I showed them how to make a kind of brandy of the young tops of the fir, as a little improvement upon their usual watery beverage[35], but they thought the scheme impracticable; nor could they conceive it possible to obtain any thing drinkable from the sap of the birch. They seemed determined to keep entirely to water.
[35] Linnæus's words are "to wash down the water."
I could not observe that the nights were at all less light than the days, except when the sun was clouded.
The poor Laplanders find the church festivals, or days of public thanksgiving, in the spring of the year, very burthensome and oppressive, as they are in general obliged to pass the river at the hazard of their lives. The water at that season is neither sufficiently frozen to bear them, nor open enough to be navigated; so they are under the necessity of wading frequently up to their arms, and are half dead with cold and fatigue by the time they get to church. They must either undergo this hardship, or be fined ten silver dollars and do penance for three Sundays; which surely is too severe[36].
[36] This is no new instance of contrariety between the tyranny of man and the gospel of Christ, whose "yoke is easy and his burthen light." If these innocent people were to complain of it to their spiritual guides, they might be told, as on another occasion, see _p. 130_, that "it was a trifle not worth thinking about." We cannot here say with Pope,
"The devil and the king divide the prize,"
but we may presume that the fine is considered as no less indispensable an atonement than the penance.--Pity that such tractable sheep should not be better worth shearing!
This day I found the very hairy variety of the Purple Marsh Cinquefoil (_Comarum palustre_) mentioned by Plukenet (_t. 212, f. 2_). The plants were of the last year's growth, and their hairiness the more conspicuous; but it is a mere variety.
The Laplanders never eat but twice a day, often only once, and that towards evening.
On the banks of the river, where fragments are to be found of all the productions of the mountains, I met with silver ore.
The insects which fell under my observation this day were the great Black Humble-bee (_Apis terrestris_), the Wasp, the Gnat (_Culex pipiens_), and the Flesh Fly (_Musca carnaria_).