Heroes of science

by P. Martin Duncan

During this journey Linnæus travelled over the greater part of Lapland, skirting the boundaries of Norway, and returned to Upsala by the eastern side of the Bothnian Gulf, having performed a journey of near four thousand English miles, mostly on foot, in five months. He necessarily endured many hardships and vast fatigue, and his life was several times imperilled. Bogs and forests intercepted his way, and food, even of the coarsest description, was occasionally not easily procured; yet, amid all difficulties, his spirit was unflagging, and obstacles only seemed to quicken his zeal. The natural curiosities of the country, the manners of the people, and the general features of the various regions he traversed, all were observed and written down for future use. He collected above a hundred plants, entirely undescribed and unknown before, and upon his return arranged all the flora of Lapland according to his own favourite system, and delivered an account of his journey publicly.

The result of his botanical observations was not published for several years afterwards, during his residence in Holland. This expedition was the first and most difficult of all the six journeys of Linnæus. He spoke of it afterwards in one of his academical addresses in these words: “My journey through Lapland was particularly toilsome, and I own that I was obliged to sustain more hardships and dangers in that sole peregrination through the frontier of our northern world, than in all the other travels I undertook in other parts. But having once sustained the toils of travelling, I buried in the oblivion of Lethe all the dangers and difficulties I endured, the invaluable fruits I reaped having compensated for every toil.” Writing to a friend on the same subject, he says: “All my food in these fatiguing excursions consisted, for the most part, of fish and reindeer’s milk. Bread, salt, and what is found everywhere else, did but seldom recreate my palate. One of the greatest nuisances which I met with in Lapland was the immense number of flies. I used to keep them off, by drawing a crape over my face.” The youthful traveller started on his adventurous journey “without encumbrances of any kind, and carried all his baggage on his back,” by which means alone he was enabled to prosecute the objects he had in view. Leaving Upsala by the northern gate, he travelled for a considerable distance through fertile corn-fields, bounded by hills, and the view terminated by extensive forests. With respect to situation and variety of prospects, the young Swede was of opinion that scarcely any city could stand a comparison with this. At a short distance from the gates he left, on the right, Old Upsala, the place renowned for the worship of the primeval gods of Sweden, and for the inauguration and residence of her earliest king. Here, in days of high antiquity, human sacrifices were offered at the shrines of the pagan deities, and here our traveller noticed the three large sepulchral mounds which tradition has assigned to the bodies of Odin, Frigga, and Thor.

“Cheered with the song of the charming lark,” which attended his steps through the lowland, his approach to the forest was welcomed by the redwing, “whose amorous warblings from the tops of the spruce firs” appeared to him to rival the nightingale itself. As the summer was advancing, he thought it not desirable to lose time by the way, nor to stray far from the high road in the early part of the tour; but attentively observing what presented itself to him as he passed along, he noted the various plants, animals, and insects, together with the general features of the country.

Arrived in the province of Medelpad, he ascended its highest mountain, leaving his horse “tied to an ancient Runic monumental stone.” He found several uncommon plants here; and from the summit, gazed on the country spread out below, varied with plains and cultivated fields, villages, lakes, and rivers—a most picturesque and romantic region. The descent was very difficult, and even dangerous. Leaving this mountain, he took his route along the sea-shore, which was spread with the wrecks of vessels, telling to the feeling heart of the young traveller a sad tale of woe. “How many prayers, sighs, tears, vows, and lamentations—all, alas! in vain—rose to my imagination at this melancholy spectacle!” he exclaims. The sight reminded him of a student who, going by sea from Stockholm to Abo, experienced so severely the terrors of the ocean, that he chose to walk back round the head of the Bothnian Gulf, rather than adventure himself again upon the deep. This youth, afterwards a Professor at Abo, assumed the surname of Tillands, expressive of his attachment to terra firma, and Linnæus named in honour of him, a plant which cannot bear wet.

In five or six days, Linnæus reached Hernosand, the principal town of Angermania, on the Bothnian Gulf, and visited a tremendously steep and lofty mountain called Skula, where was a cavern, which he desired to explore. Here he was within a hair’s breadth of a fatal accident, for one of the peasants who accompanied him, in climbing up, loosened a large stone, which was hurled down the track Linnæus had just left, and fell exactly on the spot he had occupied. “If I had not (he says) providentially changed my route, nobody would ever have heard of me more; I was surrounded by fire and smoke, and should certainly, but for the protecting hand of Providence, have been crushed to pieces.” From this point of the journey a change came over the face of nature. The country was covered over with snow, in some places inches deep; the pretty spring flowers disappeared, and in their place nothing but wintry plants were seen peeping through the snow. At length, on the 23rd of May, he reached Umœa, in West Bothnia, where he turned out of the main road to the left, designing to visit Lycksele, Lapmark; by which means he lost the advantage of the regular post horses, and found the ways so narrow and intricate, that at every step he stumbled. “In this dreary wilderness I began to feel very solitary, and to long earnestly for a companion (he says); the few inhabitants I met had a foreign accent, and always concluded their sentences with an adjective.”

As the night shut in, the way-worn traveller began also to long for a good meal, and has thus recorded the result of his application, on arriving at a village where he passed the night:—“On my inquiring what I could have for supper, they set before me the breast of a cock of the woods, which had been shot and dressed some time the preceding year. Its aspect was not very inviting; but the taste proved delicious, and I found, with pleasure, that these poor Laplanders know better than some of their more opulent neighbours, how to employ the good things which God has bestowed upon them.”

The bird is prepared by a process of salting and drying, and will keep even for three years, if necessary. Linnæus next proceeded up the river of Umœa as far as Lycksele, where he was hospitably received by the worthy pastor of the place; and the next day, being Whit-Sunday, he stayed there, and would fain have remained longer; but, for fear of the floods impeding his journey, he hastened his departure on the morrow, and on the 1st of June entered the territories of the native Laplanders, passing through wild forests, with no traces of roads. A more desolate picture of wretchedness than this region presented, could hardly be imagined. It was flooded by the rivers, and the bogs were utterly impassable. At every step the water was above the knees, and the feet felt the ice at the bottom. “We pursued our journey (continues the diary) with considerable labour and difficulty all night long, if that might be called night which was as light as the day, the sun disappearing for half an hour only, and the temperature of the air being rather cold.” The poor inhabitants had themselves, at this season, nothing to eat but a scanty supply of fish; for they had not begun to kill their reindeer, nor to milk them. In addition to these evils, the villainous bites of the gnats and other insects tortured the unhappy travellers, till at length he exclaims—“I had now my fill of travelling!”

Gladly would he have returned by the way he came, but he could find no road back; and even the hardy Laplanders themselves, “born to labour, as the birds to fly,” could not help complaining, and declared they had never been in such extremity before. It is evident that even the robust frame of Linnæus was beginning to yield to the combined effects of fatigue, exhaustion, and hunger. He at length obtained some food which he was able to eat, and after incredible exertions succeeded in retracing his steps to the river, on which he again embarked, and returned to Umœa; having, as he ingenuously acknowledged, “with the thoughtlessness of youth, undertaken more than he was able to perform.”

From Umœa, Linnæus proceeded to Pithœa, which he reached after two days’ journey, “the night being as pleasant for travelling as the day.” He notices the beauty of the fresh shoots of the spruce fir, which constitute one of the greatest ornaments of the forests which adorn this part of Sweden.