7° 
TRAVELS 
this circumftance that occafioned the alarm at the report of our 
guns. The inhabitants could not conceive from what caufe, or 
from what quarter the thundering noife proceeded, as it could not 
occur to them that they might receive a vifit from any curious 
{grangers. 
The village of Kautokeino is inhabited by four families and a 
prieft, and it has a church. -By the line of frontier agreed upon 
in 1751, between Sweden and Denmark, Kautokeino was in¬ 
cluded within the dominions of the latter. On looking at the 
map one is furprifed to find here the boundary between thefe two 
kingdoms; inftead of its following the ridge of mountains, which 
forms a natural feparation to the fouth and the north in that cor¬ 
ner of Europe. By that arrangement the territory of Denmark 
turns toward the fouth, and takes in an angle of Lapland, which 
ought naturally to belong to Sweden. We did not fail to make 
enquiry into the caufe of this fingular deviation from apparent rea- 
fon and juftnefs, and we flattered ourfelves that we had traced it 
to a fecret of Rate, being informed that it was the effedt of bri¬ 
bery and corruption. The Swedifh commiffary, we were told, 
had been induced to make a ceflion of the angle in queftion by 
the power of Danifh gold ; and numerous extravagant anecdotes 
were mentioned of this perfon, who was reprefented as much ad¬ 
dicted both to wine and to women ; that care was taken to throw 
in the way of this man of pleafure the whole luxury of Lapland ; 
and that he was overcome by the manifold temptations held out 
to him, and agreed to the divifion as before flated. 
Romantic 
