THROUGH LAPLAND. 
21 
The people are extremely fober, they never drink fpirituous 
liquors, except on marriage, days, when they indulge, but not to 
excels, in mirth and gaiety. The ceremony of marriage is fol¬ 
lowed by a dinner in their ftyle, and afterwards by a dance, but 
without mufic of any kind, except their cries and the fnapping 
of their fingers. They have no relifli for beer; and when we pre¬ 
vailed upon them to tafte our wine, they made wry faces and took 
it for phyfic. The parfon allured us in the molt pathetic accents, 
that there w^as not a Angle glafs of brandy to be had in the whole 
two hundred fquare miles of his parifh he told us likewife, that 
drunkennefs is regarded by the people as the mod: fcandalous vice 
to which a man can be fubjedl: and we could not help fufpedling 
that this was one of the caufes of his being fo little revered and 
efteemed by his flock. 
Difeafe and ficknefs are extremely rare among thefe people ; 
there have been inftances of peafants in this parifli, who have 
lived to the age of one hundred and ten years : and the only dif- 
order that proves fatal to the inhabitants, is a kind of inflamma¬ 
tory fever. 
CHAPTER 
