74 
TRAVELS 
With regard to the names of places in Lapland, thefe will ne¬ 
ver be fixed while Laplanders remain in the unfettled Rate of a 
paftoral and wandering people. Thofe that have permanent ha¬ 
bitations are wholly unacquainted with the names of mountains, 
rivers, brooks, and lakes at any great diftance, to which there is 
little if any refort. The Laplanders w T ho know the names of thefe 
objeds, are of the paftoral or erratic tribes. But here another dif¬ 
ficulty occurs. Various families of thefe Laplanders affociate to¬ 
gether, and thus wander from place to place : and as the inter- 
courfe of thefe hordes with one another is but trifling, and of a 
very tranfient nature, the language of each is marked by fuch 
ftiades of variety, that it can fcarcely be faid with propriety that 
there is one Lapland tongue, common to all. Hence it happens 
that the fame places have very difftmilar denominations, and that 
a map of any diftrid under the guidance of one Lapland fhepherd, 
would not be recognized and underftood by a traveller who had 
drawn a plan of the fame tract, under the conduct and informa¬ 
tion of another. An inftance of this diverfity of names, and the 
inconvenience that naturally thence arifes, I experienced myfelf in 
my progrefs from Pallojervi to Kautokeino. On my arrival at 
this laft village, I was influenced to look over my names of places, 
and the little map I had drawn ; all which I fliewed to an inha¬ 
bitant of Kautokeino. I found that the Laplander who attended 
us, and from whofe account I had projected my geographical 
fketch, had called the places by names totally different from thofe 
by which the fame objeds were known to the people of Kauto¬ 
keino. 
