LINN^US. 207 



forests, and is used for this purpose. They clioose 

 the starry-headed plants, out of the tufts of which 

 they cut a surface as large as they please for a bed 

 or bolster, separating it from the earth beneath; 

 and, although the shoots are scarcely branched, they 

 are, nevertheless, so entangled at the roots as not to 

 be separable from each other. This mossy cushion 

 is very soft and elastic, not growing hard by pres- 

 sure ; and if a similar portion of it be made to serve 

 as a coverlet, nothing can be more warm and com- 

 fortable. They fold this bed together, tying it up 

 into a roll that may be grasped by a man's arms, 

 which, if necessary, they carry with them to the 

 place where they mean to sleep the following night. 

 If it becomes too dry and compressed, its former 

 elasticity is restored by a little moisture. 



Leaving the town of Lulea, on the 25th June, he 

 embarked on the river, which he continued to na- 

 vigate for several days and nights in a comfortable 

 boat. At a place called Quickjock he was present- 

 ed by the " famous wife of the curate, Mr Grot," 

 with provisions sufficient to last a week. At Jock- 

 mock, the schoolmaster and the priest tormented 

 him " with their consummate and most pertinacious 

 ignorance." The latter began his conversation with 

 remarks on the clouds, showing how they strike the 

 mountains in their passage over the country, carry- 

 ing off stones, trees, and cattle. '' I ventured," says 

 Linnaeus, " to suggest that such accidents were ra- 

 ther to be attributed to the force of the wind, for 

 that the clouds could not of themselves lift or carry 

 away any thing. He laughed at me, saying, surely 

 I had never seen any clouds. I replied, that when- 

 ever the weather is foggy I walk in clouds, and 



