This night I beheld a star, for the first time since I came within the arctic circle. Nevertheless the darkness was not considerable enough to prevent my reading or writing whatever I pleased.
One of the Laplanders had caught a
quantity of the fish called Sikloja (Salmo Albula) of a large size. He stuck about twenty of them on one spit, the back of each being placed towards the belly of the next, and they were thus roasted before the fire. These fish had previously been dried, though not at all salted.
The glue used by the Laplanders for joining the two portions of different woods of which their bows are made (see p. [66],) is prepared from the Common Perch (Perca fluviatilis) in the following manner. Some of the largest of this fish being flayed, the skins are first dried, and afterwards soaked in a small quantity of cold water, so that the scales can be rubbed off. Four or five of these skins being wrapped up together in a bladder, or in a piece of birch bark, so that no water can get at them, are set on the fire in a pot of water to boil, a stone being laid over the pot, to keep in the heat. The skins thus prepared make a very strong glue, insomuch that the articles joined with it will never separate again.
A bandage is tied round the bow while making, to hold the two parts the more firmly together.
When these people undertake a short journey only, they carry no bag for provisions, the latter being stored between their outer and inner jackets, which are always bound with a girdle, being wide, and formed of numerous folds, both above and below it.
The Purple Willow-herb, or Epilobium (angustifolium?) made the fields at this time very beautiful. The Golden-rod (Solidago Virgaurea) was likewise here in blossom, though not yet upon the alps, where it flowers later.
I have never yet seen any animal swim so light as the reindeer. During the dogdays the herds of reindeer, belonging to the inhabitants of the woody parts of Lapland, are very badly off for want of snow, with which those animals refresh themselves in hot weather upon the alps. Hence they constitute a more valuable and thriving pro
perty to the alpine Laplanders than to any others. In the winter time, when the favourite Lichen of the reindeer (L. rangiferinus) cannot be got at, their keepers fell trees laden with filamentous Lichens, to serve them for food; but it scarcely proves sufficient.
The rivulet near Kiomitis Trask has a very white appearance, as if milk had been mixed with it. This the inhabitants term kalkwatter, or lime-water, from the colour, not from any knowledge of its cause or origin. This rivulet they told me came from the alps. It empties itself into the great river near Kiomitis, and renders the water of that river white for the space of four or five miles. I noticed a similar phænomenon at Wirijaur.