The tranquil existence of the Laplanders answers to Ovid's description of the golden age, and to the pastoral state as depicted by Virgil. It recalls the remembrance of the patriarchal life, and the poetical descriptions of the Elysian fields.
So many Finlanders crowded about me, that I scarcely knew what to do. They were all blear-eyed to such a degree as to be nearly blind. Many of them were perfectly deprived of sight, and ninety-nine out of a hundred that were so had their eyes shut. It seems in vain to prescribe any remedy for this evil, so long as its cause is every where so prevalent. This consists in their smoky dwellings. If I had
the management of these Finlanders, I would tie them up to the wall and give them fifteen pair of lashes apiece till they made chimneys to their huts, especially as they have such plenty of fire-wood. This improvement in the comfort of their dwellings might surely be accomplished by the authority of the chief magistrate, for I have not been able to learn any sufficient reason for their adherence to their old way of building. If people thirty or forty years of age are thus afflicted, what must become of them by the time they are seventy?
The Finlander's scythe is represented in the annexed figure.
The handle is rather above two feet in length, straight for about the space of a foot from the part where the blade is bound on. Afterwards it is slightly curved outwards, and then again, towards the apex, in some degree inwards so as to make a straight line with the base. The top is thicker than any other part. The blade of the scythe is, like that used in our
country, about a foot and a half long, and an inch and half broad, very slightly curved. Its back is, like that of our scythes, thickened on one side. The mower takes hold of the top with his left hand, so that the back of the scythe is uppermost, but grasps with his right the part where the above-described curvature ends, so as to be able to give the edge a turn upwards. As he moves forward, he mows first on the right, and then on the left, only turning his hands, and not lifting the scythe, but merely presenting each side of its blade alternately to the ground.
On the south-west side of the town, across a small bay, lies a mineral spring. The water is not ill-tasted. Indeed this is one of the best mineral waters I have met with in the north; but it lies very low, appearing to derive its origin from a stream that runs above, so that its water comes out soiled, as it were, from the earth, and is covered with scum.