260 WANDERINGS AND MEMORIES 



of Lap-Norwegian origin, who are fishing people 

 inhabiting the coast, and the pure Lapps of the 

 high fjelds, who are very small, and essentially 

 devoted to the reindeer. The former come in 

 numbers to Hammerfest, and are much dependent 

 for the commodities of life on European wares. 

 They wear a picturesque national costume, and 

 are in every way content to lead the lives of coast 

 fishermen who do not go to the deep seas for their 

 living. They bring in quantities of dried and 

 salted fish of secondary quality, which they sell to 

 the merchants, thus earning enough money for an 

 existence, which is poor compared to that of the 

 white population. They live in scattered villages 

 of wood along the coast-line, and often far up into 

 the fjords, and are a quiet, inoffensive race without 

 national pride or worldly ambition. They seem to 

 have nothing to do with the Hill Lapps, and do 

 not intermarry with them. 



The Fjeld Lapps, on the other hand, are a virile, 

 independent race of little people. They are per- 

 haps the oldest pure race in the world, and are 

 synonymous with the Fins or Feans that migrated 

 to Scotland in the early Christian era. They are 

 few in actual numbers, and live principally on the 

 herds of tame reindeer, which furnish them with 

 the whole means of existence food, clothes, shelter 

 (tent coverings in summer) and what little money 

 they require. These Fjeld Lapps are purely farmers 

 of reindeer, which they keep in order with their 

 active little dogs, and at certain seasons hunters 

 of bear, wolf and ripa. They live solely on the pro- 

 duce of the wilderness, only coming very rarely 

 into the towns to sell a few hides and horns, from 



