Fig. 4 is the harness, a foot and half long, and three inches broad, without its decorations. Under this is laid a roll, b, made of reindeer skin, with the hair on, as thick as a man's arm, which contains a twisted net. This is covered in its upper part by a, but the ends, c c, are exposed to view, and covered with blue cloth embroidered with tin foil, each of them terminating in a sort of ball, tied up with a thong, e e, as the hairy part is with another thong.
Fig. 5 has at one end a noose, a, which embraces the two balls just described, from which a double leather thong, three inches broad and four feet long, extends to a transverse piece of bone, c, serving to take hold of the sledge in which the Laplander travels.
No. 3 therefore is placed on the back of the reindeer, b and c being tied together below the shoulders. No. 4 is fixed upon the neck, and fastened with f f over the chest, forming the saddle, the hairy part serving to keep it from galling the animal. The ends, c c, pass between the hind legs, and to them is fixed, as before mentioned, the leather which draws the sledge.
I understood that the water, along part of which I had pursued my route, was divided into broad navigable spaces, interrupted frequently by narrow or precipitous passes, called by the name of a _forss_, force, of which a long enumeration was given me.
The pasture ground near the parsonage of Lycksele was very poor, but quite the reverse about a quarter of a mile distant. Here the butter was extremely remarkable for its fine yellow colour, approaching almost to a reddish or saffron hue. On my inquiring what kind of herbs most abounded in these pastures, the people gave me a description of one which I judged to be a _Melampyrum_, and on my drawing a sketch of that kind of plant, they assured me it was what they meant, which is very plentiful in their forests, and is called Kowall[26].
[26] Linnæus has mentioned this circumstance in his _Flora Lapponica, n. 240_, where he confounds _Melampyrum pratense_ and _sylvaticum_ together as one species.
In the school here were only eight scholars.
I procured at Lycksele a Laplander's snuff-box, which is of a round figure, turned out of the horn of a reindeer.