MIGRATION. 173 



Great bands descending from the Kiolen moun- 

 tains traverse Nordlands and Finmark, ending 

 their journey and their lives in the Western 

 Ocean, into which host after host rushes, there 

 to perish. Others, taking a direction through 

 Swedish Lapland, are drowned in the Gulf of 

 Bothnia. Their march is stated to be in parallel 

 lines, about three feet apart, without stop or 

 stay unless the obstacle be insurmountable. 

 They cross rivers and lakes without deviation, 

 and pouring onwards, to the consternation of 

 the cultivators of the soil, spread over the land, 

 devouring every green thing, and are said to 

 gnaw through corn and hay-stacks, leaving 

 desolation in their track. " They march," says 

 Pennant, "like the army of locusts, so em- 

 phatically described by the prophet Joel, 

 destroy every root of grass before them, and 

 spread universal desolation. They infect the 

 very ground, and cattle are said to perish 

 after tasting the grass which they have 

 touched. They march by myriads in regular 

 lines ; nothing stops their progress ; neither fire, 

 torrents, lake, nor morass. They bend their 

 course straight forward with most amazing 

 obstinacy ; they swim over lakes ; the greatest 

 rock gives them but a slight check ; they go 

 round it, and then resume their march directly 

 on without the least diversion. If they meet a 

 peasant, they persist in their course, and jump 

 high as his knees in defence of their progress. 

 They are even so fierce as to lay hold of a stick, 

 and suffer themselves to be swung about before 



