JOURNEY TO LAPLAXD. 31 



to expose himself, but wait the full return of summer. His courage 

 was blind to difficulties, and so impatient his desire of making some 

 new discovery, that he was irresistibly induced to visit those trads 

 which had seldom or never been visited before. 



Having waited a few days at Htrnafand^ the chief town of Anger- 

 mania, on the Bothnian gulph, in expeClation of milder weather, he 

 commenced his wanderings on foot, and travelled alone through the 

 above-mentioned province of Lapland,. Trees, herbs, animals, moun- 

 tains; in short, every novelty and curiosity of Nature which offered 

 itself, became the obje£ls of his observation and attention. The pro- 

 phecies made to him respeQing this undertaking he now experienced to 

 be but too well founded. Every difficulty which could be thought of 

 occurred to cross his enterprize. The rivers which he was to pass over 

 being still swelled, and as rapid as torrents, he frequently found his 

 life in danger; the country which is every where intersc6led with bogs 

 and forests could not stop him; all these obstacles were heightened 

 by the inclemency of the climate, the want of provisions, and fre- 

 quently by that of a sheltering place to rest his head upon in those desert 

 tra61:s. Linn^us thought himself the happiest of men if when tired 

 and exhausted with his daily peregrinations he could at night find the 

 cot of some Laplander^ to still his hunger and to repose his weariel 

 limbs ! 



Undaunted by all these obstacles and dangers he continued his jour- 

 ney through the other provinces of Lapland, through Pithea and Ulna. 

 Lapmark. If we consider that this Canada of Sweden does not con- 

 tain a single town, but thirty-two scattered dwellings or villages, we 

 jshall be able to form to ourselves some idea of the inhospitable and 



desert 



