toasted. Butter he seldom or never makes, as the cheese is more useful.

The second class of Laplanders, consisting of those who dwell on the coasts, differ, in some respects, from those of the forest and mountain. They are more hospitable, more benevolent, and less suspicious. In all other respects, allowing for the difference of their occupations, their characters are similar. Mr. Brooke will not allow that any of the Laplanders want courage, though he admits that they are no soldiers. They all enjoy an extraordinary degree of good health. If attacked by rheumatism, or pain in any particular part, they cauterise it, and find the remedy effectual. Vaccination has put an end to the plague of the small-pox amongst them. They are generally blear-eyed, in consequence of the glare of the snow as some affirm, or of the perpetual smoke in which they live, as others maintain. Both causes, perhaps, conspire to afflict them with this disagreeable infirmity. We have already mentioned their predilection for ardent spirits. It is so universal, that no inconsiderable part of a Laplander's life is literally passed in a state of intoxication.' Mr. Brooke mentions one fact which places this matter beyond doubt. 'At one shop, alone,' he says, a barrel of brandy of thirty-six gallons, was daily drank in single glasses, during the space of four months.' The greater part of the Sabbath is spent in inebriety, and the sacred ceremonies of confirmation, marriage, and even of burial, are never celebrated without giving rise to scenes of the grossest intemperance. The misfortune is, that the Finmark merchant finds it his interest to gratify this passion of the Laplanders; and this misfortune is greatly aggravated by the fact, that throughout the whole country, not a single clergyman is to be found capable of preaching to his flock in their native language.

Strange to say, the passion of love, which is usually supposed to prevail in a greater or less degree wherever man meets the glance of woman, is scarcely known among the Laplanders. Love,' says Mr. Brooke, in language somewhat bombastical, love, which in hotter climes kindles at a thought, and, blazing fiercely, consumes itself in its own flames, appears to have its pinions frozen by the snows of the frigid zone, and to lie torpid beneath the chilling embrace of an almost perpetual winter.' The conjugal tie, it may easily be supposed, is therefore seldom violated; nor is the parental one of any lengthened duration. As soon as the children are able to shift for themselves, they are abandoned to their own exertions. Theft is so little practised amongst them, that the doors are left generally unbolted; and property of every description is exposed in the open air. They had, formerly, many superstitions, of which they still retain a few, notwithstanding their adoption of Christianity.

It has been often a subject of inquiry among northern travellers, whether any sound proceeded from the Aurora. If we rightly

remember Captain Parry's observations on this matter, they never enabled him to come to any conclusion in the affirmative. Mr. Brooke imagines that he heard a sound on one occasion, as of a faint rushing noise, but as he never heard it again, he is not able to speak upon this point with any certainty. He adds, however, that numbers of respectable persons whom he met in Finmark, attested, generally, the fact of an audible sound accompanying the Aurora. Against their testimony we have the negative evidence of several travellers, who have witnessed that phenomenon hundreds of times without feeling that it was attended by any noise whatever; whereas, in support of it, other travellers assert that they have actually heard a noise repeatedly. Hearne positively affirms, that in still nights, he has frequently heard the northern lights make a rustling and crackling noise, like the waving of a large flag in a fresh gale of wind." Is it improbable that the noise, or the absence of it, depends upon the electric, or non-electric state of the atmosphere, at the time the Aurora lightens?

As to the source of the Aurora itself, it has long been a matter of vain conjecture among the philosophers. The best opinions seem to connect it with electrical causes. The lower classes of Finmark have a strange fancy, that the northern lights are produced by the immense shoals of herrings in the Polar sea, which, when pursued by large fish, make a sudden turn, and the luminous appearance which takes place in consequence, from the agitation of the waters, and, perhaps, their own natural phosphorescent qualities, they believe to be reflected by the heavens, and to occasion the Aurora.' The Laplanders, on the other hand, imagine the lights to be the shades of their departed relations dancing about, believing that, in some of the gleams, they can recognise a father, a mother, and now and then a group of evil spirits.

