The other, the pedagogue, lamented that people should bestow so much attention upon temporal vanities, and consequently, alas! neglect their spiritual good[55]; and he remarked that many a man had been ruined by too great application to study.
[55] I have known one instance of such bigotry, or rather hypocrisy, out of Lapland.
Both these wise men concurred in one thing. They could not conceal their wonder that the Royal Academy should expressly have appointed a mere student for the purposes for which I was sent, without considering that there were already as competent men resident in the country, who would have undertaken the business. They declared they would either of them have been ready to accept of the charge. In my opinion, however, they would but have exhibited a fresh illustration of the proverb of the ass and the lyre.
The number of pupils under the care of the gentleman above mentioned at this time amounted to four only. The church is but a small one.
It is a practice here with some persons who have the headache, from excessive drinking or any other cause, to hold their foreheads before the fire till they smart violently. Others apply to the temples young shoots of spruce fir bruised.
Half a mile from the church I gathered the _Cirsium minus_ (_Serratula alpina_), the _Cacalia_ (_Tussilago frigida_), the latter not in flower, and one kind of Botsko of the Laplanders, called Bi[oe]rnstut in Westbothnia (_Angelica sylvestris_), which is the narrow-leaved species of _Angelica_, and resembles the larger kind. Its general umbel is destitute of an involucrum. My Lapland companion seized it immediately, and peeling the stalk, which had not yet flowered, ate it like a turnip, as a great delicacy. Indeed it tasted not unpleasantly, especially the upper part, which is the most tender. This dainty is in great request amongst the Laplanders.
We arrived at length at Purkijau, a small island, the northern side of which is planted with forests of spruce fir, and the others with woods of birch, by way of protection to the corn. The colonist who resides here informed me that the corn never suffered from cold, as, besides the shelter afforded by these plantations, the circumjacent water moderated the degree of frost. The situation of this island is pleasant. I found in some bushy parts of it the _Sceptrum Carolinum_, and another species of _Pedicularis_, with narrow leaves and a tuft of purple flowers (this seems to have been _P. sylvatica_ only).