28 IIELSINGLAND. 



men. I inquired whether the children are 

 kept longer at the breast than is usual with 

 us, and was answered in the affirmative. 

 They are allowed that nourishment more 

 than twice as long as in other places. I 

 have a notion that Adam and Eve were 

 giants, and that mankind from one gene- 

 ration to another, owing to poverty and 

 other causes, have diminished in size. 

 Hence perhaps the diminutive stature of 

 the Laplanders*. 



Brandy is not always to be had here. 

 The people are humane and civilized. 

 Their houses are handsome externally, as 

 well as neat and comfortable within ; in 

 which respects they have the advantage of 

 most other places. 



* The original is very obscure, and I have been 

 obliged partly to guess at the sense of the intermingled 

 Latin and Swedish. I beg leave to suggest that the 

 deficiency of brandy among this sequestered people is 

 perhaps a more probable cause of their robust stature, 

 and even of their neatness and refinement, than that 

 Assigned by Linnaeus. 



