158 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [X. 



menial employment. If, after the brandy and the proposal 

 have been duly discussed, the eloquence of his friend pre- 

 vails, he is himself called into the conclave, and the young 

 people are allowed to rub noses. 'The bride then accepts 

 from her suitor a present of a reindeer's tongue, and the es- 

 pousals are considered concluded. The marriage does not 

 take place for two or three years afterwards ; and during the 

 interval the intended is obliged to labour in the service of 

 his father-in-law, as diligently as Jacob served Laban for 

 the sake of his long-loved Rachel. 



I cannot better conclude this summary of what I have 

 been able to learn about the honest Lapps, than by sending 

 you the tourist's stock specimen of a Lapp love-ditty, The 

 author is supposed to be hastening in his sledge towards 

 the home of his adored one : — 



' ' Hasten, Kulnasatz ! my little reindeer ! long is the way, and 

 boundless are the marshes. Swift are we, and light of foot, and soon 

 we shall have come to whither we are speeding. There shall I behold 

 my fair one pacing. Kulnasatz, my reindeer, look forth ! look around ! 

 Dost thou not see her somewhere — bathing?" 



As soon as we had thoroughly looked over the Lapp 

 lady and her companions, a process to which they submitted 

 with the greatest complacency, we proceeded to inspect 

 the other lions of the town ; the church, the lazar-house, — 

 principally occupied by Lapps, — the stock fish establish- 

 ment, and the hotel. But a very few hours were sufficient 

 to exhaust the pleasures of Hammerfest ; so having bought 

 an extra suit of jerseys for my people, and laid in a supply 

 of other necessaries, likely to be useful in our cruise to 

 Spitzbergen, we exchanged dinners with the Consul, a 

 transaction by which, I fear, he got the worst of the bargain, 

 and then got under way for this place, — Alten. 



The very day we left Hammerfest our hopes of being 

 able to get to Spitzbergen at all — received a tremendous 

 shock. We had just sat down to dinner, and I was help- 

 ing the Consul to fish, when in comes Wilson, his face, 



