^LACHESIS LAPPONICA 1 175 



pike. He gave me some provision, and conducted me 

 to Grano, where I only stopped to rest one night, and 

 on the evening of June 8 arrived at Umea*. These 

 poor people roast their fish thoroughly, and boil it 

 better and longer than ever I saw practised before. 

 They know no other soup or spoon-meat than the water 

 in which their fish has been boiled. I could not ob- 

 serve that the nights were at all less light than the 

 days, except when the sun was clouded. On the banks 

 of the river, where fragments are to be found of 

 all the productions of the mountains, I met with silver 

 ore. 



1 A Laplander, whose family consists of four persons, 

 including himself, when he has no other meat, kills a 

 reindeer every week, three of which are equal to an ox ; 

 he consequently consumes about thirty of those animals 

 in the course of the winter, which are equal to ten oxen, 

 whereas a single ox is sufficient for a Swedish peasant. 

 The bountiful provision of nature is evinced in provid- 

 ing mankind with bed and bedding even in this savage 

 wilderness. The great hair moss l is used for this pur- 

 pose. They choose the starry-headed plants, out of the 

 tufts of which they cut a surface as large as they please 

 for a bed and bolster, separating it from the earth be- 

 neath. This mossy cushion is very soft and elastic, not 

 growing hard by pressure ; and if a similar portion of it 

 be made to serve as a coverlet, nothing can be more 

 warm and comfortable. They fold this bed together, 

 1 Polytrichum commune. 



