344 
TRAVELS 
part in fummer, and efface the traces of thofe melancholy im- 
preffions which his exaggerated defcription may have left on the 
imagination of the reader. 
The town of Tornea contains a population of fcarcely fix hun¬ 
dred fouls. The houfes are almoft entirely of a fingle ftory, 
though high enough to exclude the moifture of the fnow in win¬ 
ter. The merchants of Tornea inhabit the fouthern part of the 
town, which they have been at pains to embellifh, and render as 
* 
agreeable as poffible: they have made a public walk, laid out 
gardens, planted fome trees, and have ftudied by their induftry to 
compenfate for the defefts of nature. The obfcure days of win¬ 
ter are counterbalanced by the almoft continual prefence of the 
fun in fummer, and their 48 degrees of cold, to which the *ner- 
cury falls in one feafon, are exchanged for 27 of heat, to which 
it rifes in the other; for thefe are the two extremes of the ther¬ 
mometer that have been obferved in Tornea.* 
The town is almoft entirely encircled by the river Tornea, 
which fpreads itfelf here in a majeftic ftream. The oppofite 
banks prefent a number of cottages and farm houfes, which the 
river, when quiet and undifturbed, reflefts from its pellucid waters. 
Northward you fee a fmall elevation, on the top of which ftand 
f 
feveral wind-mills, and lower down to the north-eaft are fome 
meadow grounds and cultivated fields. It is commonly from one 
of thofe wind-mills that travellers view the fun at midnight in 
* See De la Motraye’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 288. He was in Tornea J 9 th May, 
1713, and found all the town jjeftroyed by the Mufcovites. 
the 
