154 



LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 



[X. 



which reminded me a little of faces I had met with in the 

 more neglected districts of Ireland. Some ethnologists, in- 

 deed, are inclined to reckon the Laplanders as a branch of the 

 Celtic family. Others, again, maintain them to be Ugrians ; 

 while a few pretend to discover a relationship between the 

 Lapp language and the dialects of the Australian savages, and 

 similar outsiders of the human family ; alleging that as suc- 

 cessive stocks bubbled up from the central birthplace of 



A LAPP LADY S BONNET. 



mankind in Asia, the earlier and inferior races were gradually 

 driven outwards in concentric circles, like the rings produced 

 by the throwing of a stone into a pond ; and that conse- 

 quently, those who dwell in the uttermost ends of the earth 

 are, ipso facto, first cousins. 



This relationship with the Polynesian Niggers, the native 

 genealogists would probably scout with indignation, being 

 perfectly persuaded of the extreme gentility of their descent. 

 Their only knowledge of the patriarch Noah is as a person- 

 age who derives his principal claim to notoriety from having 



