150 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [X. 



by these arrangements is the little white fox which has come 

 with us from Iceland. Whether he considers the admission 

 on board of so domestic an animal to be a reflection on his 

 own wild Viking habits, I cannot say; but there is no imperti- 

 nence — even to the nibbling of her beard when she is asleep 

 — of which he is not guilty towards the poor old thing, who 

 passes the greater part of her mornings in gravely butting at 

 her irreverent tormentor. 



But I must relate our last week's proceedings in a more 

 orderly manner. 



As soon as the anchor was let go in Hammerfest harbour, 

 we went ashore ; and having first ascertained that the exist- 

 ence of a post does not necessarily imply letters, we turned 

 away, a little disappointed, to examine the metropolis of 

 Finmark. A nearer inspection did not improve the im- 

 pression its first appearance had made upon us ; and the 

 odour of rancid cod-liver oil, which seemed indiscriminately 

 to proceed from every building in the town, including the 

 church, has irretrievably confirmed us in our prejudices. 

 Nevertheless, henceforth the place will have one redeeming 

 association connected with it, which I am bound to mention. 

 It was in the streets of Hammerfest that I first set eyes on a 

 Laplander. Turning round the corner of one of the ill-built 

 houses, we suddenly ran over a diminutive little personage 

 in a white woollen tunic, bordered with red and yellow stripes, 

 green trousers, fastened round the ankles, and reindeer boots, 

 curving up at the toes like Turkish slippers. On her head — 

 for notwithstanding the trousers, she turned out to be a lady 

 — was perched a gay parti-coloured cap, fitting close round 

 the face, and running up at the back into an overarching 

 peak of red cloth. Within this peak was crammed — as I 

 afterwards learnt — a piece of hollow wood, weighing about 

 a quarter of a pound, into which is fitted the wearer's back 

 hair ; so that perhaps, after all, there does exist a more in- 

 convenient coiffure than a Paris bonnet. 



Hardly had we taken off our hats, and bowed a thousand 

 apologies for our unintentional rudeness to the fair inhabitant 



