DEER KIND. 351 



the whole surface of the country is clothed in 

 white, so, on the contrary, the forests seem to 

 the last degree dark and gloomy. While one 

 kind of moss makes the fields look as if they 

 were covered with snow, another kind blackens 

 over all the trees, and even hides their verdure. 

 This moss, however, which deforms the country, 

 serves for its only support, as upon it alone the 

 rein-deer can subsist. The inhabitants, who, 

 during the summer, lived among the mountains, 

 drive down their herds in winter, and people the 

 plains and woods below. Such of the Laplanders 

 as inhabit the woods and the plains all the year 

 round, live remote from each other, and having 

 been used to solitude, are melancholy, ignorant, 

 and helpless. They are much poorer also than 

 the mountaineers, for, while one of those is found 

 to possess a thousand rein-deer at a time, none 

 of these are ever known to rear the tenth part of 

 that number. The rein-deer makes the riches of 

 this people ; and the cold mountainous parts of 

 the country agree best with its constitution. It 

 is for this reason, therefore, that the mountains 

 of Lapland are preferred to the woods ; and that 

 many claim an exclusive right to the tops of hills, 

 covered in almost eternal snow. 



As soon as the summer begins to appear, the 

 Laplander, who had fed his rein-deer upon the 

 lower grounds during the winter, then drives 

 them up to the mountains, and leaves the woody 

 country, and the low pasture, which at that sea- 

 son are truly deplorable. The gnats, bred by 

 the sun's heat in the marshy bottoms and the 



