TRAVELS 
ii 8 
him fome news more recent than any that he had heard. One 
may form an idea of the little communication there is between 
thofe parts and the reft of Europe from the following circum- 
ftance : it was the lQth of July, 1799, and the minifter of Hem- 
merfeft had received no intelligence concerning the great affairs 
of nations fmce the victory obtained by the Englifli fleet at Abou- 
kir, in Auguft 1798. 
We did not receive the fame honours as at Maafo, becaufe, 
perhaps, the merchants at Hammerfeft had neither cannon nor 
ammunition. Such is the weaknefs and foolifh vanity of human 
nature, that on our departure from this place, we were fenfible of 
fome difappointment in not hearing any report of cannon. We 
ihould not have been difpleafed if the fame mark of refped, or 
rather folly, had been fliewn us. 
At Alten we found ready to meet us a man whom 1 had employed 
to colled: plants and infects, and another who had come to enter¬ 
tain us with his fiddle, and to give us a fpecimen of the mufic of 
this part of Europe. See Appe?idix. At this village we remained 
feveral days for the purpofe of making the neceffary preparations 
for our return to the gulf of Bothnia. During this interval of 
repofe, we made a fhort excurfion to Telwig, in order to fee the 
Laplanders who came thither from all quarters to fell their fifh. 
It is a fmall port or creek of the fea, three miles from Alten, 
where there is a village inhabited by fome merchants and a cler¬ 
gyman : it poffeffes a church. 
I fhall not fatigue my reader with a detail ol all the minute cir- 
g cumftances 
