154 LYCKSELE LAPLAND. 



I wondered, indeed I more than won- 

 dered, how these poor people could feed 

 entirely on fish, sometimes boiled fresh, 

 sometimes dried, and then either boiled, 

 or roasted before the fire on a wooden spit. 

 They roast their fish thoroughly, and boil 

 it better and longer than ever I saw prac- 

 tised before. They know no other soup or 

 spoon-meat than the water in which their 

 fish has been boiled. If from any accident 

 they catch no fish, they cannot procure a 

 morsel of food. At midsummer they first 

 begin to milk the reindeer, and maintain 

 themselves on the milk till autumn ; when 

 they kill some of those valuable animals, 

 and by various contrivances get a scanty 

 supply of food through the winter. 



The young children sleep in oblong lea- 

 ther cradles, without any thing like swad- 

 dling-clothes, enveloped in dried bog-moss 

 (Sphagnum palustre), lined with the hair 

 of the reindeer. In this soft and warm 

 nest they are secured against the most in- 

 tense cold. 