Mr. Brooke quitted Hammerfest about the middle of November, on his return to Stockholm. By this time the degree of light was so small in that latitude, that candles were necessarily used during the day. In order to accomplish his journey, or at least, in order to pay his way through it, he was obliged to turn merchant, and to provide himself with a quantity of trinkets and hardware. Nothing but Swedish currency could be of any use to him in the shape of money, and this was only to be procured in exchange for merchandise. He gives a very full and entertaining description of the preparations which were made by himself, and by a large party to which he belonged, for the journey. It will be sufficient for our purpose to observe, that the vehicle to which, after being completely enveloped in skins and furs, he was committed, resembled a boat, ' in length seven feet, in breadth about sixteen inches, and its general depth eight; the back-board or stern part being about sixteen. The head of the pulk (as it is called), comes to a point like the canoe; the stern is flat, and the bottom, or keel, convex. Above, it has an oval half-deck in front, covered with

seal skin.' This is the sort of machine which is generally used by merchants and travellers in Lapland. To a stranger, it is obviously exceedingly difficult at first to preserve his balance in the pulk, while it is whirled onward with great velocity by the reindeer. In fact, if he were not well bound up in it with thongs and skins, he would be flung out at every step. Add to this the delights of traversing unbeaten tracts of snow and ice, in the middle of winter, through a long uninterrupted night, the sun all the while lingering among his more favoured climes. The reader will, perhaps, be enabled to form some idea of the enviable situation in which Mr. Brooke was placed on this occasion, from the following light-hearted description of his embarrassments.

The morning was cold and stormy; I was jaded, miserably tired for want of rest, and just on the point of being tied to the tail of a wild deer, and dragged at random in the dark, in a kind of cock-boat, some hundred miles across the trackless snows of Lapland. In truth, I was never less inclined for such an expedition, and had something like the sensations, which an inexperienced horseman feels when mounted upon a spirited steed, and about to take the first high fence at the commencement of a foxchase. Our pulks were ranged together in close order; and the wappus (guide) having performed the last office for us, by tying each of us in as fast as possible, and giving us the rein, jumped into his own, and then slightly touching his deer with the thong, the whole of them started off like lightning. I had not time to reply to Mr. Aasberg's parting exclamation of Luk paa reise (good luck to your journey) as we flew past him, but I devoutly wished within myself it might be realised.

The want of light rendered it difficult to distinguish the direction we were going in, and I therefore left it entirely to my deer to follow the rest of the herd, which he did with the greatest rapidity, whirling the pulk behind him. I soon found how totally impossible it was to preserve the balance necessary to prevent its overturning, owing to the rate we were going at, and the roughness of the surface in parts where the snow had drifted away, the pulk frequently making a sudden bound of some yards, when the deer was proceeding down a smooth, slippery declivity. In the space of the first two hundred yards I was prostrate in the snow several times, the pulk righting again by my suddenly throwing my weight on the opposite side. My attention was too deeply engrossed by my own situation, to observe particularly that of my fellow travellers, or to be able to assist them. The deer appeared, at first setting off, to be running away in all directions, and with their drivers alternately sprawling in the snow. As I passed Mr. Heineken's deer at full speed, I observed, to my great wonder, the former turn completely over in his pulk, without appearing to sustain any damage, or his deer at all to relax his pace. My turn was now arrived; and as we were descending a trifling declivity, and about to enter the fir forest, a sudden jerk threw the pulk so completely upon its broadside, that I was unable to recover it; and I was dragged in this manner for a considerable distance, reclining upon my right side, and ploughing up the snow, which formed a cloud around me, from the quick motion of the vehicle. My deer, before this happened, had been nearly the foremost in the race: this unfortunate accident, however, enabled the rest to come up,

and I had the mortification of seeing the whole pass me, without their being able to stop their deer to render me any assistance, the wappus being already far a-head. Among this number was Lundsted the Swede, who appeared, from the experience of the day before, to be going along in excellent style; and I could not help thinking how completely the laugh was now against me. To render my situation more helpless, on losing my balance I had lost also the rein; and though I saw it dancing in the snow within an inch of my hands, I was unable, from the position I lay in, to recover it. Notwithstanding the great increase of weight, the deer relaxed but little of his speed, making greater exertions the more he felt the impediment. The depth of snow, however, in parts, exhausted the animal, and he at length stopped for an instant breathless, and turned round to gaze upon his unfortunate master. I began to fear I also was now going to receive some punishment for my awkwardness; but after resting a moment, he again proceeded. In the mean time I had been enabled to recover the rein, as well as to place myself once more in an upright posture, and we continued our way at increased speed.

