country and America. 



They depend for their living entirely upon their reindeer, which 

 they take up into the mountains all the summer, feeding them in the 

 villages during the winter, when the rein-moss, which is their ordi- 

 nary food, is no longer obtainable in the woods. This migration is 

 rendered necessary by the habits of the reindeer, which must be near 

 snow to keep in health. When on their summer excursions, the Lapps 

 live in tents made of rein-skins, lying at night round a fire in the cen- 

 tre, a hole being left in the roof for the passage of the smoke. Their 

 food consists of rein-flesh, fish, and game, and they keep a pot, like 



