at 4 of captain Billings. y^^y !•• 



las's, who is charged with the businefs of the expe- 

 dition, and was much pleased with his ftirewd sen- 

 sible remarks on every subject started to him. Even 

 his laughable attachment to such a climate is how- 

 ever a virtue strongly implanted in the nature of 

 man, for a wise purpose, and seems always strong- 

 er, in proportion to the physical imperfections of 

 the country. Nay none seem so subject to the mala- 

 die du pays (of which both Swi(s, Scots, and Welch, 

 have been known to die,) as mountaineers aud o- 

 ther inhabitants of the lefs fertile districts. 



His winter drefs is a long garment reaching down 

 half his legs, of rein deer ikin, with the hair in- 

 wards ; a cap of the same : and both breeches and 

 stockings when travelling or in his own country, 

 are likewise of that fur ; though here he wears com- 

 mon boots, and thinner bretches, in our compara- 

 tively warm climate. 



The colour of the outside is a dark red, tanned* 

 in his own family, soft to the touch like cotton vel- 



* The simple procefs of tanning the hides of the rein deer, as prac- 

 tised by each family is as follows : 



They are first co\'ered, and rolled up for twenty four hours, with a 

 coating of the faecal contents of the animal's bowels: next morning 

 they scrape the hairy side, softened in some degree by the first faecal 

 soaking, with a fharp semicircular iron blade, fastened into a wood- 

 en handle. A second coating of rein deer dung is then laid over it, 

 which after another night's application is again scraped' off, and the 

 fkin hung up in a stream of smoke till the hair becomes loose, 

 when it is taken down, and macerated a little in water, so as to get 

 the hair finally clean away. 



It is then ready for the rscond preparation, which consists in a 

 fhorough greasing with the dried row of fifli, previously masticated in 

 tLfc mouths of the whole family, (to hasten the businefs,) an operation 



