350 EUSSTA IN EUEOPE. 



that however deep it may now be, the White Sea must have formerly been much 

 deeper. Even its waters have remained less saline than those of the ocean, 

 owino- to the constant accession of fresh water from the rains, snows, and espe- 

 cially the Dvina, Onega, and other influents. Nevertheless some salt is still 

 made on its foggy shores, where artificial heat replaces that of the sun in the 

 process of evaporation. 



Inhabitaivts : Lapps, Samoyeds, Ziryaniaks, and Pomori. 



The great Kola peninsula, limited southwards by the Gulf of Kandalaksha, 

 belongs ethnically to the Lapp race. The Slavs are here represented merely by a 

 few fishing communities, while the Finns proper, all of the Karelian branch, have 

 only founded a few isolated settlements on the south coast, along the shores of the 

 Gulf of Kandalaksha. At the same time, the high stature of some of the Lapps 

 their full red beard, their habits, and a few words of the current speech show 

 clearly enough that this eastern branch of the Lapp familj'^ has absorbed Slav 

 elements. They have a general resemblance to the Saimas of Sweden and Norway, 

 but are less civilised and less intelligent than their western brethi^en. This is pro- 

 bably due to their long vigils and to the general scarcity of food, largely consisting 

 in winter of mosses, the bark of trees, a certain farinaceous earth kneaded into the 

 dough, and the so-called lebcda, a species of bitter and unwholesome plant. An 

 idea may be formed of the climate of this region from the Lapp language, which 

 contains 20 terms to express ice, 11 for cold, 41 for snow and its varieties, 26 verbs 

 to describe the phenomena connected with freezing and thawing. 



The Lapps of the peninsula have so far adopted Christianity that they have 

 been baptized since the sixteenth century by Russian monks, who have also intro- 

 duced serfdom into the country, acquiring from the czars the ownership of entire 

 populations. Thus evangelized, the Lapps have increased the number of their gods 

 by the addition of one propitious deity, Jesus, and one evil spirit, the devil, king 

 of hell. A few devotional works have even been printed in the Russian character, 

 which the Lapps of some encampments have learned to read. Still they have their 

 old wizards, or shamans, and worship heaps of stones, bones, or fossils, which they 

 believe to be inhabited by spirits. As with so many Ural-Altaic peoples, marriage 

 has preserved in full vigour the forms of primitive abduction, and the bride is still 

 expected to struggle violently and utter piercing cries. After the abduction her 

 father remits to the husband his right of absolute authority, even that of "roasting 

 the eyes of his victim." She is made fast to her new home "like a wild reindeer," 

 but after a pretended cudgelling, her husband releases and consecrates her " hostess " 

 and " mother of the bread." It is she who controls the children and arranges all 

 matrimonial alliances, which are generally dictated by interest. Lapps of eighteen 

 or twenty have often been known to marry wives of sixty. Each individual has 

 his particular mark, analogous to the totem of the red- skins. At his birth the 

 reindeer assigned to him is marked with this sign, which he afterwards stam.ps upon 

 all his belonging-s. 



The Lapps are known to have formerly occupied a large portion of the North 



