THE JOURNEY UP. 65 



about five feet nothing, all clad in real Lap 

 costume. Has it ever been the reader's luck to 

 attend a benefit at a low fighting-house in London, 

 and take a note of the countenances of the smaller 

 class of fighting men who form the principal actors 

 in the scene ? If so, he can form a very good idea 

 of the general character of Lap physiognomy. One 

 and all seem to have been cast in the same pugil- 

 istic mould bullet heads, high cheek-bones, low 

 foreheads, bright sunken eyes, and flattened noses. 

 In fact, if they had only been cropped close, and 

 dressed in tight trowsers and Newmarket coats, I 

 would have challenged all London to have picked 

 out a bunch of more thoroughpaced-looking little 

 blackguards than I could have collected from this 

 congregation. The women were ranged in pews 

 on one side, the men on the other (and tins is the 

 fashion in all the Swedish churches), and, except 

 that the former kept their high-peaked sugar- 

 loafed caps on during the service, you could see 

 little difference between the two. None of these 

 ladies could boast of much personal attraction 

 their countenances being exactly like those of the 

 men, and quite as brown and knotty. But there 

 was one face, which peeped down from the gallery, 

 from which I could hardly take my eyes, and 

 which even haunts me to this day. It was that 

 of a little flaxen-haired Lap girl, about seven years 



V 