"This accident had thrown me back so greatly, that no traces of the rest of the party were to be seen; nor could I hear the sounds of the bells fastened round the necks of the deer. The fear of being entirely left behind, and the situation I should then be in, made me regardless of ever thing, and I urged on the deer to the utmost. I was now crossing a thick wood of firs, which proved a constant impediment to my progress. Getting entangled among the trees, and being obliged, beside attending to the balancing of the pulk, to steer clear of these, the task was still more difficult for one so inexperienced; and in the course of a mile I had so many overturns, that at last I cared little about them. Presently I heard the distant tinkling of a bell; and was rejoiced to find I was gaining upon the rest. It was not long before I overtook one of the hindermost, who had experienced some accident similar to my own; and on coming up with the main body, the wappus made a halt, to give the deer a little breathing, and to collect the scattered party. In a few minutes we were all assembled; no injury had been sustained by any one, a few rolls in the snow having been the only consequences; and we started again.'-pp, 410-413.

When the party arrived at running streams or rivers, they were obliged to follow the Lappish practice of leaping each deer, with its driver and pulk together. This was not always done without an immersion in the water. It is easy to imagine that a five-barred gate is nothing to this sort of steeple-chase. The stages for repose not being yet regularly ascertained in Lapland, our travellers were quite at liberty to stop wherever they thought they were least likely to be buried in the snow. Of venison, and punch, and chocolate, they seem to have had a sufficient store; and though exposed during sleep to all the rigour of the elements, they appear to have suffered no inconvenience on that score. Two of the guides being called up one morning, a little before their usual time, from their couch of snow, dryly made answer, that they could not move, being frozen to the ground, adding, that nothing but a dram could thaw them!

The cold at this time was excessive, the thermometer being at sixteen degrees below Zero. Under such circumstances, the effects of the application of cold iron or steel to the skin, are not a little singular. A knife raised to the lips will stick to them, and bring away with it the skin which it touches. It produces the same sensation as if the blade were red hot. The dense mists, also, which appearing at first in the distance, like a tiny cloud, suddenly overspread the whole face of the country, are a fruitful source of inconvenience to the traveller, particularly while traversing the elevated regions which lead from Lapland to Sweden. In going down the descents of the mountains, the pulk, not unfrequently, acquires a velocity, which urges it before the deer; the animal gets entangled in his traces, and down roll the deer and vehicle with its firm burthen, helter-skelter, one over the other, till they reach the bottom in amazement at their safety!

Such being a few of the difficulties attending a tour in Lapland, one is surprised to hear that it was attempted by an English ladyLady G. Tickel, accompanied by her husband; who, however, on proceeding as far as Drontheim, deemed it more prudent to retrace her steps. Mr. Brooke informs us, that she had intended to take Lapland and Russia on her way to Palestine! whither she was bound on a visit to her sister, the celebrated Lady Hester Stanhope.

Towards the latter end of December, our author arrived at Tornea, a town well known as having been twice the theatre of the operations of French and Swedish academicians, for the purpose of measuring a degree at the Polar circle. This town, we need hardly say, has been also frequently visited by distinguished travellers, who wished to observe the singular spectacle of the midnight sun,' which is here visible for a short time during the summer solstice. At Tornea, too, our author saw the sun for the first time, during an interval of two months.

'Christmas day, on which I little expected to have found myself at Tornea, arrived, and was marked by an event, which could not but make a considerable impression upon me the reappearance of the sun. For some days I had been expecting this; but our arrival at Tornea, and attention to other things, prevented my thinking farther on it. About half after eleven o'clock, however, as we were crossing the river, turning my head accidentally to the south, what was my surprise to see the sun risen over the frozen waters of the gulf, and already about a diameter above the horizon! It was indeed a glorious sight to us, who had not seen its rays for two months, and I gazed on it with rapture. Nature appeared suddenly to revive, and every thing to put on a cheerful appearance. The morning was clear and delightful; and the pure surface of the river, sparkling with frost, glittered in the new sunbeams. Before one o'clock it again sunk beneath the horizon, and the same pleasing twilight prevailed as before.'-p. 558.

From Tornea, Mr. Brooke and his party pursued their way to