84 A SPBING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



very onerous duty ; and most of the good priest's 

 time in the summer appeared to be occupied in 

 fishing ; in the winter, making nets. It is true, 

 once every Sunday he preached in the little village 

 church — generally to a very scant congregation. I 

 have counted seven in the church ; and to do him 

 justice, I will say his sermons were befitting a far 

 better audience. On certain anniversaries the 

 Laps would come down, and then the service 

 was in Lap, and of course I did not understand 

 a word of it. He was a kind of missionary 

 among the Laps, and he had six little Lap children 

 to bring up in the ways of Christianity. Not that 

 this troubled him much, as he kept an usher or 

 schoolmaster under him. His wife was a most 

 industrious woman, and, although bred a lady, 

 worked like a servant. But this priest was a man 

 of good standing, and nephew to the celebrated 

 LaBstadius, the Lap botanist. He had for some 

 years been located in Pitea, and was, in fact, in 

 point of acquirements and education on a par with 

 any northern priest I have ever met with. Acerbi,in 

 his usual quaint style, describes a priest he met with 

 some sixty years ago, up at Munio, and his descrip- 

 tion is so rich, that I give it in his own words: — 

 " The parish of Munio is 200 miles in extent, and 

 the parson is, to all appearance, a peasant like any 

 of his flock, having nothing visible about him 



