1TER DALECARLIUM 225 



ploring rides, so he left the boys in Nasman's and 

 Sohlberg's care to travel by the shorter road. 



The active well-grown handsome farmers of these 

 parts interested Sandel, the American, particularly; 

 they can turn their hands to anything, having generally 

 a trade such as blacksmith, tailor, or what not in ad- 

 dition to their farming. Hedenblad made notes of their 

 costumes. The men wear short coats of white home- 

 spun cloth, generally two of these at a time, the under 

 one being sleeveless ; they have white leather breeches 

 and blue stockings. The women wear bodices of scarlet 

 wool, showing their long white linen sleeves, a dark 

 blue cloth shirt, and a yellow apron with a black border, 

 white stockings, and shoes with a peg-like heel in the 

 centre. These people are tall and well-grown, and alto- 

 gether a fine race, which makes it the more remarkable 

 that they, the men in particular, are said to seldom out- 

 live thirty years of age. This is partially explained in 

 several ways. In the notes on domestic medicine in 

 the journal pleurisy is mentioned as a distemper of an 

 epidemical nature in that country ; it is alleged that it 

 arises from the excess which the inhabitants commit by 

 gorging themselves with a kind of porridge made of flour. 

 Hedenblad alludes, besides, to their mastication of a cer- 

 tain kind of rosin, and describes their burying in the earth 

 a certain species of rotten fish, called Lunsfisk, which 

 they dig out again to prepare it for their food. They 

 also drink the strong Norwegian wine made of berries. 

 Linnaeus is of opinion, with regard to the early deaths 



VOL. I. Q 



