40 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



excused in exclaiming, "All is barren." On the 

 road we met certainly more than 100 carts laden 

 with reindeer skins, coming down from a large fair 

 in Lyksell Lapland. 



Any one who has read Bayard Taylor's "North- 

 ern Journey " will recollect his mentioning having 

 stopped at this very public-house, and being in a 

 jocular mood, and thinking, as the vulgar saw has 

 it, " to take a rise " out of the old landlord, he 

 accosted him in Arabic. However, it seemed that 

 two could play at that game ; and to Taylor's 

 astonishment he received an answer in the same 

 tongue. It appears that the landlord had spent seven 

 years in Tripoli, and, as he told Taylor afterwards, 

 had waited twenty years in this public without 

 ever meeting a guest with whom he could converse 

 in the Eastern tongue. I had a great curiosity to 

 gee this old gentleman, and upon going into the 

 kitchen on pretence of seeing my dog fed, I met 

 one of the finest, halest, and most venerable white- 

 headed old men I have ever seen. Had he been 

 seated cross-legged on an ottoman, with a pipe in 

 his mouth and a turban on his head, I could well 

 have fancied myself in the presence of the Dey of 

 Algiers himself. I took off my cap, and making a 

 low salaam, accosted him with " Allah Akbar." He 

 stared with astonishment, and exclaimed in Swedish, 

 " What, another Arabian!" But before he could 



