’ 
. " : 
As : on literature in Denmark, May 9. 
Mercury did not spread blefsings every where! I beg 
your pardon for a paradox borrowed from the Hudson’s: 
Bay Company, and many others. However, the diffe- 
rence is very great between the Esquimaux and my coun- 
trymen. The first are savages from time immemorial, but 
the latter have the honour, if honour it can be called, to 
have fallen from the most civilized state of society, and 
be reduced to the most abject abyfs of ignorance and- 
wretched pride. For amidst all their feelings and senti- 
ments of poverty, they find an ample consolation in their 
noble pedigrees, and antiquity of their forgotten origin 5 
and so continue to lead a life indolent, and industricusly 
idle. Would to heaven that the pious labours of the 
prince royal, and his friends, the counts Bernstorff, Revent- 
low, Mr Colbiornsen, and his excellency the privy coun- 
sellor Bulow, may never suffer the least abatement in 
their vigour, but cantinue firm and intrepid! I with Ice- 
land may get. some new colonies from Scotland; they 
will live well Iam sure in a country where land sells al- 
most for nothing, and the provisions are exceedingly cheap. 
They wauld be kindly received by the natives as their 
countrymen, for the Icelanders pride themselves on being 
descended from the ancient Scots, and they still preserv 
some of the arts that are lost in Britain* . 
* The sira of the Icelanders is certainly the very same thing with the 
blanda of Buchanan, which he thus describes, lib. a. c. 33. Serum lactis 
aliquot annos serwatum in| conviviis etiam avide bibunt. Id potionis genus 
blandium appellant. Major pars agua siti: sedat. This is evidently the 
sira, of which our Icelanders are now so very fond, a particular description 
of which follows : 
RECEIPT TO MAKE SrRA, AN ICELANDIC DISH. 
Run milk, prefs the curd slightly, and run offthe whey. Put the curd 
ima barrel stopped up, and now and then let out the air. After eighteen 
months keeping, it is fit for use. A few spoonfuls of it, ata time, are 
to be mixed with common milk of whey. 
* . . . . > 
Jn Icelend, whey is also put in cafks; where it is suffered to ferment, 
and is drank after being six months barrelled, 
