THE REI"N-DEEL 53 



wild, and the other tame; the latter are chiefly/iised for 

 drawing the sledges, as the former will seldom submit 

 to their guide. The sledges are built remarkably light, 

 and their bottoms covered with a young deer's skin, 

 with the hair placed in a proper direction to slide over 

 the congealed snow. The person who sits on this ve- 

 hicle guides- the animal with a string fastened round 

 the horns, and encourages him to proceed by the sound 

 of his voice, or compels him forward by the assistance 

 of a goad. The wild breed, when harnessed, are 

 sometimes so refractory that their drivers find it impos- 

 sible to make them proceed, and are obliged to hide 

 themselves under their conveyance to avoid the attack 

 it would make upon their lives. There is scarcely a 

 part of this animal but what is serviceable to the inha- 

 bitants, and proves the benevolence of that Power by 

 whom it was made : its flesh, as [ observed, supplies 

 them with food ; and though it does not give milk * 

 in large quantities, yet it. is both nourishing and sweet. 

 As to butter, they seldom make any ; but they boil the 

 milk with sorrel, which makes it coagulate and grow 

 thick ; they then put it into casks, or skins, and bury 

 it in the earth as a winter's regale: but the skin is the 

 most valuable part of this animal ; it supplies the inha- 

 bitants with bedding, cloathing, and shoes : nav, even 

 the blood is preserved in small casks, to make sauce 

 with the marrow of those which are killed in the 

 spring. The horns are sold for the purpose of making 



* The Rein-deer, like the hind, goes hetter than eight months with 

 young, and generally brings forth about the middle of May; it yields 

 milk from that time to the end of October, and is driven from its pasture 

 to be milked both morning and night. It does not come to perfection 

 until it is four years old, and never lives longer than fifteen. 



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