174 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AXD SPORT. 



" For man light labour spreads her wholesome store, 

 Just gives what life requires, but gives no more." 



The poor Alanders possessed, perhaps, all that was 

 ever real in such a state the simplicity, labour, and 

 frugality. Their labour might be light, but it was 

 constant and various. In the spring and autumn 

 many of the men went forth in fishing-boats, or as 

 pilots to the ships which carried on the traffic in the 

 smaller ports on the coasts of Sweden and Finland, 

 and with their earnings brought back some small 

 provision for the winter. Meanwhile tillage and 

 harvest went on, for the gudewives took more than a 

 share of field toil, and allowed not the absence of 

 their lords to check the progress of husbandry. The 

 winter brought its peculiar avocations. There was 

 the care of store cattle ; the fishing through holes in 

 the ice, or with deep nets underneath it ; the shoot- 

 ing or trapping of wild-fowl or eider-duck. In the 

 long winter nights, too, the indoor work began ; the 

 men manufactured harness, farm and domestic imple- 

 ments, for each man was his own artisan, and had 

 manual skill enough to meet the needs of his labour. 

 The women wove and spun their own coarse woollen 

 garments, picked and sorted the down and feathers of 

 the birds, and salted the fish. Then there were the 

 little festivities, and the simple sports on the ice, to 

 fill up the picture of primitive life. 



The Alanders, like the Finns, were good sailors, 

 but seem not to have been fond of roving far from 



