394 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



by human beings ? This question will never be 

 solved by man while he retains the persuasion 

 that he is the lord of the creation, and so long as 

 he indulges the idle and presumptuous prejudice 

 that everything exists only for him. . . . Those 

 birds which make the woods resound with their 

 song, which swarm in marshes, on rivers, and in 

 the air, and which in summer retreat, by a long- 

 continued flight to Lapland, from all parts of 

 Europe, in order to provide themselves with 

 breeding-places have not those creatures a na- 

 tural right of multiplying their species as well as 

 man ? Persecuted everywhere else by human 

 snares and industry, refined by fictitious ^wants 

 and desires, ought they not to have an asylum 

 where they may deposit the fruits of their loves ?'' 

 A rather jovial incident (twenty years ago I 

 should have called it " a lark ") wound up my 

 Lap trip. As I was sitting at supper in the inn 

 at Lulea on the night we arrived, my attention 

 was attracted by hearing English spoken at a 

 side table ; and not having heard the old language 

 so long, I introduced myself after supper, and 

 joined the company, which consisted of two 

 Swedish captains, who spoke English very fairly, 

 and a stout, weather-beaten, jolly, good-looking 

 fellow a true sample of the British merchant- 

 skipper. Any intelligence from home in a foreign 



